This is kind of funny:
Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) generated the kind of buzz other politicians covet when he launched his bid to help rebrand the Republican Party last spring.
Television crews and reporters wedged themselves among the crowd of party faithful to cover the National Council for a New America’s first event at a packed pizza parlor in an Arlington, Va., strip mall. The resulting coverage dominated cable news chatter for the next week. Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney were also on board.
But the council has since flamed out – at least publicly.
Since its launch, the National Council hasn’t held a single public event, despite more than 5,000 invitations to take their show out on the road. Congressional ethics rules limit what Cantor can do with the group because he launched it from his leadership office, making it harder to organize events and recruit partners. Despite that caution, the group is still taking heat from outside watchdog groups that argue he is violating the spirit, and perhaps the letter, of those rules.
I’d say the re-branding of the Republican party has been quite successful. In a couple of years, they’ve quite ably from the Republicans John Rogers talked about to a bunch frothing, godbothering, warmongering, birther conspiracy theorists, and in your face hysterical lunatics. Why should Cantor bother with re-branding attempts- Malkin, Beck, Limbaugh, and the teabaggers own the brand and are quite happy with the direction the party is going.
And the best thing about this? Read the wingnut blogs- they are still turning it up to 11 and don’t realize how the rest of the country looks at them. Every now and then they get a whiff of the truth, but a bit of mutual linking to each other to feed the echo chamber and they can convince themselves it is all just media bias and they are the real Merikins. You betcha! Also, too!
Fencedude
Shouldn’t it be “New Coke Sucked, Too. Also”?
RedKitten
They’re hardly even getting a whiff of the truth though, John. The media is playing along by giving so much legitimacy to their crackpot theories and accusations, and coverage to the “I want my country back” birther/anti-healthcare horde. It’s not a real stretch for them to think that much of America feels the same way that they do, when there’s virtually NO coverage of the average American who thinks that Malkin, Beck, Limbaugh et al are certifiably insane.
When you’re a lunatic, and the only people who get a voice are equally as nutso as you, well…you all start looking pretty sane to each other, right?
Face
From what I can tell, they’ve successfully convinced a non-trivial number of people that health care reform is going to kill their grandparents and humanely destroy their healthy fetuses. That’s not exactly failure.
Trinity
@RedKitten: Bingo. I couldn’t agree more. It is interesting to watch them validate one another so aggressively. It is going to take another election smackdown to get their attention and even then there will be those who will double down on the double down.
R-Jud
I kind of thought that Sarah Palin was the double-down on the double-down, but there appears to be no bottom to the crazy.
wolfetone
You know, RedKitten and Face make very good points. Seems that this whole idea of giving both sides of the story is again leaving out the fact that one side is blatantly lying. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m worried that so few in the news industry are calling “shenanigans” on this whole anti-healthcare reform bullshit.
burnspbesq
I continue to believe that the Republican Party in 2009 is in approximately the same stage of historical development as the Whig Party in 1853.
Trinity
BDeevDad
And it’s now called Coke Zero
wolfetone
@Trinity: Not if you want to remain “objective,” which for over a decade now has increasingly meant that you let one person say whatever they want and then turn to someone who disagrees and let them prattle on as well.
Ash Wing League
The wingnuts won’t pay attention to this since I’m sure they’re going crazy over some small comment made by Secretary of State Clinton.
Hunter Gathers
2009 : Year Of The Lunatic
ChrisS
Here’s a sample from a recent email exchange between my friend and I regarding Obama’s national healthcare white house blog-driven dissenter database:
and
This was the day after I busted him for sending out an astroturf email that merged two different gun nut scares (part of which was a bill that never saw the light of day from 9 years ago, and the rumor was shot down on the fucking NRA site).
