What kind of Commie would want the president of the USA to fail?

It's not a commie tactic - it's just marketing. It's easier to defeat a candidate if things haven't gone well for the country while the opponent was in charge. As John Boehner noted, it is his number one priority to defeat Obama - not to work to fix the economy, but to defeat the president. We don't have leaders any more (in either party), we just have two large marketing organizations dedicated to getting their members elected.