Of memes, metaphors and moral pocket-lint

In politics, there's a tactic called the trial balloon. It basically amounts to having someone at the periphery or epicenter of influence toss a meme out into the press as sort of a marketing test. If it's rejected, whatever was motivating the meme is either unceremoniously shot, or a different, possibly just more sugar-coated meme is tested.

But something's cropped up in the last week or so has been bothering me: The day-late-dollar-short head-scratching and soul-searching being done by the GOP (national and nearer to home) that involves the meme of refurbishing the GOP's "brand."

As a voter, taxpayer and recovered Reagan Youth, I'm genuinely offended by the term "brand." "Brand" is a marketing concept. "Brand" is Coke vs. Pepsi, Ford vs. Chevy, McDonalds vs. Burger King. It is not about the ideologies that affect millions--if not billions--of lives, and trillions of dollars. And if the chest-thumping over being the soi-dissant party of "moral values" a few years ago was really only about maintaining a brand, then I think that a lot of the folks deserve an explanation, not to mention an apology. Bottom line: "Brand" is the talk of marketers, not leaders. And for that reason, the person who concocted that cynical meme, as well as those who parrot it, should be deeply ashamed of their former pretensions to holding a monopoly on right-thinking.

But as angry as I am at the insult to the principles of leadership inherent in substituting "brand" for "beliefs," part of me is glad that the term is in cant use on the right. On a subliminal level, it will drive home the shallow, time-serving moral bankruptcy of the neocon agenda. Namely the idea that the public is something to be manipulated with a splashy new logo, a catchy jingle, a celebrity endorsement. But the "brand" metaphor ominously indicates--for Republicans, anyway--that the lessons of 2006 and subsequent special elections have yet to be learned. Which in turn hopefully means that the party is fated for still more karmic payback.