The GOP is a bad brand.

[goofticket]

Most of the right wing pundits, and columnists are all talking about re-branding the GOP.
The GOP is trying to re-brand itself...again.
They distance themselves from Bush 43, like they did from Hoover, and Nixon and Bush 41.
They have a brand that just doesn't last long.
The GOP says many things, but talk is cheap...as cheap as talk radio and cable news.

They destroyed the brand again. This time, they may have succeeded in committing suicide along with a drop in market share.
They are not good at promoting positive human behaviors. ...which is the American brand.
The Republicans are letting the party die.
Republicans are not too loyal to the values Lincoln had.

How can anyone re-brand a political party?
What is that..a 'new & improved' form of neoconservatism?

You can change a party platform, like an issue, but not the identity of the party.
Like a human, an identity is created over time, from experiences and actions.
The GOP started out OK, with great values...but they hold none of those values today.
They sold out, or betrayed each other, or something...but the end result is a party that is not trusted or repsected, as a brand.
Morals and social values that are Anti-gay/black/yellow/orange/brown/science, anti-'think-about-it-first' is outright stupidity...and insulting to most Americans.
Using religion to sell a political brand is really insulting, to the core American value of protecting religion from politics. The GOP has decided that was a great product to pop a label on.
TV Evangelical theme park law schools, just doesn't seem like a viable product.
Claim it's a bad idea..and you get the 'other white meat'. Hate, innuendo and 1,000 hours on FoxNews.

The GOP has failed to effectively sell it's post-FDR, Goldwater/Reagan brand. What they did was thrive on instilling doubt. Doubt in each other.
Doubt that half of America had values, that mattered.
What a stupid concept.
Values are not found in airport bathrooms, free enterprise is not supported with no-bid contracts, Presidential pardons to cover-up crime that risk national security, or values demonize a personal choice of lifestyle.
The GOP brand is behavior doubt. If you buy a Prius, for a logical reason to saving some money on gas, you are labeled a San Fransico liberal. If you son acts in the school plays, instead of taking steroids to play football, you are an elitist college educated liberal, who allows gays to have sex on your dinner table.
You are less than patriotic if you support the arts instead of getting a bigger flag for your porch, or a brighter flag pin for your lapel.
The GOP succeeded in showing how the stupidity of past political failures can be revived over and over.
The Soviets went broke, and Reagan had nothing to do with it. The people in Russia still do the same thing we Americans do. Get up, feed the kids, get them off to school, come home and eat dinner and spend time wih our families.
The GOP branded itself, with the devine authority to decide what those choices would be for your family, if you agreed to a loyalty oath and met acceptable standards.
Your kid could get it's picture on the packaging! Look Bush has twin girls! How cute.
Until they showed up underage and drunk. Just like dear old dad.

They committed political suicide, all by themselves, and no drugs were involved.

After a couple of decades, the GOP has been consistient in one thing. Angry denial and finger pointing.

The sold the brand as we are better than them. Them not being an actual or contrived enemy...but better than your liberal un-American next door neighbor.

I know of no American, that actually believes this values party, or moral authority crap.

After decades of being Number 2, they got their chance in 2000. They won the trifecta.
Then they screwed up, not a Newt Ginrichblowjo screwup.
But a screwup that cost thousands of lives. And they got angry when America got angry.
They blamed Americans for everything that failed, especially the media.
The TV news was running us like Manchurian Candidates, and the GOP made sure we felt guilty for questioning a President, or a party that branded moral values.
You had no morals if you questioned a President, a Republican President. A Dem was OK to question.
They things got bad, and the bad got worse.
Like Katrina. They screwed up, but it was the gay pride parades fault. So beacuse of that, the GOP didn't have to do anything. This week the last 648 families were kicked out of the FEMA trailers, yet the homes they had to leave are still full of flood remnants, mainlt mold and rot.
But the Katrina refugees, that weren't dressed for the gay pride parade, surely had to be illegal immigrants, drug dealers or worse. Why should Republicans take care of those people anyhow? They aren't real Americans.

Like fear mongering. The Dems will take away your guns. This one always made me laugh to the point of liberating my bladder. Yep, laughing till I peed.
Finding 600 Million guns, in a door-to-door search and seizure, in the still of the night...is so bizarre, so incredulous, that even a five year old knows, nobody could come and take all the cookies in all the cookie jars, in all the houses in America. How many people would have to be hired to collect all the guns, not in the Krystalnacht scenario of the NRA, but a real effort...say in a one year period?
At least 50 Million people to go door-to-door.
So I guess physically removing all the guns, is a pretty stupid concept. But stupid sells the brand.

