Couric's Advice To GOP: Get Focus Off Rush & Palin 'Fringe, Sideshow'

If her Evening News gig doesn't work out, maybe Katie Couric will seek work as a Republican strategerist . . .

Couric dabbled in her possible new profession in her Notebook segment yesterday, offering some carefully considered advice to the GOP.  According to Katie, Republicans should get the focus off Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin.  They're nothing but "fringe" elements, "sideshows" that drive people out of the Republican Big Tent.

KATIE COURIC: As Politico reported, there's growing concern among some GOP leaders that controversial commentators and far-right conservatives have hijacked the message.

People like Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin appeal to the base - and you certainly need that base to win elections. But in an age when 42 percent of Americans call themselves Independents - you can't win with just the base, either.

Before the 2010 midterm elections roll around, Republicans need to get the focus back onto the Big Tent where all are welcome and off the sideshows that are popping up along the party's fringe.

Of course we all know that Katie Couric has the best interests of the GOP at heart.  Republicans should rush to embrace her advice, marginalizing the man the GOP saluted as the Majority Maker when they last won control of Congress, and the woman who injected life into the otherwise moribund McCain campaign.  Right.

Update: Over at Free Republic, where this item was cross-posted, reader bolobaby offered this zinger: "With her ratings, she knows ALL ABOUT fringe."  Ouch.