Scott Ott
Examiner Scrappleface: Steele says GOP re-branding won't involve hot iron
By: Scott Ott
Examiner Columnist
May 1, 2009
News Fairly Unbalanced. We Report. You Decipher.
In an effort to calm the fears of moderates who feel their party has been taken over by dogmatic conservatives, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele today said the recently-announced re-branding of the party "will not involve hot iron."
"These days branding is more of a marketing term," said Steele. "It's about persuading the public that we Republicans really believe in limited government, lower taxes, individual liberty and personal responsibility, regardless of our actual behavior in office."
The party chairman explained that the RNC has to "deal with the practical realities of politics, not some ideologically-pure Utopia."
"In the real world," said Steele, "It's much more practical to hire consultants to craft new talking points, logos, slogans and advertising than it is to try to get a bunch of rogue Republican incumbents to actually stand together for our values, and walk the talk."
However, many moderate Republicans argue that the best way to win elections is to convince Democrats that "we're not so different from you," according to one unnamed New England senator.
"We need to emulate the success of store-brand products," the anonymous senator said. "They're cheaper versions of the nationally-known brand-name products, often made in the same factory. My own record shows that you can win as a Republican in a blue state if you can get people to overlook the Republican label and to realize that the content of the package is the same stuff they're used to."
Meanwhile, Chairman Steele said the RNC would hire more consultants "to re-brand the re-branding process with a less frightening term."
"Perhaps it's an unfortunate choice of words," he said, "since so many of our party leaders still have the old cattle-branding image seared in their minds from childhood."
Washington Examiner columnist Scott Ott is editor-in-chief of ScrappleFace.com, the world's leading family-friendly news satire source.
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