The GOP had a good brand, in 1854. That ended with it's first President, and never returned.
After Lincoln, the GOP successor did everything he could to recind all the rights the Civil War had won.
That lasted what...10 years? It took another 100 years to get back to the concept of equality for all people.

So now the GOP still hates blacks. Not African American people, but the idea of discrimination.
Today it's anyone and everyone that is not in lockstep with neocon mandated intolerances.
Most people laugh those hot button issues as pretty stupid, Which they are.
The circus side show aspects of politics, has become the norm for Republican ideology.
If it can make one group look bad, then it is good for Republicans. Joe McCarthy is making his comeback.

Bush, Hoover, Nixon are the legacy since Lincoln, Americans are tired of the GOP brand.
They traded in the Reagan's Philco B&W TV for a new iPod,
We are cancelling Leave it To Beaver, we are afraid he'll get molested by the 'good' Senators.
We have moral values, and they are ours to choose, personally and internally, not by the Committee to Re-Elect.
Keep Your God out of My God's Face and we'll get along just fine.
We are not afraid of our gay sons and daughters, in fact, we admire them a great deal.
Dick Cheney does, he just can;t say it in public. A very strange moral. One that has to be hidden.

The GOP brand is in the Clearance Aisle.
We have found a brand, that doesn't leave such a bad aftertaste.
We no longer want the tainted faith-based dog food.
We stopped buying the Contract with America, we went with kids health care.

The GOP got hijacked by itself, in a desperate move based on telling us we were less than patriotic, less than hard working, less than the highest standards.
The GOP's 1995-2008 Era will, like all other GOP periods, be a model of what not to do, what not to allow and what not to support.

Republicans think they are terrified of gays, and immigrants and voter frauds, but the truth is that Republicans live in fear of their own.
They live like Joe McCarthy lives next door, ready to call in the FBI because you order communist take out Chinese food.

Republicans have committed suicide, and what is really amazing is that they continue to do this every time they gain power. They never leave control, except after they completely screwed everything up.
Not one Republican, except Lincoln, left the nation in better shape, and the Americans united.

[SpiralHawk]

1. "That's right. No drugs were involved. Smirk." - Rush 'Draft Dodger' Limbaugh

[blue sky at night]

2. this is a remarkable post!

Thanks and welcome to DU, goofticket! I am going to recommend for sure, but I would re-read it and fix the couple of typo's. This is going to my famous dumb ass cousin, a dyed-in-the-wool kool-aid drinker. Thanks again, and keep up the good work!

[Bandit]

3. Not one Republican, except Lincoln, left the nation in better shape, and the Americans united.

I think Ike did that. IMO he was the last good Republican . By "Good" I mean someone that cared for Americans more than his Party or Money...

[izquierdista]

7. Ike worked for FDR

FDR was a good judge of character to promote a Lt.Col. up to supreme commander of allied forces. Had he been a Republican hack, Ike never would have amounted to anything.

[goofticket]

10. Ike was OK

He did warn us about the military industrail complex, but did nothing.
He was in the position to do that, as the top respected military career man.
McCain is no Ike.

We Dems will win, but need to promote the moderate Republcians to take back their party and purge the religious based neocons.

[Warpy]

4. They keep trying to distance themselves from unpopular men

while retaining the party dogma that made the men so unpopular.

It's very rare that they find a charismatic pitchman like Reagan or a war hero like Eisenhower. Usually, they run venal men who push their dogma into law and foul up the economy. Without charisma to bamboozle the sheep, people soon notice that things are taking a turn for the worse in all areas.

This time, they've really hit the jackpot, a juvenile Emperor surrounded by some of the most unattractive men this country has ever produced. They all look exactly like what they are, in other words, and I'm not sure the party will recover this time.

I think Barr is going to be a bigger wild card than either party expects. Just as the Whigs morphed into the Republic Party, that party might now be ready for its next incarnation as the Libertarians--GOPs without the albatross of Dispensationalism around their necks.

Just don't expect the loony core dogma to change, not ever.

[Berry Cool]

5. Some very good points.

Remember when it was the Dems who supposedly hated blacks? The Republicans freed the slaves and the Democrats wanted to keep Jim Crow around as the legacy of slavery. Those days seem a million years ago, and yet they are only 45 years in the past.

