WASHINGTON: Republican leaders have sought to distance themselves from a strategy document that portrayed Barack Obama as the Joker from Batman and the senior Democrat Nancy Pelosi as Cruella de Vil from 101 Dalmatians, while mocking big-ticket party donors.

The 76-slide PowerPoint presentation, apparently shown to a select group of party backers at a $US2500 ($2775) a head dinner in Florida last month, suggested the Republicans' best bet was to embrace a negative campaign that suggested the Democrats were steering America towards socialism.

It called on party marketeers to exploit ''extreme negative feelings'' against the Obama administration. But the document, leaked to the news website Politico, also made cynical references to the Republicans' wealthy ''ego-driven'' donors who, it suggested, could be stroked with offers of access to party heavyweights and ''tchotchkes'' (a Yiddish word for tacky trinkets and toys).

''What can you sell when you do not have the White House, the House [of Representatives] or the Senate … ?'' one slide asks. ''Save the country from tending toward Socialism!''

Pictures of Mr Obama, Mrs Pelosi and the Democrats' leader in the Senate, Harry Reid, who is portrayed as Scooby Doo, were presented under the headline ''The Evil Empire''.