I well remember the summer of 1984, when Ronald Reagan’s GOP coined the term San Francisco Democrats, crafting it as a synonym for gay-friendly, communist-coddling, tax-hiking liberal decadence. Caricature can be an effective political tool, and this one worked brilliantly.

Two decades later, we’re seeing it again. With critical congressional elections just seven weeks away, the GOP is trying to shift voters’ attention away from the unpopular George W. Bush by warning in essence, “If you think that Bush and his allies are bad, just imagine the horrific threat to the nation if Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco gets the keys to the House.”

It’s impossible to predict whether this will work, but she potentially provides the GOP with ample raw material: She represents a liberal San Francisco district, she was an early supporter of Iraq troop withdrawal, and some allies even fret that she comes off as too sophisticated for the average voter. (Remember the pictures of John Kerry windsurfing?)

The other day, GOP chairman Ken Mehlman told Roll Call, a Capitol Hill paper, that it would be “a dereliction of our duty” if party headquarters failed to run TV ads that tied Democratic candidates to the House votes cast by Pelosi.

One can argue that targeting Pelosi is a fool’s errand, since her name won’t appear this fall on 434 of the 435 House ballots. And she’s not a household name, either; according to a June Gallup poll, 27 percent of Americans don’t know who she is, 31 percent know her and like her, and 29 percent know her and dislike her. But this GOP tactic isn’t really aimed at most Americans; it’s intended only for red states and competitive blue states.

This explains the e-mail circulated by Pennsylvania GOP director Scott Migli. In his state, three Republican incumbents are facing competitive challenges from a trio of Democrats who served either in Iraq or in the military as careerists. But, having gotten word that those Democrats were heading to Washington for a party fund-raiser, Migli pounced with the message that those vets “are the hand-picked political pawns of Nancy Pelosi,” or, as the e-mail says elsewhere, “far-left liberal Nancy Pelosi,” and her “liberal tax-and-spend, soft-on-security” friends.

And this explains the radio ad that has been running in the mountains of North Carolina, where a Republican incumbent faces a tough challenge from a Democrat who defies the liberal stereotype; in fact, Democrat Heath Shuler is pro-gun, antiabortion … and, just to top it off, he’s an ex-NFL quarterback. Hence the radio ad: “Rookie Heath Shuler is following the playbook of San Francisco liberal Nancy Pelosi. The Pelosi game plan: Elect Heath Shuler and others like him, and take over Congress with the votes of illegal immigrants.”

It is true that many Democrats privately cringe whenever Pelosi goes on TV; she recites rote talking points, and her bug-eyed stare provides the GOP with endless opportunities to depict her in photos as a fiend from “Night of the Living Dead.” Nor does it necessarily help that she has reportedly been weighing the idea, should Democrats take the House, of installing Florida Rep. Alcee Hastings as chairman of the Intelligence Committee – the same guy who, as noted in a GOP headquarters e-mail, was once impeached and ousted from a federal judgeship on eight counts of bribery and conspiracy.

But will demonizing Pelosi let Bush and the GOP incumbents off the hook? There’s scant evidence that targeting a House personage can work nationwide. That’s what the Democrats tried to do with Newt Gingrich in 1996. He was actually running the House at the time, and Democrats figured they could pull their voters to the polls en masse by highlighting the various Newt-driven federal program cuts. Wrong.