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Broken Promises and Broken Hearts
As the American people ready themselves for an election just two weeks away, Republican candidates find themselves in big trouble. Polls released earlier this week show independent voters favoring Democrats on a 2-to-1 basis.
The Republican base - reportedly characterized as "nuts" by White House insiders - just might strike back by staying home on election day. Candidates like Michael Steele - who is running for a Maryland Senate seat - have deliberately obscured their Republican Party affiliation. Steele doesn't want Republican brand equities working against him.
George W. Bush and the Republican Party are in big trouble, and not just because of the Iraq War.
The Republican Party's brand has been seriously damaged. Historians may look back and see the Mark Foley scandal as what Malcolm Gladwell might call "a tipping point." By itself, the Foley scandal is serious, but when you consider this scandal in the context of the Republican brand promise, it is mortally wounding.
The Republican Party has branded itself as the party of Family Values: the party who, like a brave and noble father, would protect us against the evils of the world.
It is a big brand problem when the American public suspects that the Republican leadership is incapable of protecting teenage pages from sexual predators in the halls of the Capitol building. These pages, after all, are American teenagers who are vulnerable to Congress' admixture of celebrity and power.
It's not a question of whether Hastert's leadership cadre did know, or when they knew; the problem is that Foley's behavior was common knowledge and they should have known.
As a former coach, Dennis Hastert came from a school environment. He knows, without question, that any coach, school principal, or superintendent of schools who did not proactively act in loco parentis would be tossed out in public shame. But Hastert is trying to survive by saying, "I didn't know." He is as condemned by his ignorance as he would be by inaction - and I am giving him the benefit of the doubt.
To understand just how serious this situation is, you have to appreciate just how effective and brilliant the Republican Party's brand strategy has been. Not only have the Republicans effectively branded themselves, they have brilliantly positioned the Democratic Party in contrast as a bunch of bumbling, tax-loving, no-ideas, cowardly Liberals who will weaken America through a lack of resolve, and who have no moral compass.
Far subtler - and far more effective - the Republican brand stands for being successful, disciplined, effective, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent. It's as close to the Boy Scout Motto as you can get without the hat, merit badges and kerchief.
The Republican brand strategy - as an affinity brand - will stand in the Branding Hall of Fame as a product of genius. To be a Republican, in brand terms, is to use the affiliation as a badge of not only success, but virtue.
The Republican brand stands for:
1) Keeping America safe, especially from the evils of terrorism, whether al Qaida or state-sponsored terrorism, i.e. Irag
2) Small government
3) Fiscal responsibility
4) Family Values
5) Sacredness of human life
6) Freedom - here and around the world
7) Opportunity to realize the American Dream.
8. Preserving the spirit and intentions of our Founding Fathers.
But, have the promises been kept?
1) Intelligence reports from the CIA - forcibly declassified - unequivocally state that the Iraq war has not only failed to make America safer, but has bred unprecedented hatred of America, and thousands of terrorists around the world who are fanatically committed to the destruction of our people, our values, and our way of life.
2) Under George W. Bush and a Republican Senate and House, the Federal Government has grown larger, faster than at any time in history.
3) The largest contributions to the Federal deficit in America's history have been under Republican leadership. Only twice in the last 50 years - both times under a Democrat President - has the budget been balanced.
4) First among all family values is protecting the vulnerable - our children. The Foley scandal shows that Republican leaders will hold others to account, but not themselves. The Republican House Leadership - to a one - are shifting the blame elsewhere.
5) Republican leaders will use the force of law to protect the unborn, but the precious, cherished sons, husbands, and fathers who die in Iraq? The loss of their lives and their promise seems wasted.
6) We have never felt less free. We are searched like criminals when we board planes. We must show government-issued picture identification to enter buildings for common business meetings. Our phone calls are monitored. Are we really at liberty?
7) As a nation of immigrants who came here seeking opportunity, the language of immigrant-hating xenophobia is proliferating.
8) The Founding Fathers feared - more than anything - the unchecked, dictatorial power of tyrants who ignore the rule of law and the rights of the few. An undeclared war rages in Iraq. Laws protecting the privacy of citizens are secretly broken and the loyal government workers who blow the whistle are threatened and intimidated by the Executive Branch. Bush signs laws but refuses to enforce their provisions, threatening the separation of powers built into the constitution. National liberty is being sacrificed for claims of national security.
The evidence suggests that the Republican brand promise has not only been broken, but smashed beyond recognition.
Break your brand promise and people will defect and they are likely to never return. Nowhere is this dynamic deadlier than in the affinity and affiliation categories - political party affiliation. Both parties must take notice.
Marketers have known for decades that people tell you who they are by the products, services, and ideas they buy. People construct their own identities through the organizations they belong to and the products they buy.
When someone says, "I am a Republican" or "I am a Democrat," they signal a direct connection between what being a Republican or Democrat means and what their identity is. They attach the party's equities: associations, memories, principles, and iconic figures (Ronald Reagan, John F. Kennedy, Abraham Lincoln).
Those equities are morphing into something quite different, something very damaging to the Republican party. The Republican brand is coming to mean something else. It has become a party of arrogance, stubbornness, self-service, and big spending. To be a Republican today is to wear a different badge. It is to wear a badge that will be interpreted by walk, not talk.
In decade-long studies of entrenched or inert categories (insurance, law, medicine, financial services, church) marketers have learned that betrayal or humiliation are "conversion triggers" that will cause people to convert from one product, service, or affinity relationship to another. When these conversion-trigger behaviors occur, a strange counter-intuitive behavior occurs:
Those who have been most loyally entrenched will leave you quickest. They will transfer their loyalty somewhere else. Are Republicans doing this now? It would seem that many are doing so - at least those whose heads and hearts and still clear and noble.
It seems to me that only those people who have something to lose by choosing country over party will succumb to the seductive power of dogmatic arrogance. I choose to believe that most Americans value their country over their party. Our salvation lies in our resolve to place what we stand for over what we selfishly want.
Betrayal. There are many good, noble, and honest Republicans who have believed in the promises that their party made - especially regarding who they are, what they believe, and how they keep them.
Nobody wants to wear a badge of broken promises.
Posted on October 26, 2006 08:50 AM | Permalink
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Comments
Interesting point of view and reflection. The party line is now very blurred and as far as I am concerned there is no true Republican or Democrat party any more. My Grandfather is rolling around in his grave seeing what has happened to the Two Party System.
As many have said before me, I now vote for the man/woman and not the party. Sad but true.
Thanks again Neill for the Branding concept and how it can hurt a Party or Company when it goes by the wayside.