So, because I don’t cotton to vapid and screeching “dissent” I’m the asshole because I don’t have an open mind.
cleek
who here will be surprised if RNC donations are up in the 2nd 1/4 ?
gotta keeping the whites fluffed to stiff peaks, or the whole thing goes flat.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
Yesterday, Tweety had a FreedumbWorks wanker on his show and he asked the idjit ‘what do you bring to the health care debate table?’. When the wanker started off about teh evul demoncRats, Tweety cut him off cold and told him to answer the question. The result was a wanker wanking away inanely but it somewhat shut him up for a few as he hemmed and hawed lame bullshit.
One item he stated that I have been hearing lately is ‘being able to buy health insurance across state lines’. Let me guess, if that is ever possible then three companies will buy up everything and screw us nationally. That and it is a lot easier to bribe 535 pols at the federal level than it is to bribe every single pol in every single state plus the pols at the federal level. No wonder they want to be able to sell across state lines; it would essentially neuter the insurance commissioners in all fifty states.
If a Republican is for it then you know it has to be bad for the average American and their pocketbook. It’s too bad that the average American is still too stupid to understand that.
Punchy
Some group is running ads on my TV, and I’m pretty sure every single bulletpoint in the ad is complete bullshit. Yet the ads are getting a shitload of play, and are almost certain to tank the national reform favorability polls.
Sometimes it sucks being the party of honesty and truth, because it’d be so much easier to get my way with everything if I felt empowered to lie, cheat, and bullshit my way around coworkers and friends.
MattF
I don’t think the analogy with the Whigs in the early 1850s works works very well– after all, Lincoln was a Whig back then. Also, the regional split has already taken place, and Northern Republicans have mostly turned into moderate-to-conservative Democrats rather than split off into a new party. Electing a moderate Democratic President in 2008 was mostly responsible for that.
I think the current situation is, unfortunately, what it looks like– the Republican party has been taken over by the nuts.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
cleek wins teh intertoobs today. F’ing funny, I’m laughing my ass off here!
joe from Lowell
Absolutely correct, John.
The party has handed over its leadership to talk radio screamers and columnists. Such people can become fabulously rich and famous by being beloved by an insane fifth of the population – much moreso, actually, than being quietly respected by a majority.
Trinity
@wolfetone: I understand what you are saying about objectivity but a lie is still a lie isn’t it? Does being “objective” mean the truth is no longer important? I realize I’m idealistic but it just angers me that people are fed such blatant lies all in the name of “objectivity”.
Napoleon
@ChrisS:
Your friend is a dick. Feel free to tell him I said so.
beltane
The new Republicans have been extraordinarily successful at rebranding themselves. Remember when they were the party of fiscal restraint and upper middle class values? Outside of Peggy Noonan’s addled brain, this party no longer exists.
Now when I hear the word “Republican”, the first image that comes to mind is of a fat, toothless moron sitting in his trailer railing against the evil liberals who want to teach his kid how to read.
It is hard to remember the days when there were Republicans I actually liked and voted for. The last one was Jim Jeffords; what happened to him is emblematic of what went wrong with that party.
El Cid
Is the Republican Party’s leadership its own ” DEATH PANEL “?
Demo Woman
Deep thought. Is the MSM any better than the “Enquirer”?
Napoleon
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal):
Doug said: “No wonder they want to be able to sell across state lines; it would essentially neuter the insurance commissioners in all fifty states.”
Exactly, and they have been trying to do this for some time. If you want to see how well something like that would work out look at how states can no longer control usurious interest rates or predatory lending due to federal preemption.
joe from Lowell
burnspbesq,
I continue to believe that the Republican Party in 2009 is in approximately the same stage of historical development as the Whig Party in 1853.
The better historical precedent is the Federalists. The Whigs got squeezed in the middle. The Federalists got pushed off to the side, which is what is happening to the GOP.
See here, from a commenter on a liberaltarian site.
http://highclearing.com/index.php/archives/2009/08/05/9654#comment-600256
PeakVT
The re-branding was doomed from the outset. “Message: We’re Re-branding!” isn’t, you know, actual re-branding.
