Cry Me A River, And Color Me Skeptical

Tiny violin via caitlinburke.

Since the election, the "rebranding" of the GOP has become the PR story du jour among the wurlitzer set. Jose Antonio Vargas examines attempts to advance the wingnutty ball:

"In this Internet era, it’s not enough to run a campaign, you need to lead a movement — that’s what Obama did," she continues. "If you look at their site, their online videos, their online ads, everything they did, it wasn’t about ‘me, myself and I.’ It was about ‘we’ and ‘us.’ "

Well, wouldn’t it be all candy and flowers if the GOP has learned to look past the "I’ve got mine, screw you" trickle on philosophy and contemplate the "we" of the world.

Except they haven’t. 

Reading up on the fall of Freedom’s Watch (shorter version: the economy is smacking the snot out of right-funding billionaires, too, these days — oh, the wingnut welfare horror!), I noticed this little gem from one of Nevada’s top GOP stalwarts:

Rogich believes the GOP should eschew divisive social issues and moralistic scolding, emphasizing pragmatism and fiscal responsibility instead.

"The answer will be a reasonable sense of moderation," he said. "We all read the same public opinion polls. There is a new group of educated men and women coming into the mainstream now, and we’re losing those people."

Note no changes in policies, merely a shift in PR rebranding emphasis.  Frank Luntz advised Republican leadership to frequently utter words like "accountability" and "efficiency," as though the Bush years and their GOP-centric results never even happened.  What a farce.

Same thing in the Vargas article, anything Gingrich and his ilk utter, and pretty much everything that has dribbled forth from the GOP Congressional leadership. To wit:

“What I’m saying to the new president and the new administration: ‘Do big things, and do them in the center, and you’ll be surprised at how much support you might have,’ " he said at the news conference.

Otherwise, McConnell warned, his party would stand together and block a far-left agenda.

“You’re likely to have very significant unity among Republicans," he said.

Feel that change? That kumbaya? That spirit of cooperation and bipartisan fantasy come true? Me neither. 

The GOP wingnuttery set has been founded on a top-down, orders from above hierarchy for ages. Time will tell if their new esprit de corpse revives the stagnant reaches of independence and freedom as honored concepts. Color me skeptical that this is anything but an attempt to get their colors done and a switch from winter to spring on the outside.

Beauty is as beauty does. Or in this case, likely doesn’t.

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