New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie isn’t running for re-election this fall, but his role atop the Republican Governors Association has made him more visible on the campaign trail than most other potential 2016 GOP presidential aspirants.

Here is the problem with the old-style Obama strategy of slicing and dicing the electorate into aggrieved minorities and then gluing them back together to achieve a 51% majority. On almost every issue in this election that they should be running on, they simply cannot. And on those that they are running on, they probably should not be.

Republicans might win by just running against Obama. But they’ve blown a chance to run on reforming the institution they hope to control.

Propositions and congressional races are sucking up all the political oxygen in the run-up to Tuesday’s statewide election. They should. Informing ourselves and getting out the vote is critical for the healthy functioning of our democracy.