For over thirty years, the GOP marketing machine has successfully branded their party with the following simple brand attributes (notice how quickly these almost visceral brand elements roll off the tongue like all good brand attributes that comprise brand mythos):

• Zealous patriotism
• Commitment to small, Constitutionally-controlled government
• Promise of lower taxes and reduced government spending
• Staunch commitment to moral and "traditional" values

This has been a phenomenal endeavor given that the reality of the GOP is

• The prostitution of flag and country--especially useful in filling the ranks for a ruinous war (disagree with the war and be labeled "unAmerican" which became co-branded with "enemy"). The cretinous focus on whether Barack Obama "loves his country" hinged on whether (and where) he wore an "American flag pin," caring little about how he treated his country and its core tenets.
• Increasing government intrusion in personal matters like personal liberties and family.

  With its enforcment of extraordinary rendition and suspenson of habeas corpus, the GOP has essentially used its enormous marketing prowess to fool the American public that while we think we operate in a representative democracy, we really function in an absolutist monarchy.

  Again, here, the GOP has masterfully branded the Democrats as socialists while ignoring the fact that socialism arose as a reaction to the ignoring by the government of the needs of the people who produced the country's wealth....oh, and that Jesus, Gandhi and King certainly had collectivist notions which continue to horrify the members of the Grand Old Party when spoken aloud by a Democrat.

  Further, focusing on its anti-gay rhetoric, the GOP did nothing to staunch the aggregate 38% annual marriage failure rate. Looking at divorce differently, I find that this figure is impacted by age and number of marriages with a 41% divorce rate for first marriages, 60% failure rate for second tries and 73% for third marriages and divorce increasing with decreasing age.

  Given that one key mitigating factor in divorce is childlessness, with 66% of divorced couples being childless, the GOP's efforts to eliminate the birth control pill and the IUD (medically termed "abortifacients" which work, in part, to prevent implantation of a fertilized egg) could make sense. Looking at the seeming forced marriage of the very preggers Bristol Palin to her 18 year old beau gives us a sense of the GOP family values mindset: forbid discussions of birth control or family planning with the young, stigmatize contraception, prevent abortion, encourage marriage. See? Brilliant! Nevermind the fact that out-of-wedlock childbearing among our youth is very often the beginning of a life course fraught with increased risk of additional unintended childbirths, diminished economic opportunities, and unstable and unhealthy marriages.

  Pander to the "right to a child's life" (while ignoring the GOP's stance of war or on the death penalty) and criminalize abortion, only springing the fact that if life begins at conception (which, by the way, I believe), legal, healthy and safe birth control choices would simply evaporate. Also, ignore the rest of the oft-quoted nugged which supports "liberty and the pursuit of happiness" for the mother. Just pretend that this quote only applies to human fetuses and not to the women who carry them.

  Oh! Oh! And let's applaud the GOP's ability to mask the marked marriage failure in their "red states." For instance, liberal Massachusetts sees "5.7 divorces per 1,000 married people, compared with 10.8 in Kentucky, 11.1 in Mississippi and 12.7 in Arkansas" (click here to read the rest of this interesteding NYT article).

• Having branded Democrats as "tax and spend liberals," the GOP has ignored the reality of their "borrow and spend" brand (I guess because they don't like it). Newt Gingrich, the standard bearer for GOP Power in the Clintonassic Era, touted a balanced budget as a "moral imperitive." Now, that same GOP has seen record deficits and government overspending. My great grandmother finished eighth grade in rural Kentucky. She taught me that if you spend more than you have, you're broke. If you borrow more than you can repay, you're stupid and broke. She was a Kentucky sharecropper who despised a system of borrow and spend that kept generations of Blacks economically enslaved. I wish she was here to tell the GOP that the U.S.A. is now China's bitch.
• Rampant immorality in their ranks (click here for the interactive reminder). Need I say more? I can, but it would be overkill.

All in all, the GOP has controlled not only its own message, but that of the Democratic Party. It's time the Dems take its message back...and take the game to the American People. I hope they don't try to overreach in re-branding the GOP. Leave the GOP to themselves and let them fail...like New Coke, Betamax, Harley Davidson perfume and the Edsel. Read Brand Failures: The Truth about the 100 Biggest Branding Mistakes of All Time for other bloated brand failures. I'm sure in a future edition, the GOP will top the list.

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