Rebuilding the Republican Brand

It’s not exactly news that the Republican Party is in the doldrums at the moment. It lost control of both Houses of Congress in the 2006 elections, its president is at historic lows in the polls, it has lost a string of special elections and its incumbent Congressmen are retiring in droves, and the odds are better than even that they’ll lose the White House in the Fall.

As usually happens when one of the two major parties is in a down cycle, the pundits and activists alike come out of the woodworks proposing a plan to save the party — invariably by making it more suitable to their own particular preferences. The latest entrants in this fray are a superb long piece in the New Yorker by George Packer, “The Fall of Conservatism — Have the Republicans run out of ideas?” (via memeorandum) and a call by moderate California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger for a “rebranding” of the GOP (via Glenn Reynolds).

Packer provides a look at the rise and fall of the modern Republican Party, which begins with Goldwater’s massive defeat in 1964 and a quick turnaround leading to Richard Nixon’s stunning blowout victory four years later.

Fall of Conservatism New Yorker[The Nixon] Administration adopted an undercover strategy for building a Republican majority, working to create the impression that there were two Americas: the quiet, ordinary, patriotic, religious, law-abiding Many, and the noisy, élitist, amoral, disorderly, condescending Few.

A more charitable characterization would be that the overwhelming majority of Americans saw their culture under assault from an urban elite and a sympathetic Supreme Court. But the battle lines are about right no matter how one looks at it.

Political tactics have a way of outliving their ability to respond to the felt needs and aspirations of the electorate: Democrats continued to accuse Republicans of being like Herbert Hoover well into the nineteen-seventies; Republicans will no doubt accuse Democrats of being out of touch with real Americans long after George W. Bush retires to Crawford, Texas. But the 2006 and 2008 elections are the hinge on which America is entering a new political era.

This will be true whether or not John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, wins in November. He and his likely Democratic opponent, Barack Obama, “both embody a post-polarized, or anti-polarized, style of politics,” the Times columnist David Brooks told me. “McCain, crucially, missed the sixties, and in some ways he’s a pre-sixties figure. He and Obama don’t resonate with the sixties at all.” The fact that the least conservative, least divisive Republican in the 2008 race is the last one standing—despite being despised by significant voices on the right—shows how little life is left in the movement that Goldwater began, Nixon brought into power, Ronald Reagan gave mass appeal, Newt Gingrich radicalized, Tom DeLay criminalized, and Bush allowed to break into pieces.

[…]

After Reagan and the end of the Cold War, conservatism lost the ties that had bound together its disparate factions—libertarians, evangelicals, neoconservatives, Wall Street, working-class traditionalists.

This isn’t a new observation — after all, the Soviet Union fell seventeen years ago now! — but it has in fact been difficult to keep that coalition together without a common enemy. Then again, the GOP has won two of the four presidential elections wrested control of the Congress for several years during that span. So, clearly, they must have had something to offer besides warmed over 1960’s bromides.

Rcently, I spoke with a number of conservatives about their movement. The younger ones—say, those under fifty—uniformly subscribe to the reformist version. They are in a state of glowing revulsion at the condition of their political party. Most of them predicted that Republicans will lose the Presidency this year and suffer a rout in Congress. They seemed to feel that these losses would be deserved, and suggested that, if the party wins, it will be—in the words of Rich Lowry, the thirty-nine-year-old editor of National Review—”by default.”

[…]

Pat Buchanan was less polite, paraphrasing the social critic Eric Hoffer: “Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.”

I tend to agree with both Lowry and Buchanan. The party became the enemy it preached against for so many years, embracing big government solutions, a moralistic foreign policy, and a huge appetite for pork. The K Street Project, the cover-up of the Mark Foley scandal, the Duke Cunningham mess and similar events demonstrated that holding on to and capitalizing on power was more important to some of the party’s leadership than the principles they had campaigned on.

At the same time, though, young activists are always disappointed in their leaders. Even when there’s no corruption involved, politicians naturally engage in compromise, logrolling, and the other distasteful but necessary facets of governing.

