{"id":13911,"date":"2007-12-13T12:46:07","date_gmt":"2007-12-13T17:46:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/13911.html"},"modified":"2007-12-13T12:46:07","modified_gmt":"2007-12-13T17:46:07","slug":"republican-re-branding-effort-stumbles-badly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/republican-re-branding-effort-stumbles-badly\/","title":{"rendered":"Republican ‘re-branding’ effort stumbles badly"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two months ago, congressional Republicans quietly announced that they were crafting a comeback plan<\/a>, which would get the party back on track. It would include new attacks on Dems, a new GOP policy agenda, and a series of new bills. The whole package was going to be awesome<\/i>.<\/p>\n

So, how’s that coming along? Apparently, not very well<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[House Minority Leader John] Boehner has undertaken a study, consulting corporate image experts, to “re-brand” the party. But so far, no big ideas have emerged.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

No, of course not.<\/p>\n

To reiterate a point I raised when this little venture was launched in October, corporate advertising and “rebranding” experts aren’t going to help the Republican Party right now, and it’s rather foolish to think they will. The problem isn’t that the party has great ideas that it’s having trouble selling or a brilliant agenda lying just below the surface; the problem is the party has no ideas, has consistently backed a disastrous war, is led by the least popular president of the modern political era, and would rather obstruct than govern.<\/p>\n

Private-sector marketing concepts are usually built around accentuating positives. What’s the GOP good at? Smearing people? Feigning outrage? Using bumper-sticker slogans?<\/p>\n

Dems may be struggling to overcome GOP obstructionism, frustrating their base, and giving the appearance of weakness, but it’s the minority party that has deep, long-term structural problems right now.
\n
\nAnd Boehner knows it.<\/p>\n

Polls show the public holds congressional Republicans in low esteem. Boehner’s effort to craft a new agenda for Republicans remains under wraps. And in the minority leader’s own words, their fundraising “sucks.”<\/p>\n

“Now the money sucks for two reasons,” Boehner said in a Politico interview. “People are mad at the president; they are mad at the party. And then [there is] this whole immigration fight. People just turned off the spigot.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You don’t say. A depressed base and a disgusted public hold the GOP in low regard. And that hurts fundraising? Good to know.<\/p>\n

This is not to say that Republicans don’t deserve credit for being shrewd. They’ve figured out a way to call the shots in Congress after<\/i> losing control of both chambers in a sweeping and historic defeat last year.<\/p>\n

But in light of the polls, the retirements, the weak recruting efforts, the fundraising, and the complete inability to come up with a policy agenda, the landscape is likely to get worse for the GOP before it gets better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two months ago, congressional Republicans quietly announced that they were crafting a comeback plan, which would get the party back on track. It would include new attacks on Dems, a new GOP policy agenda, and a series of new bills. The whole package was going to be awesome. So, how’s that coming along? Apparently, not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13911"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13911\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}