@Face: That’s not exactly failure.
Well, those people were predisposed towards being convinced of crazy sh*t. What matters is the mushy middle. Are the swingers succumbing to the FUD, or being revolted by the crazy?
Comrade Darkness
The United States Government establishes an e-mail address for the purpose of effectively monitoring communication regarding a policy initiative and you think that it’s scare mongering by anyone who’s concerned about it.
The U.S. Government under Bush/Cheney set up locked server closets at phone companies to monitor ALL your personal communications, and you fucking cheered, you wankers. Now you care about a single bleedin’ email address?
MikeJ
This from the party that claims to like “states’ rights”. The idea that an individual state might want more regulation than Alabama has pisses them off.
DMD
@R-Jud: The GOP in its current form is crazy all the way down.
schrodinger's cat
Wingnuts remind me of the old adage, empty vessels make the most sound.
cleek
sigh
gotta keep the whites fluffed to stiff peaks, or the whole thing goes flat.
my kingdom for a proof reader!
kay
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal):
“One item he stated that I have been hearing lately is ‘being able to buy health insurance across state lines’. ”
It’s another regulatory race to the bottom, like we did with credit.
One state would become the “unregulated health insurance issuance state”, like we now have with credit cards. That state’s laws would apply to the policy purchased, whether the purchaser is in that state or not. They’d only have to buy ONE state legislature. North Dakota? Probably. Any federal law would apply, but there’s a reason state’s tightened regs on health insurers. They had to.
I can’t believe they’re proposing deregulating an industry again. After what just happened. It’s mind-boggling.
R-Jud
@DMD: Yeah, I’ve realized that. People often become delusional on their deathbeds– apparently it’s no different with political parties.
Kilkee
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal): Buying insurance across state lines. Hmm. Why do I think this is the same sort of arrangement as the credit card companies were able to arrange with South Dakota? I.e., we’ll put our shitty jobs and call centers in your shitty state and you let us screw our customers all around the country with 33% interest rates and mega-late charges. Sound good?
matoko_chan
Somehow I don’t think the rebranding is successful, in that the New Core Demographic of the GOP seems to be people-you-could-meet-at-a-Klan-rally.
Extreme television coverage of angry fat old white people screaming, carrying swastikas and having public psychotic episodes is not relly good branding to grow the party with youth and minorities.
Everyone wants to go to cooltown.
The GOP is lightyears away from there.
matoko_chan
The Teabagger Demographic.
DanJoaquinOz
Yeah, New Coke sucked too. But they also always had the tried and tested original Coke to fall back on, after the epic fail of New Coke.
Not so the re-branded Republicanism, which has effectively scoured its ranks of every realist, rationalist and moderate -every trace of the old, pre-neocon, pre-evangelical, pre-FOX/Limbaugh/TeaBag era non-ideologue. It is now left with only the most toxic concentrate of distilled angry, dangerous stupidity to be found outside some stone-age madrassa, or cargo-cult jungle. And, just when you thought it can’t get any dumber, any more mendacious or murderous, when you think ‘Baby-killer Tiller’ or Flat Birther polemic must surely represent the absolute nadir of a once-respectable political brand, along comes a new installment in jaw-dropping, howling imbecility – Palin/Gingrich on healthcare, Bolton/Cheney on foreign policy – and you realise the boundaries for ‘nadir’ are continually being stretched ever outward, past what you once considered possible for a viable party in an advanced Western democracy. And, with growing horror, you begin to realise, the bottom is still nowhere in sight…
gex
@R-Jud: No. Palin is the double down. The Palin/Bachmann ticket is the double down on the double down.
Sloth
Extreme television coverage of angry fat old white people screaming, carrying swastikas and having public psychotic episodes is not relly good branding to grow the party with youth and minorities.
It’s not good branding with sane, older, white folks either.
