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BY MALLORY PERRYMAN

PRESIDENT OBAMA: “Mr. Boehner” “Mr. Boehner” “Mr. Boehner” “Mr. Boehner”
(The White House)

That’s just four of the eight jabs President Obama aimed directly at House Minority leader John Boehner in a speech last week. And he’s not the only one throwing punches.

This ad from the Democratic National Committee accuses Boehner of a laundry list of bad deeds.

And this--from The New York Times. A lengthy article claiming to expose Boehner’s tight ties to lobbyists. (The New York Times)

According to ABC News, Boehner’s office called the Times article a ‘hatchet job’... meanwhile, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs took to Twitter, dedicating  four tweets of praise to the piece.

So why all the Boehner buzz? He’s almost guaranteed reelection this November, and he spells his name weird. But he is poised to become the next Speaker of the House if Republicans sweep the midterm elections. According to NBC’s political analysts, that’s as good-a target as Democrats are going to get.

“The question has now become: Why elevate Boehner? A reasonable response: Why not?...Democrats might as well define Boehner. What else do they have to run on at this point? The White House needs an opponent.”

But Mark Shields says on PBS’ Newshour, being a bad ally doesn’t necessarily make Boehner a good enemy.

MARK SHIELDS: “First you have to get to know somebody before you can make them into a political villain and John Boehner is not known across the country.”

SHIELDS: “I think it is very much in Barack Obama’s interest to..”
HOST: “Make nice now?”
SHIELDS:“Well not make nice but at least not go out of your way to demonize someone.”

Well-known political strategist Karl Rove agrees Boehner isn’t a big enough target, saying on Fox News- Democrats aren’t running a very good smear campaign.

KARL ROVE: “If you want to demonize your opponent you’ve got to do what Clinton did in ‘95 and ‘96. He spent tens of millions of dollars of advertising and months upon months creating an image of first Newt Gingrich and then Bob Dole that was helpful to him politically.The President jumping in here at the last minute trying to demonize this well tanned guy from Ohio doesn’t seem to me to be a very good strategy.”

But a blogger for Mother Jones says this may actually be a good strategy for Democrats.

“Boehner is well tanned and has a great TV voice, but he comes across (to me, anyway) as robotic and evasive, sort of a junior grade Mitt Romney. If Democrats put Boehner front and center ("Do you trust this man to be Speaker of the House?") it might damage the Republican brand a bit. He's not their best spokesman.”

So what do you think? Is putting Boehner at the brunt of attack a good strategy? Or are Democrats just aching for an enemy?

Get more multi-source political news analysis from Newsy.com