Marco Rubio took it on the chin for his repeated talking points in last week’s Republican debate. But his point was spot on: Barack Obama isn’t bad because he was incompetent; he’s bad because his ideology has led him to do bad things, abusing power along the way. That may be true, concedes columnist Ed Morrissey, but it’s too late for that argument. “The voters who will decide the general election want to define their future, and to get a fresh start,” Morrissey writes](http://theweek.com/articles/604536/time-gop-move-from-attacking-obama). “They don’t want to rehash the same old political battles that have dominated the past eight years.” He concludes, “[I]n 2016, Obama’s presidency will belong to the past, not to the future. Republicans have an opportunity to reset their approach and engage with voters in key demographics much more successfully. If they spend their time attacking Obama rather than focusing on their own positive vision for America, however, those voters will once again get turned off by the same politics they have experienced over the past eight years, and the GOP will miss a great opportunity to expand its reach and its message.”

He makes an interesting point, and tearing down things as they are is certainly easier than building a vision of things that don’t yet exist. That said, an effective message about a better future requires an explanation of why one is needed. To do that, voters have to be reminded that, despite the Hope ‘n’ Change™ Obama promised, he’s delivered nothing but partisan division because his policies are destructive. If he had said, “Let’s work together to create access to health care for more people,” he might have found a working bipartisan consensus. Instead, he rammed through a near takeover of one-sixth of the economy without a single Republican vote. And that’s just one example of many.

So yes, let’s do more than merely calling out Obama’s many failures; let’s also talk about a brighter future for the American people.