Packer also engages in some unfair jibes, such as:

By the end of the century, a movement inspired by sophisticated works such as Russell Kirk’s 1953 “The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot” churned out degenerate descendants with titles like “How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must).”

Rather obviously, these aren’t aimed at the same audiences. The former was for the elites, the latter for the masses. Surely, there was plenty of nonsense in the 1950s (say, the various tracts of the John Birch Society) and plenty of quality nowadays (including some books cited elsewhere in Packer’s piece). A mass political movement will always have both highbrow intellectualism and populist red meat.

Schwarzenegger, campaigning last week with John McCain, had some advice: The party should be, well, more like Arnold.

“The Republican idea is a great idea, but we can’t go and get stuck with just the right wing,” Schwarzenegger said. “Let’s let the party come all the way to the center. Let those people be heard as much as the right. Let it be the big tent we’ve talked about. Let’s invade and let’s cross over that (political) center,” he said. “The issues that they’re talking about? Let them be our issues, and let the party be known for that.”

He observed that his own political opponents, including former Democratic Gov. Gray Davis, tried to define him in much the way McCain is being defined by Democrats – as joined at the hip with Bush. “It didn’t work,” he laughed. But “how does (McCain) beat the Democrats? By offering a better future. He needs to offer hope, he needs to go in and show he can solve the problem in Iraq and have better relations with other countries again … and bring the economy back.”

But Schwarzenegger didn’t need rebranding; his “brand” is a larger-than-life persona he created over the years. McCain can’t very well run as an action hero. Packer ends his piece, though, by noting that McCain might just well manage to win as, well, John McCain.

McCain appeared to a warm reception. I had seen him in New Hampshire, where he gave off-the-cuff remarks with vigor; when he is stuck with a script, however, he is a terrible campaigner. Looking pallid, he sounded flat, and stumbled over his lines—and yet they were effective lines, ones that Obama would do well to study. “I can’t claim we come from the same background,” McCain began. “I’m not the son of a coal miner. I wasn’t raised by a family that made its living from the land or toiled in a mill or worked in the local schools or health clinic. I was raised in the United States Navy, and, after my own naval career, I became a politician. My work isn’t as hard as yours—it isn’t nearly as hard as yours. I had an easier start.” He paused and went on, “But you are my compatriots, my fellow-Americans, and that kinship means more to me than almost any other association.”

That’s the right message and a powerful one. But, really, it’s not as different from Nixon’s as Packer’s revisionism would have us believe. McCain is trying to forge a common definition of what it means to be “American” and identifying himself as the candidate most able to protect those values. He’s got an uphill fight, going against a younger man with a lot less baggage, but he’s got a puncher’s chance.

What’ll be interesting, whether McCain wins or loses in the Fall, is what lessons the GOP takes from his campaign. If he loses, one suspects we’ll see calls for a return to a harder line conservatism, which could well relegate the Republicans to regional status for a while. If he wins, I suspect we’ll still see calls for a harder line conservatism, since McCain will have run under the conservative banner, but there will also be more push for a bigger tent.

FILED UNDER: *FEATURED, 2008 Election, Best of OTB, Congress, Supreme Court, The Presidency, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is Professor and Department Head of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

  1. sam says:

    [P]oliticians naturally engage in compromise, logrolling, and the other distasteful but necessary facets of governing

    You really believe compromise is distasteful, James? I can’t see how you could have a functioning democracy without it.

  2. Floyd says:

    Sam;
    It all depends on who you compromise with and what you compromise.
    Many positions held by the Democrats are far too distasteful for compromise. A few are not.

  3. William d'Inger says:

    These political pendulum swings proceed with glacial slowness. The GOP is nowhere near bottom yet, so the upswing is years away. Ironically, Republicans will have little to do with their future ascendancy. I predict they will return to the majority only if and when the Democrats screw up so badly that the public will have nowhere else to turn. Then … it will cycle for another generation.

  4. James Joyner says:

    You really believe compromise is distasteful, James? I can’t see how you could have a functioning democracy without it.

