It’s time to be blunt: seemingly with each hour, the Republican rebranding effort seems to be in shambles. The latest counterproductive comment comes from Republican National Committeeman Henry Barbour who is supposed to be involved in the rebranding of the GOP. Exactly how is calling President Barack Obama a “Socialist” rebranding the GOP? It’s confirming the 2012 brand of the GOP to many voters:
Leading Republicans called on their party to adopt a more inclusive tone Monday — but in doing so one used some controversial rhetoric to describe President Obama, calling him a “socialist.”
Republican National Committeeman Henry Barbour, a top GOP strategist and one of the authors of the Republican National Committee’s detailed plan to help the party reboot, used the term about the president during a conversation with The Hill about the GOP’s need to improve its primary process.
“If we want to focus on a handful of issues and try to impact some primaries and lose the generals, that’s really not going to effect public policy. We all want to make America strong economically and militarily and every other way but you can’t do that if you’re not in office,” Barbour told The Hill. “We’ve got a socialist in office right now — how’s that working for us?”
And then he refused to back down on his comment.
Which, sadly, says it all for many voters who are not in the Republican choir.
It’s a party that will not change so you take it or leave it — and many voters who are not in the choir (including moderate Republicans drummed out of the party or staying it in, Democrats who aren’t liberals, independents and moderates) will continue to leave it. Read these words:
He defended the language when asked if that was one of the terms the GOP should be avoiding.
“I don’t care. I mean, look, I think he’s a socialist. I’m not saying he doesn’t love our country,” said Barbour, the nephew of former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour. “No, I don’t care.”
And so you have it.
In a phrase:
Reboot, reshmoot.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.