The Great Republican Rebranding

[kurth]

The Great Republican Rebranding
By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Saturday, May 6, 2006; A17

Sen. Rick Santorum wanted to talk. His purpose, he said over breakfast earlier this week in the Senate dining room, was to "tell the other side of the story" about his record, which his foes use to cast him as -- these are his words -- "a mean-spirited, hard-right country club Republican." Santorum wanted to describe the work he had done on "nontraditional Republican issues," including faith-based initiatives to help the poor... Santorum is nothing if not shrewd. Running with the 1994 conservative tide, he won his seat from then-incumbent Harris Wofford after characterizing AmeriCorps, the national service initiative and a Wofford legislative monument, as a program "for hippie kids to stand around a campfire and sing 'Kumbaya' at taxpayers' expense."

Santorum is not alone. All over the country, Republicans are engaged in a massive effort at rebranding, reframing and, in some cases, wholesale retreat from past positions. The surest sign that the nation is in the middle of an ideological transition is that Republicans don't want to sound like -- well, Republicans. Thus are those who once derided Al Gore's environmentalism now painting themselves in very bright shades of green. Last month Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) took a drive in a hydrogen-powered car to show how much he cares about conservation and the planet.

Members of Congress who once eagerly showered tax breaks on the energy companies now want you to know they're tough on Big Oil. Last month House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) urged federal agencies to investigate possible price gouging by the petroleum giants. Of course, turning on a dime is not that easy, and the GOP leaders -- under pressure from their business allies -- have been all over the lot on changes in accounting rules that would have levied higher taxes on the energy companies. For the moment, they seem to have dumped the idea...

The current reaction is not simply to President Bush's low poll numbers. It's also a response to the failure of conservative policies and to the declining appeal of conservative rhetoric. Conservatives are trying to save themselves by offering progressive-sounding criticisms of the status quo, much as liberals offered ersatz conservative critiques two decades ago. If Rick Santorum wants you to look at his record in a way that makes him a paladin for the poor and if Dennis Hastert wants you to know that he's suspicious of the oil companies, the political weather is changing. When one side starts making the other side's argument, you don't need to be a pollster to know which belief system is in the ascendancy.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/05/AR2006050501477.html

[ToeBot]

1. I'm surprised he didn't bring up the $5K donation he got from the...

Humane Society. Why wound a nonprofit like the Humane Society make a political contribution to a snake like Santorum, wait, I answered my own question.

[SoCalDem]

2. It's NOW up to the staffers of all democratic competitors

to scour the web and come up with video of the repubes saying just the opposite.. and the ads write themselves..

We know republicans will say just about anything to get elected, and we know they are not above lying us into a war..

He/She said THIS on this date
He/She said THIS yesterday/last week/tonight..

Both cannot be true..Which lie will you believe?

[neoblues]

3. Alas, The Dirt-Level Republicans

(somehow "Grass"-roots seems too 'green' a word to use for them), will fall for it. First, their ability to discern a lie from the truth, fiction from reality and especially, to recognize hypocrisy is deeply flawed. They will learn to "believe" whatever their leaders tell them for they have 'faith'.

Then again, perhaps some of them have begun to slowly develop the capacity for critical thought, at least they've shown signs that they are vaguely becoming aware that their leaders have been lying to them for decades (though their awareness/memory scarcely extends a couple of years). It would seem that a failing war wherein everthing their leaders told them to justify it has been obviously, patently false--they could see, for instance, that WMDs weren't found in IRAQ, etc (of course, some of them still think IRAQ had/has WMDs), so they didn't have to trust what the Democrats kept saying. Sure, the Democrats shot down every new excuse and, in the making of those "new" excuses, the Emperor showed himself for the nudist he is. Hopefully they've learned from the experience and are beginning to see the other thousand ways in which their leaders have lied. In addition, the Republicans long wondered why their elected representatives would promise this or that and not come through, but it was easily enough explained away by blaming those obstructionist Democrats... now that Republicans had complete control, it became very difficult indeed to explain why their promises weren't forthcoming. Again, perhaps stimulating the few remaining brain cells reserved for critical thinking in the average Republican's brain into life again. We can only hope.

Will they be able to remember their leader's previous positions? Even if Democrats present rational proof/clear evidence of their old contrasting positions? Remember that Republicans are still averse to information provided by Democrats (who, being such masterful liars must somehow have fabricated those videos of their Republican leaders saying those things--even if they sure do look real...). If they do remember, will they be able to recognize that such about-face changes represent unexplained flip-flops (after all, Republicans don't flip-flop...duh). Perhaps the word hypocrisy is too big. Perhaps it's just too complex a phenomenon. Perhaps, if "they" do it, it's okay... Time will tell. Maybe, just maybe they aren't as stupid as I think they are. I wouldn't mind being wrong.

[Vogon_Glory]

6. Dirt-Level Republicans And the Getting of Wisdom

I suspect that there's going to be a sizable chunk of right-wingers who will stay with the Republicans who will stay with the likes of Dubya, Santorum, Barton, et al. regardless.

Others, like some of the drunks who make it in recovery programs, may wise up. But it's going to take a lot more hurting before they start wising up, and unfortunately, many of us who already know better are also along for the ride.

[tanyev]

4. Too late, Rick. You've got a big ol' "W" branded on your backside.

That's going to be really hard to cover up.

[ima_sinnic]

5. in the past 30-40 years, what good have Republicans done for

this country or for the world?
I can't think of a single thing.
And I certainly don't fall for the MYTH of Ronnie "ending the Cold War" or "breaking down the wall" or even for "ending the hostage crisis" (since he did that by their usual method of underhanded payola and bribery).
Nixon, Reagan, Bush Sr., Jr. Shit-Stain--what exactly are their legacies in terms of the public good? All is see are minuses: Watergate, Iran-Contra, huge deficits, dumbed-down & broken educational system, collusion with despots and tinpot dictators, invasions of sovereign nations like Panama and Iraq, and now total bankruptcy of the entire country.
As far as I am concerned, the Republican Party is the Party of Greed, the Me-First and F**k-Everybody-Else Party, the Party of Shortsightedness. The 21st-Century Know-Nothing Party. Scrooge McDuck, with his vault full of gold coins, is the Republican icon. I despise Republicans with every fiber of my being.