'WHAT ARE REPUBLICANS?': Help John Boehner Polish the GOP "Brand" [View All]

They need a memorable slogan. How about: "Just screw 'em"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/31/AR2007053102102.html?nav=rss_politics


By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 1, 2007; Page A13

Their president's approval ratings are at historic lows. The war in Iraq is grinding down their political prospects, and their party is showing deep divisions on issues such as education and immigration.

But to House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), Republicans' path to power rests on brand recognition. Boehner has convened a group of allies and confidantes to work on GOP "branding," an exercise designed to restore an identity to a party that many voters no longer see as holding a core set of principles.


"We're trying to look into our conscience and define ourselves, and as we define ourselves, decide how we can best communicate that to the rest of the world," said Rep. John Carter (Tex.), the Republican conference secretary and one of the effort's participants. "In other words, what are Republicans?"

To some House conservatives, the branding effort is navel-gazing in the middle of a hurricane. A Republican lobbyist familiar with the project, speaking on the condition of anonymity to maintain relations with GOP leaders, said it will be impossible to create a new Republican "brand" out of the House, while President Bush casts his shadow and image on the party.

Critics see the whole exercise, for better or for worse, as a distillation of Boehner's leadership style: feel-good consensus-building that eschews confrontation -- but to little effect. Boehner is personally popular, they say, but with the party in such a deep hole, he needs to be more of a public leader.

"There's a large and growing contingent in the conference that says he's not being aggressive enough," said one House Republican with close leadership ties, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to preserve those ties. "He's . . . agreeable. Everyone gets along. But that's not the mind-set you need to get back to the majority."


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