Pizza and politics go together in the American republic, or so it appears.
Recently Democrats have been mocked mercilessly for borrowing their new slogan from Papa John’s. But Republicans were the first to look to pizzerias to fix their problems. After losing a second presidential election to Barack Obama, it was the Grand Old Party who openly copied Dominos.
During their annual policy retreat in 2013, former House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, ordered pizza. More specifically he invited Domino’s Pizza CEO J. Patrick Doyle to explain to the GOP conference, gathered for a slumber party in Williamsburg, Virginia how to turn around their brand.
Everyone on the left, from the New Republic to the Daily Kos, mocked the move. Jed Lewison had the most succinct take, writing that Republicans had to ask “a pizza executive to teach them how to not suck so much.”
And well, it sort of worked.
After identifying almost entirely as obstructionists, Republicans needed something else to run on. What had worked to win the House in 2010, failed to win over enough voters in 2012. And so imitating Dominos viral “The Pizza Turnaround” campaign, the GOP started listening to focus groups and taking criticism.
Just like Dominos rewrote their recipe for cardboard-tasting crust, the GOP reworked their policy and their approach. They confronted the problem directly with things like the Republican National Committee’s autopsy and later Speaker Ryan’s Better Way agenda.
While President Trump has upended some of that strategy, the basis has remained the same. Republican electoral success has come from a direct appeal to individual voters.
Today Democrats face a similar predicament to the one Republicans struggled with after the 2012 election. But rather than issuing a mea culpa, it seems like they’ve started shopping around for a new slogan. Their first draft was “A Better Deal: Better Skills, Better Jobs, Better Wages.” That line has since been updated to “A Better Deal: Better Jobs, Better Wages, Better Future.”
New market-tested messaging won’t solve Democrat problems, just like the Clinton machine couldn’t win the presidency. New excuses won’t override old election results.
Over the weekend, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., came the closest to recognizing that fact.
“When you lose to somebody who has 40 percent popularity, you don’t blame other things — Comey, Russia — you blame yourself,” Schumer told The Washington Post over the weekend. “So what did we do wrong? People didn’t know what we stood for, just that we were against Trump. And still believe that.”
While Republican buffoonery has overshadowed Democrat troubles recently, their party is in trouble just the same. They’re out of power and facing a tough electoral challenge in 2018. To survive that test, they’re going to need more than re-microwaved branding.
Democrats can’t just copy Papa John’s. They need to instead copy how Republicans copied Dominos.
Philip Wegmann is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
