What Is The Republican Brand And Do We Even Need A Next Right?

Co-authored by Larry Bernard

One of the major problems that Republicans face, according to the media, is a “brand” problem. Almost every generic poll that has come out since 2007 shows Democrats defeating Republicans. President Bush’s approval ratings are anywhere from the high 20s to the low 30s, at best. Which puts him on par or slightly ahead of the very congressional leaders who are now his "loyal" opposition. According to the chattering class and the Republican leadership, one of the things that Republicans must do is to “rebuild their brand”, as if the only problem the Republican party has is a marketing problem.  Many in the Republican Chattering class say "Reagan would be a Moderate" or "Reagan isn't the answer" without addressing the fact Reagan was more then a checklist of programs but was a candidate based on fundamental conservative principles and conservative answers to problems that faced America. An America that is economically weaker, facing a global generational conflict, and a society where people advocated the answer to all Social ills was more government. Reagan did not offer answers just to how those problems faced him in his day but a way we could address how those problems manifest today. Yet many people see a need for a new conservatism or a Conservatism 2.0 for a new times. Yet the same people who ask "How we must rebuild the brand" never ask fundamental questions. Where did the brand fail? How did the brand fail? However I feel the most crucial question is did the Brand fail? An old saying goes if you fail to plan you plan to fail and from the top to bottom of the Republican machine we see a failure to advance a strong and robust intellectual conservatism that the Republican party. In short they are trying to use that Brand to repackage reheated democratic party ideas. 

The Problems that Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater first articulated a conservative response to are still problems we face today, and while global Islamic terror may have replaced communism the need for the United States to stand up against a pernicious global evil is just as vital. And while we may not have stagflation the explosion of oil prices and implosion of the dollar is probably just as bad at least. But there is no arguing with the fact the Republican party as a vehicle of American conservative thought is sick. However, just as a good doctor must diagnose the reasons of the illness before the illness can be treated and just as an addict must acknowledge their addiction before they can fight it; Republicans must know how the American perceives the “Republican brand”. But often an addict is filling a psychological weakness, a fear or an insecurity, with their drug  and if the Republican party is an addict what is our drug covering for?

To most Americans, the Republican brand consists of:

• Inefficient, ineffective, and bloated government as demonstrated by the Katrina response, Medicare Part D, the TSA, the Department of Homeland Security, and general waste and boondoggles such as some of the outrageous pork barrel spending we’ve seen lately in the Farm, Highway, and Energy bills. We've seen a philosophy in government focused more on doing something, then doing something right. We've seen a governing philosophy focused on expanding constituencies at the sake of fudging the lines of ideological difference.

• Leaders in the White House have focused on making the Republican party dominant in elections for 40 years while losing the elections that were just within arms reach. Losing those elections by focusing on making people republicans down the road rather then rewarding those people who are republicans today. The result of which has lead to Republicans narrowly winning the past two presidential elections against weak candidates that should have been defeated in landslides.

• A rudderless and shortsighted foreign policy that includes the mismanagement of the Iraq War (until the Surge), The unwillingness by the Administration to make any defense to the charges by Democrats that the answers are in "negotiation" for the sake of negotiation, the tolerance of tyrannies while talking up democracy (cases in point, Saudi Arabia and Egypt), hypocritical stance on trade (Bush imposing tariffs in 2002 for political gain in the Midwest and other parts of the country and now promoting free trade) and the overall lack of a grand vision in this post Cold War/9-11 world. And when trade deals like the Dubai ports arrangement came up no attempt was made to asses the domestic political risk, or shelter an ally from negative fall out. leading to a worst of all possible worlds. Even in the War in Iraq, which symbolizes the Bush administration they spent far more time ignoring events in the war then selling the positives of the war. When the war was good you were as likely to hear it from the President and key surrogates as you were on the evening news.

• A betrayal of Federalism as embodied by No Child Left Behind, promotion of the Federal Marriage Amendment, REAL ID, the crackdowns on medical marijuana, even in states that voted to legalize it, and the Terri Schiavo case. In addition there was a lack of drive and energy in defending Federalism from a position of conservative principles, when liberals attacked it.

• And when opponents of the Patriot Act engaged in fear-mongering without backing up their attacks with facts, the administration failed to seriously respond to these challenges. At the same time, the administration failed to listen to the legitimate concerns of critics of such portions of the Patriot Act as National Security Letters, "sneak and peek", and the misapplication of the Patriot Act for non-terrorism related cases.
  

• “Bread and circuses” style of governing which puts unimportant issues on the front burner instead of dealing with the real problems this nation faces. A Republican party that has become all we hated in the Clinton Administration.

• Corruption and incompetence as demonstrated by Jack Abramoff, Alberto Gonzalez, Vito Fossella, Michael Brown, Julie Myers, Harriet Miers,  Larry Craig, Mark Foley, Bob Taft, David Vitter, and numerous other examples. And when the GOP base complained they were attacked for being "racist", "sexist", "elitist", and "out of touch"

• And when faced with all these problems and grumbling from the rank and file Republicans from the white house to congress Republican leaders still chose to continue along the same course with the same methods.

• A Republican President who was so invested in his agenda he let the congress run earmarks and pork out the door leading to a stench that even Osama Bin Laden himself couldn't cover for and led to the Republican leadership of congress being sent out on a rail.

• A Republican nominee who lionizes Republican partisans as Teddy Roosevelt as "Heroes" but has spent a career demonizing partisanship as he has spent much of his career blurring the lines of party orthodoxy. A nominee who is running on a platform that would make the average liberal Democrat politician jump for joy on such issues as climate change, immigration, and Kerry style flip flops on taxes and other important issues to conservatives. A nominee who radiates a smugness on just how much better he is then other politicians, who can never lead a movement as "Saint John"

• A Republican congressional delegation whose staffers seem more concerned with what Democrats think then what Republicans think. An example of this is when a staffer in an interview with Right Wing News attacked conservative ideas as "just recycling Reagan"

• The likely loss of many conservative voters who will stay at home or vote for Third Party candidates, especially now that Bob Barr won the Libertarian Party nomination for president, moving the Libertarian party from the Lunatic Fringe.
  

The only way Republicans can begin to rebuild the party is to admit why we have a problem and to correct these issues before we suffer even larger losses. Reaching out to Democrats on ideas like Climate Change and giving middle class children free government health care will not win us any elections. Because why would any reasonable person buy alcohol free beer when at the DNC pub it's nickel bear night with the likes of Senator Obama promising an agenda to make up for the losses of McGovern and Carter.The Republican Party needs to introduce a platform that addresses the real needs of the American people while upholding traditional Republican principles of limited government, Federalism, individual rights, and traditional American values. The Republican party needs to also address their so-called branding problem. Not only has what we have seen from the end of the Gingrich era in the house to today not been what we would Identify as "conservative" many of the republicans leading the party were those in the 70s and 80s who fought against the Reagan and Gingrich agendas of conservatism. The five main issues addressed in this election cycle need to be healthcare, the economy, foreign policy, energy, and government reform.

The next post will lay out some policy proposals and grade the four standing GOP proposals; Newt Gingrich’s plan, the official NRCC plan,  John McCain's Platform , and the Republican Study Committee’s plan. And then we will ask the Question: Do we need a new release of Conservatism or does Conservatism 1.0 just need a new patch. Or is it that the hardware has been defective? Have we lacked the courage to be Conservative or have our leaders lacked the courage to be conservative? Because if anything has lead to this problem between how the public perceives the GOP brand vs the value the brand has held for so long its clear that Republicans have not fought to make that disparity small.