{"id":9934,"date":"2007-02-14T16:38:27","date_gmt":"2007-02-14T21:38:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/9934.html"},"modified":"2007-02-14T16:38:27","modified_gmt":"2007-02-14T21:38:27","slug":"ruining-the-republican-brand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/ruining-the-republican-brand\/","title":{"rendered":"Ruining the Republican brand"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this week, on an unrelated point, Paperwight had an interesting item<\/a> about institutions and their brand names: “If you don’t use and defend a trademark or brand, you lose it.” <\/p>\n

With this in mind, how’s the Republican brand looking? It’s seen better days. Gallup recently found that people identifying themselves as Republicans dropped in almost every state in the Union. Today, Tom Schaller argued<\/a> persuasively that the war in Iraq “has destroyed the partisan brand Republicans spent the past four decades building.”<\/p>\n

That brand was based upon four pillars: that Republicans are more trustworthy on defense and military issues; that they know when and where markets can replace or improve government; that they are more competent administrators of those functions government can’t privatize; and, finally, that their public philosophy is imbued with moral authority. The war demolished all four claims.<\/p>\n

In uniform or out, Americans think Iraq is a disaster, oppose escalation and blame Mr. Bush and his party for the mess in Mesopotamia. Heading into the 2006 mid-terms, polls showed Republicans trailing Democrats as the party most trusted to handle Iraq and terrorism. Nationally, Mr. Bush’s war approval ratings hover around 30 percent. […]<\/p>\n

The Iraq war’s human consequences abroad are far more tragic than any impact they are having on partisan politics at home. But for Republicans, the last casualty of Mr. Bush’s war of choice may be the party itself.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I think that’s right, but it’s happening at a slower pace than it should. In response to the column, Atrios noted<\/a>, “It’s actually weird. There’s this sense that at any moment the damn will burst and they’ll all be fighting over who hates Bush the most, but it hasn’t happened yet.”
\n
\nI think that’s right. The GOP base — the types who only care if there’s an “R” after a person’s name — is just big enough to matter in a presidential primary fight, and just blind enough to stand by Bush no matter how disastrous his presidency. At this point, I have to assume they stick around because, no matter what, they still hate the left more. <\/p>\n

The president could come to their house, shoot their dog, and set fire to their car, and the die-hard Republican would say, “At least he’s not Nancy Pelosi. Besides, he left me my TV so I can watch Fox News.” And since these folks vote in the primaries, McCain, Giuliani & Co. continue to swallow hard and pretend Bush isn’t an embarrassment.<\/p>\n

In the process, the Republican brand deteriorates that much more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Earlier this week, on an unrelated point, Paperwight had an interesting item about institutions and their brand names: “If you don’t use and defend a trademark or brand, you lose it.” With this in mind, how’s the Republican brand looking? It’s seen better days. Gallup recently found that people identifying themselves as Republicans dropped in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9934","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=9934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9934\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}