'Hype & Blame': New Republican Mantra Plays on Obama's 2008 Slogan

The Republicans have a new message: the president of Hope and Change is now the president of Hype and Blame.

RNC Chairman Reince Priebus debuted the new phrase -- a twist on Obama's highly successful slogan of 2008-- Thursday morning with a memo and a conference call with Virginia GOP chairman Pat Mullins and new Ohio GOP chairman Bob Bennett, two states where Obama said he is officially launching his re-election effort with major rallies this Saturday.

With the new mantra, Priebus said he hopes to hold the president accountable for the broken promises he made four years ago.

The president claims he is kicking off his campaign ... but we all know he's been campaigning on taxpayers dollars for a year now, Priebus said.

We've had 38 months of unemployment, Priebus added. He blames everyone and everything except the man in the mirror... the contrast between President Obama and Gov. Romney couldn't be more dramatic.

The Obama campaign already began advertising its 2012 slogan, Forward with a video released earlier this week. Soon after, the Republican Party responded by flipping the phrase and calling Obama backwards in social media and in interviews.

Virginia and Ohio are both key battleground states in the 2012 election. Obama narrowly beat Sen. John McCain by 53 percent in Virginia and 51 percent in Ohio in 2008. Both Mullins and Bennett argued that Republican victories in recent local elections showed that their constituents were through with the president.

He's been exposed for what he is, said Mullins. He is an exposed, calculated Chicago operator.

He later clarified to a Chicago-based reporter that he didn't mean anything derogatory about the city, but was referring to he rough and tumble game in Illinois.

Priebus said the Republicans are not sure yet how much money they are going to spend advertising their new phrase, but they are releasing a video tomorrow and said the party would be bringing it up in interviews and in merchandise, including bumper stickers, for the next few months.

A response from the Obama campaign was not yet available at the time of publication.