    I say as much in the sentence you quote. But, sure, ideologues find compromise distasteful because they think politics is about right and wrong rather than accommodating the needs of competing interests.

  5. steveplunk says:

    Schwarzenegger’s advice is worthless. He does not govern like a Republican and his electoral success was a result of his celebrity not his ability to lead. California is still a mess and getting worse so why listen to a man who is not getting it done?

    Many conservative ideas have failed and are failing as a result of being watered down to the point they are no longer effective. Like taking only half the prescribed amount of an antibiotic this dilution is doing more harm than good. From the liberal side this type of weakening still leads in the right direction for them.

    The essential problem with the GOP message is that it is one of personal responsibility and using logic before emotions. The facts support conservative policies but the emotional election pleas for liberal policies are hard for many to ignore.

    You can repackage this message all you want but until people grow up and act like adults it won’t sink in. You don’t need to re-brand Republicans you need to educate the people about Republican ideas and how they will lead to a better country.

  6. sam says:

    I say as much in the sentence you quote. But, sure, ideologues find compromise distasteful because they think politics is about right and wrong rather than accommodating the needs of competing interests.

    OK, I see that. Blog comments are proof of the last.

  7. legion says:

    Steve,
    I find Schwarzenegger’s statement interesting, because it’s what (IMHO) most Republican voters would actually prefer, but as you note, it’s completely at odds with how he (and the Bush White House, and the GOP in Congress) actually work. That’s the disconnect that’s currently killing them in polls and elections.

    In particular, I don’t know how you can say something like

    The essential problem with the GOP message is that it is one of personal responsibility and using logic before emotions. The facts support conservative policies but the emotional election pleas for liberal policies are hard for many to ignore.

    When the one unbroken thread in GOP campaigning, at every level, for the last six years has been FEAR! FEAR THE TERRORISTS! VOTE FOR US OR YOUR CHILDREN WILL DIE!
    I mean seriously, there’s been no more emotional brand the GOP-style fearmongering recently, while Obama’s statements seem comparatively logical, rational, and well-thought-out.

  8. Floyd says:

    Legion;
    What about the Democrats selling….
    “”FEAR! FEAR! Vote for us or your children will become starving, uneducated,xenophobic, waifs without jobs or medical care, Forced against their will into unfulfilled lives of faith and heterosexuality!”” [lol]

    Fortunately,Builder Bob has come to the rescue with a rational and well thought out campaign of substance for Obama! CAN WE DO IT??….

  9. steveplunk says:

    Legion,
    I must respectfully disagree. On the issue of foreign policy and the war on terror I think the GOP has been right while the Dems wrong. But there are more than just those two issues.

    Obama’s statements are calming and reasonable to an extent but they lack the substance necessary to be taken seriously. He is appealing to emotions with most if not all of his rhetoric so I can’t see him as a good president.

  10. bains says:

    The party became the enemy it preached against for so many years, embracing big government solutions, a moralistic foreign policy, and a huge appetite for pork.

    Wow, I did not think fighting for another’s liberty was a bad thing. I am coming to suspect that you, James, are sharing the same boat as David Brooks; you are Inside The Beltway. And while I value your site as a mostly honest display of thought, I do not think what you profess is quintessential conservatism. More damning though, I do not think you recognize the heart of conservatism.

    If McCain wins the White House this November, it will be to the consternation of the base he pretends to represent. If only Obama weren’t so wacky.

  11. tom says:

    “I can’t see how you could have a functioning democracy without it”.

    This simple statement is much of our problem. We weren’t supposed to be having a functioning “democracy”, instead we were to have a functioning representative republic where the government was “of”, “by”, and “for” the people.

    The two party system has destroyed this an so have many of you that continue to perpetuate government control of the masses, via legislation, regulation, and ordinances which usurp the free will of GODS people to control their own lives through the best means possible without committing fraud, abuse, or coercing another to fraudulent ends.

  12. tom says:

    “Wow, I did not think fighting for another’s liberty was a bad thing”.

