MyDD :: "if we were a dog food, they would take us off the shelf"

"if we were a dog food, they would take us off the shelf"

by Lefty Coaster, Sun May 18, 2008 at 05:31:35 PM EST

That was Republican Congressman Thomas M. Davis III in a memo to other Republicans about how the Republican Brand has been tarnished over the last 8 years. The Davis memo was mentioned this morning on Meet the Press:

"Members instinctively understand that the Republican brand is in the trash can. I've often observed that if we were a dog food, they would take us off the shelf." That was a memo to party leaders.

The Republican Brand has come to be associated in the public mind with:

(1) A foreign policy that manufactures more hostility to the U.S. than it overcomes.

(2) An asinine invasion followed by an endless occupation in Iraq that threatens to bankrupt our treasury, and wreck our military.

(3) Economic policies tilted toward investors, creating a low wage economy lowering the standard of living for working Americans.

(4) A corrupt tolerance of corporate abuses that is now resulting in the current economic downturn, and a wide range of other dammaging effects.

(5) The abuse of presidential powers.

Making change to address emerging problems like Global Warming comes hard to a rigid Party built around the patronage of the corporate aristocracy, and servicing their wants.

This morning's L.A. Times ran an illiuminating story titled
GOP struggles to reinvent without losing itself

McCain's approach -- tough on taxes, but receptive to immigrants and committed to easing global warming -- could help paint the GOP in new colors, more attractive to independent voters, Latinos and women. Some GOP leaders now say that by embracing McCain and his policy platform, Republicans would instantly "rebrand" and reinvigorate their party.

At first, that message from McCain advisor Carly Fiorina and RNC Chairman Mike Duncan seemed to resonate with the 200 or so Republicans in the room, many still absorbing the loss only hours before of a Mississippi House seat once considered among the party's safest.

But one participant at the Wednesday Meeting rose to question the soundness of the Arizona senator's plans for more government action to combat global warming. Similar ideas, the speaker said, had proved to be a disaster in Europe. Heads nodded and dozens of economic conservatives and global-warming skeptics applauded.

Late last week, conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh castigated McCain for his "embrace of a radical environmental agenda," calling it a sign that the Republican Party "is abandoning conservatism, abandoning those things and those people that made it victorious

The Republican Party is alarmed that Americans have become all too aware of the disasterous effects of the GOP's policies over the last 8 years.

The rest of the World watches the American election from the sidelines in suspense to see if Americans have learned anything from 8 years of Duhbya's disastrous rule.

Crossposted at D-Kos

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Tags: Thomas M. Davis III, Republican Brand (all tags)

Permalink :: 6 Comments :: Post a Comment

Nothing would surprise me anymore (none / 0)

I think if the republicans want to rebrand themselves and the media lets them, they will get away with it.

In the last three months I have seen Hillary become a fighter for the working class, Obama become an elitist, and McCain become a neocon. Anything is possible.

McCain = bad Obama = good

by CAchemist on Sun May 18, 2008 at 05:54:04 PM EST

Re: they would take us off the shelf" (2.00 / 1)

McPain was the NeoCons' favorite in 2000.

McPain wants a new Cold War with Russia and China.

McPain IS a NeoCon.

It's time to restore balance and fairness to our economy,... It's time to stop giving tax cuts to corporations that ship jobs overseas... - Barack Obama

by Lefty Coaster on Sun May 18, 2008 at 06:02:08 PM EST

Re: they would take us off the shelf" (2.00 / 1)

Actually until about 6 months ago, I viewed him as fairly centrist. That may make me naive but he seemed worlds better than GWB.

I now realize I was wrong or that he has taken a hard right to consolidate his base. Either way I plan on working my heart out to crush him in the fall.

McCain = bad Obama = good

by CAchemist on Sun May 18, 2008 at 06:06:49 PM EST
[ Parent ]

This is a must read on McCain (2.00 / 1)

While Bush has been criticized for advancing an unduly broad conception of the terrorism problem, allowing Iraq, Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah to all be swept together with al-Qaeda, McCain sees a need to go even bigger. In a May 2007 speech to the Hoover Institution, McCain explained that the so-called war on terror is merely part of a "worldwide political, economic, and philosophical struggle between the future and the past, between progress and reaction, and between liberty and despotism." The despotism problem, in McCain's view, goes beyond the traditional axis of evil and requires us to not only "not put pressure on dictators in Iran, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Burma, and other pariah states" but also to fret that Russia and China have joined forces to block such pressure. At a time when the Bush administration has to some extent backed away from rogue-state rollback, McCain has decided to double down, concluding that the rogue-state problem can't be resolved until all autocratic powers are brought down. "Iran is able to aggressively pursue nuclear weapons and hegemony in the Persian Gulf," he said in the Hoover speech, "in part, because it has been shielded by the world's powerful autocracies."

To combat this alleged conspiracy of dictatorships, McCain has proposed creating a "worldwide League of Democracies," whose role would be to create an alternative mechanism to the United Nations that could facilitate coercive action "with or without Moscow's and Beijing's approval." His campaign Web site further ups the ante for conflict with Russia and China by going beyond the standard missile defense mumbo jumbo to describe his planned shield as intended to "hedge against potential threats from possible strategic competitors like Russia and China," in contrast to a Bush administration which has limited its shield rhetoric to rogue states. McCain would take an impractical and somewhat provocative idea and then make it worse by injecting additional provocation for no real reason.
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?arti cle=the_militarist

It's time to restore balance and fairness to our economy,... It's time to stop giving tax cuts to corporations that ship jobs overseas... - Barack Obama

by Lefty Coaster on Sun May 18, 2008 at 06:17:59 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: This is a must read on McCain (2.00 / 2)

that is actually pretty scary. All the more reason to work as hard as possible to win this fall.

McCain = bad Obama = good

by CAchemist on Sun May 18, 2008 at 06:24:21 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: "if we were a dog food, (2.00 / 1)

perhaps not. Every 30 to 40 years, a new political cycle happens. from 1897-1933, you had the political era of conservative business Republicans, then you had from 1933-1969 in which liberalism reigned with even Republicans embracing the New Deal, followed by the inter-term, with Nixon changing the political course in which the South and social conservatives left the Dems and went GOP but still on the left economically and diplomatically, going until 1981 to now, the age of Reagan, which went from 1981 to now.

Each of these eras were ended by its political locomotive moving too fast and crashing: the era before 1933 the free business GOP era ended in the Depression which arose in part due to lack of regulation, the FDR era ended due to Vietnam and the social riots, the inter-period ending due to people's frustration with the New Deal programs blaming them for the 1970's recession and the Iran hostage crisis ending moderate foreign policy, and perhaps the age of Reagan is coming to a close, as Bush took everything Reagan did too fast, and is crashing the movement. Hoover crashed the GOP movement from the whole first 30 years of the 20th century, LBJ crashed it with Vietnam, Carter crashed the Nixon Transition period with Iran Hostage and Inflation which was blamed on FDR programs, and perhaps Bush crashed the Reagan movement with the Iraq war, huge deficits and tax cuts, and everything else. It was about time the Reagan era ended. Bush finally did it for us.

"there is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right in America"-William Jefferson Clinton, forty-second President of the United States

by DiamondJay on Sun May 18, 2008 at 10:54:50 PM EST

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