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Republican Rebranding Hits Sad New Low

Republican Rebranding Hits Sad New Low

After GOP candidates across the nation fell flat in the 2012 elections, the Republican National Committee released a report stressing the urgent need for the party to rebrand itself as kinder, gentler, and more inclusive if it hopes to compete in any non-red states in the future.

Unfortunately, that turned out to be hard work. But this was significantly easier:

Photo via ProgressNowNM

Photo via ProgressNowNM

That’s a campaign sign for Dianna Duran, New Mexico’s Republican secretary of state. You wouldn’t know from the sign that Duran is the state’s second-highest-ranking Republican; her campaign staff painted over that crucial detail.

As ProgressNowNMreports, it was no accident. The left-leaning site interviewed campaign volunteers, who explained that Duran’s party affiliation would seem “bad in print,” and “probably in northern New Mexico, it would not be a good thing for them to know.”

Indeed, New Mexico’s 3rd congressional district, which covers the northern part of the state, is hostile territory for the GOP. President Obama won it 57 to 39 percent in 2012, and Democratic congressman Ben Ray Luján did even better, capturing 63 percent of the vote.

Of course, the “new” GOP was supposed to be able to compete in districts like NM-3, which is 36 percent Hispanic. But then again, they were also supposed to moderate Mitt Romney’s “self-deportation” immigration plan — not carve out space to the right of it.

Photo: Steve Terrell via Flickr

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Republicans Still Aren’t Ready To Be The ‘iPhone Party’

Republicans Still Aren’t Ready To Be The ‘iPhone Party’

Could Republicans make the government run more like the app store on your smartphone?

That’s the suggestion that Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) offered during Saturday’s weekly Republican address.

“Just imagine if instead of mandating things for you to do, your government became a platform, just like your iPhone, enabling you to create a happier, safer, more prosperous life,” Alexander said.

“Republicans want to enable and empower you,” he later added. “We want to be the iPhone party. We believe government ought to be a platform that gives you opportunity and freedom to create a happier, more prosperous, and safer life.”

The Tennessee Republican’s desire to associate his party with Apple’s successful, pioneering brand is straightforward enough. But unfortunately for Alexander, the rest of his speech unintentionally highlighted the GOP’s continued inability to innovate.

From his opening lines — in which Alexander glowingly cites former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s book, Breakout — it’s apparent that the veteran politician isn’t exactly reinventing the wheel. Among other policies, Alexander suggests reviving House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s (R-VA) 2012 JOBS Act, repealing the Dodd-Frank financial regulation law, expanding school vouchers, and eliminating the minimum wage (“Democrats want to mandate fixed wages and more lawsuits while Republicans want to allow more flexibility for working parents, enabling them to attend soccer games and piano recitals,” the senator insists).

Unsurprisingly, the senator saved his biggest shots for the Affordable Care Act and the overreaching nanny government.

“Health care provides the most glaring difference between Republican enablers and Democrat mandators. Too often, Obamacare cancels the policy you want to keep and tells you what policy to buy, even if it costs more and restricts your choices of doctors and hospitals,” Alexander said. “Republicans believe that freedom and more choices will empower you to find a policy that fits your needs and your budget.”

He later urged voters to “just imagine the Internal Revenue code, the Food and Drug Administration, or the Labor Department enabling you rather than ordering you around.”

In short: If you loved the Romney/Ryan platform, and wish the FDA weren’t so pushy about safeguarding your food, then the Republican Party is for you!

Perhaps a 73-year-old, twice-failed presidential candidate is not the best messenger for the GOP’s new “Think Different” message.

In fairness to Alexander, his clunky tech metaphor is far from the worst effort to rebrand the GOP (in fact, it’s not even the worst this week — that honor goes to Nevada state assemblyman Ira Hansen, who insisted that the way to win young voters is to embrace the party’s “Pat Robertson wing”). But it seems unlikely to help Republicans reach the forward-thinking voters whom they are presumably targeting with this Apple-themed repositioning.

If Republicans actually want to expand their tent and attract new voters, they already have several decent roadmaps on how to do so. Reports such as the RNC’s “Growth and Opportunity Project” and the College National Republican Commitee’s “Grand Old Party for A Brand-New Generation,” while flawed, at least attempt to confront the GOP’s serious demographic challenges. But as they have proven over and over again, Republicans are either unwilling or unable to reconsider their platform, or even moderate their often-extreme rhetoric.

When Apple debuted the latest edition of the iPhone, it unveiled a new slogan to go along with it: “Progress is a beautiful thing.” Republicans like Senator Alexander would be wise to heed Apple’s advice before trying to co-opt its identity.

Photo: Mark Mathosian via Flickr