'Bad Dog Food' And The Republican 'Brand' (Joe Rothstein's Commentary)
May 15, 2008
By Joe Rothstein
Editor, USpoliticstoday.com
One of the more remarkable developments in this already remarkable election year came by email today in the form of
a memo written by Republican Congressman Tom Davis of Virginia.
The memo, sent to all of Davis' fellow House Republican members,
compared the current GOP "brand" to bad dog food.
And, said Davis, this bad dog food could be recalled off a lot of shelves on election day in November.
Whew! Them's pretty strong words. Tom Davis is no maverick. In fact, he chaired the Republican House Congressional Committee during the last congressional cycle.
Davis' memo appeared the same day that the Wall Street Journal ran a scathing rebuke of Republican congressional leadership under the headline, "The Republican Panic," and the Politico newspaper ran a dramatic front page graph with an arrow pointing straight down to a crumpled elephant. The headline, "The GOP Crash."
It's been fairly obvious for years that congressional Republicans were in la-la land. Under the leadership of Newt Gingrich and then Tom DeLay, both of whom ultimately resigned in disgrace, the Republican house steered a steady course into financial scandals that made a legion of Abramoffs possible. They thumbed their noses at pent up public demand for health care reform, minimum wage increases, help in stemming the outflow of jobs overseas, an energy policy that wasn't anchored on giveaways to the big oil companies, or anything that resembled a fair tax system. Meanwhile, they doubled the national debt while running up record deficits.
Bush gets a lot of the blame for this, as well he should. But Republicans in both the House and Senate marched in lock-step with him, in a remarkable demonstration of collective bad judgment.
What's triggered the current Republican congressional panic is the fact that the GOP's collection of fright wigs has stopped working. In three recent special elections held in three reliably Republican districts, three Democrats have won. Republicans trotted out the old reliables: "liberal!" "Pelosi!" "Tax and spend!" "Terrorism!"---plus some new additions: "Obama!" "Wright!!" None of it worked.
As the Wall Street Journal editorialized: This is the lesson Republicans should have learned in 2006, but the Members preferred to blame their failure on President Bush and Iraq. House Republicans pooh-poohed their own earmarking scandals, spending excesses and overall wallowing in the Beltway status quo. Rather than rethink their habits, they re-elected the same party leaders and even kept Jerry Lewis as their chief Appropriator. Congressman John Shadegg of Arizona is right when he says that "Since the 2006 elections, Republicans have done absolutely nothing to redefine themselves. We can't even get behind an earmark moratorium bill."
Redefinition was at the heart of Tom Davis' memo to his Republican colleagues. But as hard as he tries, Davis can't get past these obstacles to GOP success: 1) Bush 2) McCain 3) The bankruptcy of the Republican idea-chest.
Davis acknowledges that Bush is a drag on the ticket and that any Republican member who wants to survive a contested election had better be working on a few degrees of separation with the White House.
As for McCain, "John McCain may not be the savior we'd like him to be. The reason voters like him and are giving him a second look is the same reasons our rank and file don't like him: immigration, campaign finance reform and independence." "But," adds Davis, "John McCain helps. He doesn't carry anyone over the finish line, but he doesn't drag anyone down."...not exactly a ringing endorsement of the party's presidential nominee, but it does describe the divide between the Republican "rank and file" and the rest of the electorate.
That's why when it comes to suggesting issue fixes, Davis really struggles. Many of his suggestions require the White House to submit programs to Congress that they've refused to support in the past. Other suggestions are designed to rub salt in the wounds on immigration policy and taxes, hoping to fracture Democratic support. His best ideas are simply to duct-tape together a lot of loose proposals and label them as energy, tax and health initiatives.
In fact, a careful reading of the Davis memo, and other hand-wringing statements by stunned Republicans, turns up nothing that looks like considered policy aimed at dealing with some of the nation's most serious problems. The ideas being floated grab for tactical advantage in an election that's coming in a few months----not a serious agenda that could give an anxious public confidence that America's headed in a better direction.
And that's what's really at the heart of the Republican dilemma. If "liberal" and "taxes" and "soft on terror" don't work anymore, where do GOP candidates go?
Well you can bet that
some of them will jump onto the Democratic agenda, as they did this week when the farm bill passed with veto-proof numbers. And, more than ever, some will find issues with which to separate themselves from Bush over the next few months. Most will do their best to localize their own elections and try to disengage from the national issues that are working against the Republican "brand."
Republican Congressman Davis says it's going to take more than a new sales team for the Republicans to avoid an election debacle this year. He's right.
The problem isn't their sales pitch, it's their product. And until the Republicans fix that, their brand is going to seem like....bad dog food.
Joe Rothstein is a veteran national political strategist and media producer and editor of USPoliticstoday.com. He can be contacted at
[email protected]