Even Mad Men Can’t Rebrand this Bunch of Republicans

Even Mad Men Can’t Rebrand this Bunch of Republicans

Three days after they failed to dump the president they hated and blew almost certain control of the Senate, Republicans are deep into tortured self-examination. Anyone who listened this morning as Joe Scarborough railed against the election outcome knew immediately where this is going ’cause we’ve seen it before. It is about adding people, he said over and over, not subtracting them. “The Republican Party must change its brand.”

Now as I understand the term, rebranding is when Mad Men take an unpopular product and attempt to change its image. The classic example is Marlboro, one of the first filtered cigarettes. The filter was marketed as a health benefit and the little brown tip apparently looked sexy or something so they were quickly adopted by women who were not then a large segment of the smoker market. Sales were lousy; Madison Avenue saw the problem and summoned the rugged Marlboro Man. Same stinky cancer stick but now the smell and the risks were firmly in the realm of real men. Women moved on to Virginia Slims.

Rebranding is often done, more to the point of the current situation, when a name that was once respectable becomes irreparably tainted. Blackwater the military contractor became Xe and moved its headquarters overseas after it and its employees were accused of everything from tax fraud to arms trafficking and overbilling to manslaughter. Even worse they started to lose government contracts. Whether Blackwater or Xe, they remain malicious mercenaries.

So Republicans, according to Scarborough, Haley Barbour, and 74.5 percent of the nation’s political pundits, must rebrand. And the party appears to be taking this to heart. So far I have heard they plan to spotlight Mario Rubio, one of their few prominent Hispanics, and give (per Mitch McConnell through clenched teeth) the President more opportunity to bring them legislation they like. Rush Limbaugh asked with a good deal of wonderment whether they would have to welcome immigrants with open arms and give women birth control pills.

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Full article here: http://www.politicususa.com/mad-men-rebrand-bunch-republicans.html