I live in a small, conservative town that is highly resistant to any sort of healthcare reform. There has been quite some discussion about the evils of Obamacare and the like.
There were townhalls near us; people attended. Nazi demonstrators were out in force.
Discussion about the evils of Obamacare has disappeared.
These teabaggers have scored an absolutely mind-boggling own-goal.
flukebucket
I continue to believe that the Republican Party in 2009 is in approximately the same stage of historical development as the Whig Party in 1853.
Goldwater. ’64
That is as far back as you have to go to see the Republican Party in the same shape they are in now.
It was nigras that drove them to the brink then. It is just one nigra now that has brought the crazy to a boiling point.
Republicans did not disappear after ’64 and they are not going to disappear now.
kay
@Kilkee:
It’s huge. They’re proposing removing the employer deduction for health insurance, effectively creating a huge market of individual purchasers. Those purchasers will then be routed to a state with little or no regulation as the issuing state. At least signing up for a credit card at 33% is voluntary. I don’t know that purchasing health insurance is.
JGabriel
John Cole @ Top:
Do we know how the rest of the country is looking at them? Or to put it more specifically, how is it being reported in the network evening newscasts? Does anyone here watch them or primarily get their news from them?
I know that I never watch the network evening newscasts, but that many people still rely on them for their main source of information, rather than the internet or the cable newsers. I’m kind of curious as to what kind of narrative is being served to them.
.
cleek
I’m kind of curious as to what kind of narrative is being served to them.
on ABC news, it’s he said, she said.
deminoz
@DanJoaquinOz:
Maybe a bit OT but your reference to Cheney and foreign policy is interesting. Having been paying as much attention as i should (don’t actually live there anymore)….but it seems we haven’t heard anything from Darth or his daughter since the outing of the ‘private’ assassination squad.
Was he looking to get ahead of that story and succeeded? He must have…..haven’t seen it or them in the press since…….
deminoz
‘Having’ = ‘haven’t.
God….first post in a gazillion years and i have a typo. I will go back to lurking.
JGabriel
@deminoz:
Patience, deminoz! Editing will return, and in the meantime, we’re all in forbearance mode. So don’t worry about the typos. We all have them.
.
JGabriel
@cleek:
Not great, but I suppose I’ve seen worse. But that’s a single story; is it representative of their coverage in general?
Anyone got info on NBC’s, PBS’s, and CBS’s nightly coverage?
.
Steeplejack
@JGabriel:
So don’t worry about the typos. We all have them.
I dont.
Gus
@Face:
Exactly. We make fun of them because they’re ludicrous and insane. CNN and CBS news, say “some people say their grandmothers will be euthanized” as if their insanity is a serious argument. Too much of the country doesn’t pay enough attention to see the madness. The other night one of the news programs played Newt’s bullshit about euthanizing granny as a reasonable perspective.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
bob h
Obama is going before the loons today at 1 in NH. We’ll probably see see the Secret Service assholing some of them out the front door. That will open the eyes of more people to the true character of these protests.
jomo
It’s an old advertising question – should I go negative on the competition or work on my own brand health. Negative tends to provide short term gain but can drag down the category in the long term. With the GOP, it feels as though their brand health is so tarnished that the decision to go negative seems like a smart one – at least for now. Things could go south between now and November 2010 and this could look like a good idea.
Cyrus
@joe from Lowell: That comment – or rather, a comment later in that thread – reminded me to think about 2010 Senate chances. I think the general trend is for the incumbent president’s party to lose seats in an off-year (1), and what with the economy, people are worried about Democrats losing seats and not getting anything through the Senate from then on. However, based on who’s up for reelection, things don’t look good for Republicans(2). 36 elections will be held, with the current officeholders evenly split between Dems and GOP, but three times as many Republican incumbents are retiring as Democrats. That’s a lot of incumbency advantage to not have. And just by reading through the Wikipedia page on the midterms, it looks like more of the Republican incumbents are facing viable challenges, especially in primaries, than Democrats.
