There has been much discussion lately in political circles, on blogs, and on the news talk shows that the Republican "brand" has been badly damaged, and that Republicans are now trying to figure out how to deal with the reality of the damage wrought by almost eight years of nearly unbridled GOP rule. For instance, after Democratic candidate Travis Childers won last week's special election in a deeply Republican district in Mississippi, former contender for the Republican presidential nomination Mike Huckabee discussed the problem in terms of the toxicity of the "Republican Brand" (Huckabee begins speaking about 1:50 into the video):
Then, again, Mike Huckabee on Meet the Press described the Republicans' looming electoral conundrum in November as primarily a problem of branding that can be overcome by emphasizing Republican candidates' substance, not party identity (Huckabee version: "people ultimately don't buy the brand, they buy the cereal"). Over and over, we are hearing from Republicans that their electoral prospects this year are more or less just a problem of association with Bush and the Republican label, and that to win they will have to run as - I don't know - magnanimous, guiltless folks who just happen to be Republican and just happened to support President Bush's most disastrous policies for the past seven years.
All this recent "brand" pablum reveals a major truth about the Republican Party and today's political environment that all voters should keep in mind. That is, most Republicans still cannot seem to acknowledge or admit that the American public is simply rejecting their ideas, issue positions, and political philosophy, and these Republicans are instead opting to believe in the self-soothing fiction that their serious problems with the electorate are mostly cosmetic and superficial.
In other words, they are clinging to a belief that the current backlash is merely some kind of marketing challenge that they must overcome by appearing to distance themselves from Bush and the Republican "brand," while offering a meaningless sop to this mysterious and novel "Change" theme that seems to be poll-testing so well these days. As I have heard aptly stated before, they are essentially reverting to the concept that "conservatism cannot fail, it can only be failed," seemingly completely unaware that the rising cries for change are directed right at them and their governance.
What the Republicans seemingly cannot grasp - or just refuse to admit - is that a political philosophy finds its defining quality and characteristics not in its high-minded theoretical expression, but in its practical, real-world execution. In this way, the past several years of nearly unrestrained Republican rule have demonstrated that the failures of the Republican Party are the failures of conservatism, because the two simply cannot be separated in the arena of political reality and practice.
Accordingly, like carrion crows suddenly and piously extoling the virtues of vegetarianism, this abrupt discovery by the Republican Party of the golden egg of "CHANGE" is sure to collapse under its own disingenuousness. A similar fate, ultimately, awaits their attempts to distance themselves from President Bush, who (lest anyone forget) was the object of cartoonishly over-the-top hero worship and adulation by the very people now claiming Bush "failed conservatism." That the GOP will at least attempt to masquerade in this way, however, is all but assured, if only because Republicans have for many years found insincere, hollow imagery and advocacy an irresistible cornerstone of their electoral strategy.
Nevertheless, what we are likely to see after the Republicans make an obligatory head-fake towards "Change" and then realize they have fooled no one, is an instant and instinctual reversion to the identity politics, tribalism, and hostile resistance to progressive change that have always been their mainstays. As Digby wisely noted before, the GOP will simply return - even before the last November ballot is cast - to their default role as the insurgent anti-party of obstruction and attack.
After all, isn't this the natural result of the current Republican Party's own philosophy? If a movement's political worldview is that government is inherently "the problem," not a potential solution, does this not inevitably lead to disastrous consequences when that movement actually controls the government? Also, doesn't this tribal, insurgent attitude unavoidably and ultimately result in exile to the political fringe, where the movement can most sincerely adopt its role as a gadfly to government solutions and liberal idealism?
Accordingly, voters everywhere must remember and keep permanently in mind two essential truths. First, the Republicans don't just have a problem with their "brand," they have a problem with their entire political philosophy. All attempts to distance themselves from the GOP label or George W. Bush are disingenuous to the core, because their entire existence to this point has been defined by lockstep adherence to Bush and the values that the party represents. Second, when the Republicans' (I predict short-lived) attempt to adopt the "Change" theme inevitably fails, we will see a new tidal wave of hatred, vindictiveness, bigotry, paranoia, and mendacity unlike anything we have seen in years. This behavior, we must never forget, is the defining attribute of today's "conservative" movement and party.
Few things expose the true nature of a person or a movement more completely than that person or party's response to a daunting challenge. Ironically, we as a country glimpsed this true nature even at the Republican Party's apex of political power, in 2002 and 2003, when a grievous terrorist attack was met with demands for unquestioning allegiance to the Commander-in-Chief and a fraudulent, opportunistic lunge for an unnecessary and patently disastrous war.
In that instance, the great challenge that exposed the nature of the conservative movement was, of course, the attacks of 9-11. Now, a new overwhelming challenge - this time political - confronts the Republican Party, and thus we are about to see the full flower of their defining characteristics: fixation on cosmetic marketing tactics instead of interest in genuine solutions, scapegoating of and distancing from the previous heroes of their movement, and, failing these measures, reversion to the true "first principles" of today's GOP - tribalism, paranoia, bigotry, and resistance to progress.
- UPDATE -
I don't have any pictures from Portland.