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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Fraying of the Trump Brand
Experts say President Trump is damaging his party and its candidates' election prospects.
By Susan Milligan, Senior Writer | Dec. 15, 2017, at 6:00 a.m.
Ronald Reagan offered a sunny vision for the nation, with a "Morning in America" message that built a GOP brand of optimism and fiscal conservatism. Bill Clinton's "Third Way" helped modernize the Democratic Party brand, casting the party as one that balanced government obligations to needy people with personal responsibility. George H. W. Bush talked about a "kinder, gentler nation," softening any hard edges around the GOP image. And Barack Obama's "Hope and Change" slogan energized young voters wanting something new out of an old political party.
Donald Trump, meanwhile, has been the Republican Party's New Coke, branding experts say. And as with the failed effort to expand the cola's market share, the president is damaging the GOP brand not only to his own political detriment, but to the fortunes of other Republicans nervously eyeing their 2018 re-election campaigns.
Trump is regarded as a master brander in the commercial arena, building real estate and entertainment businesses heavily attached to his name. More like a Martha Stewart than, say, a Kraft Foods, Trump personifies the product he is selling. And when Trump now suffering from historically low approval ratings in the low-to-mid 30s struggles, so does the GOP brand he effectively took over when he became the party's presidential nominee and then commander-in-chief, political and branding specialists say.
"When you've got a brand that is tied to a personality, it can be incredibly strong and incredibly vulnerable. It is tied to a human being, and that human being's actions and people's feelings about it, as opposed to the performance of a standardized product or service," says Jason Karpf, a marketing and public relations consultant based in Minnesota. What Trump is attempting now, Karpf says, is what I known in the marketing world as a "brand extension," this one, into the political world. But the effort has been sloppy at best and offensive at worst, experts say, threatening to do serious damage to the GOP brand as a whole.
Recent special and off-year elections are already showing signs of a toxicity that is less Republican-rooted than Trump-specific, according to pollsters and political analysts.
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https://www.usnews.com/news/the-report/articles/2017-12-15/trumps-brand-is-a-drag-on-gop-candidates?emailed=1&src=usn_thereport
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