The best the Republicans can reasonably hope for in 2010 in the Senate is to gain two to four seats. That would suck for the Democrats, and it would suck for the country if nobody ever does anything about the current de facto 60-vote requirement to get legislation through, but it just won’t be a blowout for the Democrats (2) and might even be a gain. If so, the Republican Party won’t have definitely gone the way of the dodo by November 2010, but almost nobody will still have their heads in the sand any more about the possibility.
I guess this is OT, but it just got me thinking.
(1) Although now that I look up the trend, it doesn’t seem very strong. People write off 2002 because of terrorism fears, but it still went against the trend, as did 1970 and 1962. 1994 strongly confirmed the trend – but on the other hand, that was part of an ongoing, overall realignment. There was no change at all in 1998 or 1982. 1990 and 1954 supposedly fit the pattern, but by such tiny differences – one Senator and two, respectively – that it probably doesn’t mean anything.
(2) Don’t count our chickens before they hatch, anything could go wrong, there’s more to it than just this, etc.
wolfetone
@Trinity: Oh I totally agree with you. The whole objectivity thing is bs on its face, which I would hazard is one of the reasons why this whole blogging thing has taken off.
ksmiami
Fact – Republicants have nothing to offer but anger and vitriol. They never solve a single problem other than bombing brown people and I do believe (contra my bearish spouse) that the economy will come back cause of pent up demand, a very lucrative peace dividend with China (though I still have a feeling that we will end up being their proxy-war mercenaries – but that is another story) and of course strong, successful government intervention. There is nothing behind the Pubbie platform and no one has won a single election on “oh no the debt has increased…” Plus their brownshirts are really scary looking and America did reject this when we rejected the Palin Klan rallies. In the end they are loud and proud, but the schtick is really old now. Oh and also demographics are really against them… They may pick up a few seats, or not, but being anti-everything is just not a winner in the long run. It never has been.
Glidwrith
Here is a wonderful re-banding whiff: on Mythbusters last night, I found out there is an old saying – “You can’t put polish on poop.” Guess what? They busted the myth and found you can actually put a high gloss polish on horse or lion dung. So, this is actually the Republican Party re-born: High gloss shit.
mutt
A good read, this blog & its commentators.
For many intents & purposes- the Wars/Occupations, formalizing Cheney’s power grabs, glossing over/covering up/legitimizing torture, the continued support for 3rd world despots, the Israeli blank check, – should actual, thinking folks be looking for a Dem to champion over the Bush/Obama continuity? A third party is out, as far as I can see. That loon Buchanan sunk the last getting viable one.
Overdue for several parties, actually, but from my studied observation parties themselves, as noted by Gen. Washington, are very much part of the problem.
Is there a Dem acting on the knowledge that imperialism is driving the country into the ground (never mind the source of all that blood we are squelching around in), that whatever you call the collusion between Wall St & the State, it isnt viable, & leading us back to Victorian social stratas, and the like- in other words, is there a Dem who dosnt have his head up some corporatists/war criminals ass? And dont say Barney Frank- WHAT committee was he on for years prior to the Wall St fraud collapse, again?
Russ? Nice guy, will leave my firearms alone. I like that in a politician. Means he aint afraid of us peasants…..
Or, hey! Some maverick Repub. I dont give a damn what letter follows per name.
I dont want another 4 years of what Ive had pissed on my shoes so far…..
REN
When all the major television networks are owned by big business interests, why would anyone expect to get objective reporting from them? Friends of mine are astounded when I point this out to them. They just cannot bring themselves to believe that they can be misled by the nightly news.
Politics is a cycle. If Obama can’t deliver, or the economy crashes even worse, or Afghanistan { which Obama has taken ownership of } becomes a disaster, Americans in the middle will jump off the bandwagon. Everything Republicans are doing and saying now is so they can say ” we told you so” if any of the above comes to pass. They must prevent Obama from having any success with middle class hotbutton issues. They can remember what happened to their party after FDR repaired their damage and got social security passed.
