The Democrats have been aiming their insults at Rush Limbaugh as of late, but what about the Republicans? Where are they looking to hit? While one would think the GOP would prefer House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, it turns out they’re trying to take down an even bigger Democrat, President Obama. 

"Pelosi’s a particularly tough demographic to demonize," a senior Republican strategist told Politico, in part because she’s a grandmother. "She’s a woman, and she’s of a certain age level, and that’s a demographic both parties are trying to court." Thus, they’re going right to the top.

"This whole notion that we’re not going to take on Obama but take on Pelosi and [Senate Majority Leader] Harry Reid will get you nowhere," Former House Republican Majority Leader Tom Delay, said on MSNBC Tuesday night. "That’s a minority mindset of playing on the ball field of the left. You need to stand up and fight. And that’s what Rush is doing and why people are gravitating towards him and support him."

Limbaugh’s criticisms of Obama aside, there are already signs the GOP has started in on the President. Republican Rep. Zach Wamp of Tennessee said Thursday that Obama’s health-care plan represents another move toward socialism. House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio, meanwhile, accused the White House of fueling the Limbaugh flames, saying criticism amounts to nothing more than a "distraction created by the administration to take the attention away from the fact they’re trying to raise taxes and grow the size of government." Media Matters has chronicled a series of charges coming from Republicans and conservative commentators blasting Obama for "lying" about things like him saying he doesn’t "believe in bigger government" and for signing spending bills they say are loaded with earmarks.

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd joined the cacophony Tuesday, writing: "In one of his disturbing spells of passivity, President Obama decided not to fight Congress and live up to his own no-earmark pledge from the campaign. This is the first pork-filled budget from a new president who promised to go through the budget ‘line by line’ and cut pork."

But PolitiFact.com notes that during the presidential campaign, Obama vowed to "reform" earmarks, rather than get rid of them altogether.

Whatever the GOP’s strategy is, they’re doing a good job hammering away at Mr. Obama’s presidential honeymoon.