For years, it’s been axiomatic among political observers that the GOP “brand” is damaged. There is certainly merit to this observation, though it is often bandied about in contexts where there’s little to no evidence supporting that conclusion. The media has turned this talking point into such an endless drumbeat that you wonder how much of the GOP’s brand problem is real and how much is the result of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Now let’s take a look at the current election. It sure seems like the Democrats have a brand problem. As the New York Times recently reported, Democrats up for reelection are avoiding Obama like he has Ebola. “Even the slightest injection of the Obama brand into this election seems perilous for Democrats,” notes Times reporter Jonathan Martin. Alison Lundergan Grimes, Kentucky’s Democratic Senate candidate, is even running ads where she declares “I’m not Barack Obama.” College Democrats volunteering for Grimes campaign have had to cover-up their Obama T-shirts before canvassing in Kentucky.
How toxic is Barack Obama? Candidates don’t even want his wife, who has heretofore had stellar popularity ratings, campaigning for them. “Yet despite the nail-biting closeness of state contests to decide which party will control the Senate, Michelle Obama has been largely absent from the campaign trail so far,” reports the Times again. “‘She’s awesome, but it just brings in the name Obama,’ said a Democratic strategist in a state with a close Senate race, who, like most other Democrats interviewed, declined to be identified discussing politics involving Mrs. Obama.”
But it’s not that Obama’s obvious incompetence and torrent of scandals has made him uniquely unpopular. A headline in yesterday’s National Journal read: “Embattled House Democrats Turn Against Nancy Pelosi: She has long been among Republicans’ top targets, but some of her own now see value in turning against their leader.”
At a Democratic fundraiser last month, Democratic Senator Mark Pryor, who’s in a very tight reelection race, was caught on tape decrying Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. “If you asked a thousand Americans, is this the guy who’s best positioned to lead the U.S. Senate, people would laugh at you,” Pryor said in a recording obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. He added: “I think possibly the best thing that could happen … to this institution, this election cycle would be if [Senate Minority Leader] Mitch McConnell gets beat and Harry Reid gets replaced.”
Meanwhile, in Kansas, there was a senate candidates debate yesterday. Here’s how Politico describes how that went down:
The Senate majority leader came up in nearly every answer the two candidates aimed at one another, with each professing more strongly than the other that he thinks Reid’s stewardship of the Senate has been abysmal.
The Kansas Senate race is also instructive here. Republican senator Pat Roberts is fending off a challenge from “Independent” Greg Orman. Orman previously ran against Roberts as a Democrat in 2008, and in his current race he’s hired Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee staffers to help run his campaign. He’s pro-choice and says he’d support the Senate’s 2013 immigration bill.
But Orman’s not running as a Democrat, because, again, the Democratic brand is toxic.
Given this toxicity, it’s odd then we don’t see a flurry of stories about how the Democratic party needs to take drastic measures to fix its damaged brand. Just yesterday, a Bloomberg columnist declared “The Triumph of the Democratic Party.” History could prove that correct, though even a cursory assessment of the parts of America are where Democratic governance dominates suggests this would not be a victory for the American people.
But in the meantime, would it kill the media and political observers to ask some tough questions about the state of Democratic party? Surely voters are sending a message that they want the party to recalibrate its obviously flawed policies, tone down its extremism, and take responsibility for the gross incompetence its leadership has demonstrated.