    I don’t seem to recall being asked for ASSISTANCE in fighting for ones freedom and liberty. Did we miss the memo and the request ??

    Unlike the revolution where it was the people living on this continent that battled the Brits for their own freedom, we stormed into Iraq under the guise of Weapons of Mass Destruction with the authority of such coming from the United Nations. It was at a later date that the storyline changed to become a “liberation”

    Perhaps someone need look up the true definition of conservatism. A true conservative will work towards freedom and liberty both here and abroad, the problem is as we lose our liberties and freedoms here we are working towards accomplishing this goal in an area that doesn’t have the slightest clue of what liberty and freedom is.

  13. James Joyner says:

    I do not think what you profess is quintessential conservatism. More damning though, I do not think you recognize the heart of conservatism.

    Because I think that American foreign policy should be based, first and foremost, on America’s interests rather than in promoting values? That I think the foreign policy of Ronald Reagan is preferable to that of Jimmy Carter and Woodrow Wilson?

  14. Dave from Oregon says:

    I believe the “Republican Brand” is compromised because George W Bush, his administration, the Republicans in the legislative branch, along with the press convinced the American people to go to war in Iraq based on lies and deception.

    As a result, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi’s and Americans are dead and trillions of dollars squandered. This is the legacy of the last 7 years.

    There are other reasons why the “brand” is in trouble and those reasons include runaway deficits, out of control government growth, a police state that exceeds Orwell’s fears, a ruinous energy policy, destruction of civil liberties, and a host of other activities that have caused harm to the country we love.

  15. John says:

    “a police state that exceeds Orwell’s fears”

    I can only assume that as I write a reply, you and your family are currently being lead away in handcuffs to have a confession beaten out of you. If this is not currently the case, then perhaps you need to reread (or perhaps read for the first time) 1984, and consider what true oppression is.

  16. PrestoPundit says:

    Dan Walters of the Sacramento Bee looks at Schwarzenegger’s irresponsible and idiotic behavior in the California budget mess and has come up with a “re-branding” idea for Schwarzenegger: EX-GOVERNOR

  17. bains says:

    I don’t seem to recall being asked for ASSISTANCE… Tom

    Because I think that American foreign policy should be based, first and foremost, on America’s interests rather than in promoting values? James

    When I was a lad, I happened upon another young fellow who had his girlfriend pinned upon a wall. The girl did not ask that I intervene, and given that this fellow was 4″ taller and 30lbs heavier that I, it certainly wasn’t in my best interest.

    My decision to intervene was, however, the right thing to do. That girl, now a mother of grown children, still thanks me. And No, she is not my wife, nor are her children of my loin.

  18. bains says:

    And James, promoting liberty is, in this neo-libertarian’s estimation, the trump card America offers. It is in our best interest.
    Most of those residing within surveilled gates in Mercer Island, Palm Beach, Orange Heights or Potomac Falls, with burdenless lives served to them on sterling platters, have lost sight of this fundamental fact.

    McCain, Brooks, et.al. have adopted the left’s presumption that we, the American public, need constant help. In fact, what we want is periodic assistance when in need, otherwise to be left to our own devices.

  19. tom says:

    “When I was a lad, I happened upon another young fellow who had his girlfriend pinned upon a wall. The girl did not ask that I intervene, and given that this fellow was 4″ taller and 30lbs heavier that I, it certainly wasn’t in my best interest”.

    Then let the invasion begin into every country that has a dictator of sorts that we don’t agree with. Bains you seem to have a compelling story so we should ask you which country is in need of freedom first then make plans to give them that freedom.
    Your scenario doesn’t hold water compared to what we are doing in Iraq.

  20. bains says:

    I’ve my own moral compass. It is not predicated by, nor attenuated to political whim.

    There are a host of counties that could benefit from my views of liberty that our left so wants to stifle.

  21. Floyd says:

    Dave;
    We talkin’ “1984” or “Animal Farm”??

    Two parties…. Two books??[lol]