4 Ways Republicans Can Relaunch The Brand: Crystal Pepsi Edition

After every election, the losing party assesses the damage, and thinks of ways they can get the elusive 50.1% of the vote the next time around. In other words, how do political parties relaunch themselves to get a bigger share of the market for the next round of elections?  As the loser of two presidential elections in a row, Republicans are now the ones in re-branding mode. What tried and true marketing techniques can the Republicans perform moving forward to become more appealing to more people?

Come Sail Away: Our Top 3 Take-Aways from the 2012 Election

So there has been over 24 hours of sobbing, crowing, whining, gloating, and finger-pointing.  And that was just on Facebook.  Now that we have a bit of distance from the emotion of the night, what are our top take-aways from the election?  We will each give you our top 3.



Emily:

1. Women Matter -

3 Reasons Why Obama Will Lose The Election

On the eve of the last presidential debate, the national polls have President Obama and his opponent, former Massachusetts Governor Romney running neck and neck.  If Obama does falter and loses his re-election bid, these would be the top three reasons why:

The Amazing Race (-Baiting)

"I think the way liberals have treated blacks like children and many of their policies have been harmful to blacks, at least they got the beneficiary group right," Coulter said. "There is the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow laws. We don't owe the homeless. We don't owe feminists. We don't owe women who are desirous of having abortions or gays who want to get married to one another. That's what civil rights has become for much of the left."

"Immigrant rights are not civil rights?" Stephanopoulos asked.

"No," Coulter responded, "No. I think civil rights are for blacks. What have we done to the immigrants? We owe black people something. We have a legacy of slavery. Immigrants haven't even been in this country."

Empathy and Politics: See Me, Feel Me, Touch Me, Heal Me

I've been thinking a lot about empathy lately.

The subtext of this campaign seems - to me - to be about empathy, in two ways.


1. Empathy and Likability.

Yes, empathy is often considered a girly emotion (in a dismissive way), but I'm going to posit that what pollsters are testing when they talk about "likability" is actually largely a measure of a candidate's actual or perceived ability to empathize with other people.


Take Bubba.

Classic, textbook empath.  He "feels your pain."  He could read a phone book and sound interesting because he would stop and tell you stories about the people and businesses as he read their names and addresses.   

Scandals that would fell other politicians barely leave a dent on Bubba.  People get mad at him for his policies or actions, he says stupid things on occasion, but in the end he pulls out a speech or an interview and most people remember why they like him.  He understands people.  He understands how to explain complex policies to people, he understands what people are thinking.  He's empathic. 

(Grammatical note: I'm using "empathic" differently than "empathetic," because of the extra meaning of empathic to describe a person who "is very in tune with the feelings of others," rather than "of or related to empathy" - for which I'll use "empathetic.")

And that quality leads to large likability numbers, which rebound after an appropriate time whenever he faces criticism.

Friday Follies-Taste the Obama Rainbow

Obama gave a very stirring keynote address  where he made the case for why he should be given another 4 years.  See the speech below:

The best part of the speech for me was this:

We honor the strivers, the dreamers, the risk-takers who have always been the driving force behind our free enterprise system – the greatest engine of growth and prosperity the world has ever known.


But we also believe in something called citizenship – a word at the very heart of our founding, at the very essence of our democracy; the idea that this country only works when we accept certain obligations to one another, and to future generations.

Obama has been the source of many memes over the course of his presidency.  Follow me below the fold as we examine the many pro- and anti-Obama memes floating around the internet.

Mitt Went to Tampa and All I Got Was this Stupid Empty Chair

What did we learn last week?

Yes, Paul Ryan got up there and just, well, lied/fibbed/bamboozled/what-have-you.  And it seems like some of the press realized that, which is refreshing.  Even Fox joined in.  But Ryan is not the point.  Then Clint Eastwood yelled at a chair.  Which was seriously uncomfortable to watch, because he seemed a bit out of it at times.  But Eastwood is not the point.  The point is larger, and potentially more disturbing.

5 Moments in Racial Dogwhistling History (of the last 30 years or so)

 

Inexorably during the last 30 years or so, someone starts doing the math, and realizes that white people make up a hefty percentage of the electorate. Politicians inevitably try to appeal to this important demographic, some by using soaring rhetoric and an appeal to better nature. Others, well, not so much. Since it is no longer acceptable to pitch things to people in blatantly racial terms, politicians in recent times have tried to craft workarounds, dog whistles if you will, to appeal to certain demographics, without having to state out loud exactly what they are trying to say. Follow me below the fold to get 5 modern examples of racial dog whistling...

Chain of Fools

Recent controversy this week revolved around some remarks of Vice President Joe Biden who observed that while Romney was planning on unchaining regulations on Wall Street, the Republicans would in fact be putting the middle-class back in chains if Romney was elected. Biden's exact words were, ""He said in the first hundred days, he's going to let the big banks once again write their own rules, unchain Wall Street.  They're going to put y'all back in chains."

Mitt Romney: Yo Momma Is So Poor...

Did you hear the one about the candidate who decided to race-bait rather than talk about his taxes?

So suddenly this week - into the presidential race about "the economy, stupid" - charges one of the least understood, most micro-managed, least policy-driven debates we ever have in our country.  The debate over welfare.

See, e.g. the new ad Romney has put out, per Rachel Maddow...

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

1. This is a personal issue.  I was a kid when Ronald Reagan railed against Welfare Queens.  He talked a lot about single mothers, too.  At the time, my mother was a single mother (not on welfare, but certainly struggling, financially).  I took it personally.  I'm still pretty angry about it.

Dog Whistle: Anglo-Saxon Edition

New Romney Campaign Meme: My ancestors could beat up your ancestors.

Dog Whistle: Birther Edition

1. Birtherism - the belief that President Obama was not really born in Hawaii, and that the State of Hawaii is somehow lying or covering for him - is illogical.  Sometimes people - especially politicians - lie.  But in this case, there is no logical reason to believe President Obama was lying about the place of his birth, because the people we trust to verify these things (state health officials) all say that President Obama was born in Hawaii.  I'm not going to go through the entire case, because Factcheck.org has done that.  But even if we believe that the State officials are lying (and why would it be logical to believe that?), the release of his long-form birth certificate should take care of any concerns that any remotely reasonable person may have.

So even if any of the Birther nonsense was ever driven by any real, logical concerns, at this point anybody who believes that President Obama was not born in America is driven by delusion.

Et Tu, Booker?

So what do you make of Newark, New Jersey mayor /Obama spokesman Corey Booker calling ads which criticize Romney’s dealings with Bain “nauseating” and equating those ads with ads which were set to criticize former Obama pastor Jeremiah Wright? 

Dog Whistle?

Background:  Karl Rove's super PAC, American Crossroads, has come out with a video that has been getting a lot of coverage this week.  Here it is -



Emily:  I call racist.  Thoughts?