Rebranding Republicans

Robert Borosage, Tom Paine
"We're going to give you the change you deserve."
—House Minority Leader John Boehner
That's not a threat; it's a promise—from the Republican congressional
leaders. Really. Led by perpetually tanned House leader John Boehner,
Republicans have suddenly discovered that the country wants change—and they
have decided to offer it to us. Washington
is broken and they promise to fix it. They rolled out a new slogan—"the
change you deserve"—to be followed by a new "American Families
Program."
(The campaign ran into trouble from the start: An alert blog—Bluestem
Prairie—revealed that the slogan is the registered advertisement for the
anti-depressant Effexor XR—which, come to think of it, might just be what
Boehner needs these days.)
Republicans for change; now that's a switch. Until last week, congressional
Republicans have been systematically,
resolutely and consistently committed to obstruction, not change. It was a
clear strategy. No minority ever gets blamed if nothing gets done. After
Democrats took over the majority of both Houses in 2006, Republicans set out to
obstruct everything they could. Then they would run against a do-nothing
Congress, accusing the Democrats of breaking their promises. Sort of like
knee-capping the postman and then complaining about the mail being late.
They went about this with Tom DeLay-like discipline. The Senate minority set
a new record for filibusters before the first session was over. The president
issued a record number of veto threats. House Republicans perfected procedural
tricks that would put sand in the gears. As late as last week, they switched
their votes on a resolution celebrating mothers on Mother's Day simply to obstruct
business on the Senate.
They blocked the resolution to set a date to get the troops out of Iraq. They
blocked extending health care to children. They blocked allowing Medicare to
negotiate lower prices on prescription drugs. They blocked overturning subsidies
to big oil and investing them in alternative energy.
But despite their success in gumming up the works, the strategy hasn't been
working out too well for them. Congress has grown less popular, but increasing
majorities think the solution is to throw out Republicans, not Democrats.
Twenty-nine Republicans looked at the race and decided to retire. Republicans
suffered stunning special election defeats in former House Speaker Dennis
Hastert's seat in Illinois (to an anti-war
candidate) and in a solidly Republican district in Louisiana (despite their running ads
painting the Democrat as an Obama clone). Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich
warned that they faced "real disaster" this fall unless they changed
course. "We can't win solely by tying our opponents to Barack Obama and
his liberal views," Boehner concluded. "We also have to prove
Republicans are agents of change."
"Our brand is still under repair," Boehner noted in a presentation
for his Republican colleagues. So he called out the marketing gurus. Over the
next week, he promises to roll out a new agenda to go with the new slogan. With
the open seats, Republican candidates not scarred by the past can run as agents
of change. If John McCain, a 35-year veteran of the Beltway, can market himself
as a maverick for change, why not the House Republicans?
But Boehner's rollout is likely to run into craters a lot more perilous than
the slogan pothole. Every Republican candidate for Congress will have to answer
a few basic questions: Are you with Bush and McCain on sustaining the war in Iraq? Do you
support Bush and McCain's economic policies—the tax cuts, the corporate trade
deals, the privatization of Social Security, the unraveling of employer-based
health care?
If you are not with Bush and McCain, why should Republicans support you? If
you are with them, why would the eight in 10 Americans looking for a
fundamentally new direction vote for you?
But no one believes in the magic of marketing more than politicians, eager
to repackage themselves as the new Coke. Forget consistency. Forget
conservatism. Boehner and his colleagues aren't worried about learning from the
failures of the past years. They are worried about survival. And a snappy
slogan, a new bumper sticker, and a fresh jingle may be the best hope they
have.
This article originally appeared on The
Huffington Post.