The Republicans managed to turn that around in a very short period of time, by changing their core values. The Dems ended up being the party of equality and support for everyone, while the Republicans became the party of every man for himself--and as for women, well, you gals better stay home and take care of the kids.

[goofticket]

9. your point is a bit off, but not by much

I really don't think that racism and slavery were party platforms.
While the Southern slave owners were Democrats, and did have influence...that did not last long, once Lincoln got going.
I think it was the Whigs who were really pro-slavery, but not sure.....there was some party that played the property rights game on that issue.

It was never accepted in Wisconsin, and the current state GOP delegation and party does promote illegals as the new blacks; and created faked voter fraud cases, all of which were tossed out of federal court, and the GOP Wisc Atty General was given a written and verbal reprimand by the US Federal Court.

Wisconsin is disgusted with the GOP, they ran 527 money, as their own to get two corrupt and worthless puppets, placed on our state Supreme Court.
I hope a recall election can correct that mistake.

Wisconsin is not a swing state, except the dead badger we keep swinging at the heads of Republicans.

I do have some faith that the GOP will eventually purge the neocons, and place them outside of the party's affiliations.

I agree that race issues, are a serious problem, and in 2008, the GOP is raising the Lester Maddox axe handles and fire hoses to keep that hate alive, in the most ignorant of our population.

[C_U_L8R]

6. As a brand, the GOP has defined itself

by what it is against;
not what it is for.
That kind of negativity may win a few elections
but in the end it leads to brand oblivion.
The GOP has collectively earned and deserve every bit of their fate.

[goofticket]

8. Thanks for the comments

I'm glad that my post was taken so well.
The original GOP did have some good ideas....Equal Protection was the best.
They dumped that for hubris.
Here in my hometown, of Green Bay we see the failed GOP's efforts.

A little history lesson..
Ripon, WI is where the GOP began in 1854, and at that time was part of Brown County ( where Green Bay is the seat).
The Brown County Republican Party is the oldest in the nation, having organized before the Ripon declaration.
This county level party has been a significant player in Wisconsin, and original Republican platforms.
That all ended, along with the 155 year history of respectful politics, in December,
It was decertified, as a political party by the state, in December after it's entire staff resigned.

They were forced to resign after it was discovered( by myself) that it's Chairman, Don Fleischman, was arrested the prior November in 2007, for felony sex crimes against children.
He was charged with providing pot and beer to young boys, for sexual favors, who were residing in a funded home for troubled teens. The home was across the street from Fleischman's.
Police records showed they had been at the residence of the GOP Chairman, for similar complaints. He was arrested and charged with several crimes, including four felonies.

Once this became public, by notifying the media and blogger the bejesus, out of the charges, he resigned as Chairman...and the rest of the staff quit days later, under allegations of a cover-up. Someone within the local and state party had to have been informed of his arrest, yet nothing was made public. Fleischman continued to speak for the GOP, and made many press releases, after his arrest until his resignation. He faces a trial on june 26, 2008.

The problem I had is not that Fleischman is another sex offending Republican, but rather that he and his staff, and the Wisconsin Republican Party did nothing, until a lone blogger spoke up.

They had taken the oldest and a moderate local chapter, and through complete acts of selfishness and arrogance, sought to downplay the crimes and blame the underaged victim.
That they had taken a 155 year history of respectful politics, and since the Bush election and Fleischman's rise to power, abused this legacy for the most carnal of reasons.

The local chapter has not yet be re-certified, and Mr. Fleischman has signed official state campaign finance forms, as of Jan 31, 2008, nearly three months after his resignation!
I am angry at the shoddy and criminal actions of this historic group. Green Bay is a very old town. Chartered in 1634, ten years after they landed on Plymouth Rock. We are the 13th oldest permanent settlement in north America.
Show some respect.

I will not let this scoundrel, or the local party off the hook, and I hope that others use the Green Bay example of why the GOP brand is dead, and how, with the level of corruption and deviances, spanning the airport bathrooms to the sole originating group, of the Republican Party.

This level of arrogant corruption began, here in Brown County when Wisconsin elected, the original neocon. Joe McCarthy.
The shame and disgust with McCarthy resulted in Wisconsin, not electing a GOP President since 1984, and no Republican has held McCarthy's seat since he died of liver failure in 1957.
We replaced McCarthy with the great William Proxmire.

I can only hope, that the real Republicans, the moderates of the original party- the social liberals with fiscal conservancy, take back their party, eventually.