Just nine months ago there were a lot of people writing Rep off. Now I’m beginning to hear about losing Senate seats next year. With all this madness they are spouting,why?
BC
It’s not like the Democrats in Congress have thought about health insurance reform only since January 2009. It has been a part of the Democratic platform since before Bill Clinton, so you would think there would have been some draft proposals, a blueprint (maybe even the specifications sheet) for the legislation to then be finalized and Congress could do it before August. With the 60-vote margin (and I think Byrd and Kennedy would have come on their deathbed gurneys to make the vote) in the Senate, the Democrats should have had this done by the time they left for vacation. This is the big disappointment to me – they had to start from square one on the largest piece of legislation that they have been talking about since at least 1992.
Corner Stone
Actually, some have argued that the whole “New Coke” effort was a stunning success for Coke. Not sure how this translates to the Rep issue, but I think it’s a valid case in the NC discussion.
People hated it. They wanted the “original”. For something like a scant $100 million, Coke bought years of advertising and word of mouth. They astroturfed a “rebellion” against the New and re-launched the Original.
Some would say “genius”. I say, “First you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women.”
Tax Analyst
ChrisS said:
“Here’s a sample from a recent email exchange between my friend and I regarding Obama’s national healthcare white house blog-driven dissenter database:”
“Dude, your continued blind devotion to this guys insults your intelligence. I don’t know what to say to you. You’re not paying attention. The United States Government establishes an e-mail address for the purpose of effectively monitoring communication regarding a policy initiative and you think that it’s scare mongering by anyone who’s concerned about it. They just want to set up an FAQ. If the previous administration had done this it’d be all over the news. Citizens concerned about encroaching government control are ideologues. How very Alinsky of you.
and
Because anyone who has a thought that runs contrary to Godbama is a nitwit. How very liberal of you to keep an open mind and respect the opinions of others. And here I am thinking that vitriol and demagoguery were the domain of the far right. Do you even bother to look for an alternative opinion or do you just regurgitate what Markos Moulitsas throws up on his wall every day?”
(ChrisS again)
“This was the day after I busted him for sending out an astroturf email that merged two different gun nut scares (part of which was a bill that never saw the light of day from 9 years ago, and the rumor was shot down on the fucking NRA site).
So, because I don’t cotton to vapid and screeching “dissent” I’m the asshole because I don’t have an open mind.”
ChrisS – time to “retire” this friend and shop for a coherent replacement.
Tax Analyst
Corner Stone said:
“Actually, some have argued that the whole “New Coke” effort was a stunning success for Coke. Not sure how this translates to the Rep issue, but I think it’s a valid case in the NC discussion.
People hated it. They wanted the “original”. For something like a scant $100 million, Coke bought years of advertising and word of mouth. They astroturfed a “rebellion” against the New and re-launched the Original.
Some would say “genius”. I say, “First you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women.”
AND it allowed Coca-Cola to substitute high fructose corn syrup (much cheaper) for cane sugar. Note that the return to “Original” or “Tradional Coke” (or whatever name they put on the can) had a trademark sign next to it. The return of the “Original Coke” by whatever name did not include cane sugar, hence the need for that trademark was for the “new” version – needed because it was different formula from any prior version. “Original” was not an actual return to the (lower-cased) “original”, but an entirely new formula that included HFCS instead of sugar. Can’t say that they necessarily planned this, but whatever, they made it work.
And I understand they eventually sold off all the “New Coke” down in American South anyway.
Corner Stone
@Tax Analyst: Well, that was actually the coda to my post, but expressed in Homer-esque.
Thanks for putting that out there for the normals.
bago
Nobody has linked to District 9? You want fear, alienation, distruct, concentration camps racism in South Africa, PLUS ALIENS, here is where you go.