Many of us now look back on the 2008 elections and the widespread disaffection with George W. Bush and the GOP as a naïve period of burgeoning progressive hopes, quickly throttled in the cradle, because, somehow, the party of Iraq, of Guantanomo Bay, of huge deficits, and disastrous fiscal policy was able to reposition itself totally in Americans' minds.
Really, this repositioning began before the 2008 election results came in. Think about it, John McCain, who was a rogue, independent thinking Republican won the nomination: the GOP rank and file, as well as their strategists, realized that they had to escape the toxic image of G.W. Bush by seeking a "maverick." Then, to much greater effect, John McCain brought a total outsider to federal politics on as vice president, Sarah Palin. Since Sarah Palin's success, the GOP has been introducing a flood of new faces and has rechristened part of itself the Tea Party.
If you have ever studied marketing, what's going on is fairly transparent. For example, after the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, BP station owners began seriously organizing and pushing for BP to go back to the Amoco brand in the US, because their sales had plunged on account of BP's tarnished image.
As far as I know, BP isn't planning on going back to the Amoco name in the US. That was probably a smart decision, because such a switch can only work in the short-term, just as long as people remain confused about who is behind the Amoco brand. Given the outrage over the oil spill and the media attention to BP's response, the switch to Amoco would probably have received a lot of negative media coverage. Folks would see through it, and the BP image would be tarnished even more as they'd look like sleaze bags trying to pull a fast one on the American public. Read more about the possible rebranding of BP in the USA.
The GOP has a similar problem. The GOP brand is still toxic–witness that Bush is not making any appearances and approval of Congressional Republicans' is still lower than Congressional Democrats'. To respond, they've tried to mimic the Sarah Palin effect again and again by introducing a flood of new candidates who have never appeared on the national level before and rebranding them "Tea Party" candidates.
But just as the BP switch to Amoco would only work short-term, until people realized BP was still behind the Amoco name, candidates like Sarah Palin can only be successful until people get used to them and learn what they stand for. New candidates benefit from a sort of honeymoon period, in which they are relatively unknown and can position themselves as rebels to capture Americans' disaffection with the much-maligned political "establishment". However, that new candidate smell doesn't last long. A candidate cannot position themselves as above the fray for very long. By now Sarah Palin has lost most of her appeal, because people are used to her, they've seen her make many gaffes, they've seen her descend into the nasty back-and-forths we associate with national-level politics, and they realize that she basically stands for all the same things that the GOP stood for. Whereas at first the media covered all of Sarah Palin's minor appearances and Twitter posts, now those stories don't sell as well and she gets far less coverage. Her poll numbers are also collapsing.
The same thing is happening with the Tea Party. At first, it's approval ratings were fairly good and it got a lot of media attention, because it was a new force in a time when voters were frustrated with the options open to them. Soon, however, as people learned what the Tea Party stood for–hard-line Republican ideas–they began to lose interest. The Tea Party's approval ratings have slowly collapsed, and new research has shown that "the Tea Party’s supporters today were highly partisan Republicans long before the Tea Party was born, and were more likely than others to have contacted government officials. In fact, past Republican affiliation is the single strongest predictor of Tea Party support today."
Enter the upcoming 2012 elections. Have you noticed how all the potential Republican presidential candidates put off making their intentions clear? In many of the early debates and campaign events, the media was almost more concerned with who did not attend than who showed up and what they said. Perhaps this is because GOP candidates realize they don't have a chance of winning the election if voters actually know who they are and what they stand for. On the other hand, if they pull a Sarah Palin, jumping onto the national scene at the very last second, voters might be confused and frustrated with the other candidates enough that the fresh GOP meat could cherry pick a win. So, don't be surprised to see something along those lines: a totally unknown figure popping up relatively shortly before the primary. It's no secret that GOP voters are not happy with their current candidates and are still looking for someone new.
Addendum 1
The GOP/Tea Party does not monopolize the "new candidate smell" strategy. Obviously, Barack Obama benefited from being relatively unknown, and he faces the same issues the Tea Party faces. As people have gotten used to him, they realize he is not the perfect candidate they had initially thought. Part of his trouble in the polls stems from this.
Addendum 2
Have you grown tired of vacillating between the GOP and Tea Party labels when referring to right-wing politicians and voters? Have you wondered if it is okay to lump them all together under the GOP moniker? Have you struggled to determine which representatives are solid Tea Partiers, which are solid Republicans, or whether we should refer to all of them as members of the GOP/Tea Party?
This labeling confusion is evidence that most of us still don't have a clear idea of what the Tea Party stands for. The Tea Party claims to be a thorn in the side of the establishment republicans, but really their positions are just based on hardline Republican values, so most of us still associate them with the GOP. Personally, I think this wishy-washy back-and-forth between the Tea Party and the Republican labels adds to voters' confusion and benefits the right, since they don't really want people to know what they stand for. They just want to benefit from the Tea Party's rebel image as long as people will let them get away with it. So, I think we should stop saying the "GOP/Tea Party," or whatever work-around is currently working for you, and just say the GOP.
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