RNC Rebranding Campaign

After watching the Republican National Convention, the first word that comes to mind is bitter. The speakers seemed bitter that the Republican party has fallen so low and that the majority of American people have rejected the policies of the Republican party that sent us into this tailspin. This resentment led many of the speeches to be filled with falsehoods and insults to broad segments of the U.S. voters.

They even tried to blame America's woes on the Democrats in Congress. Now let's review the past few eight years. The Republicans have controlled the White House and Congress for the majority of the time. The Democrats have controlled the Senate for only 3 and a half of the past eight years and the House for only the last 2 years. The Senate is currently composed of 49 Democrats and 49 Republicans. The other two offices are held by Independents Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, both of whom caucus with the Democrats, giving the Democrats the majority and the Republicans the minority. When you add in that the Republicans broke the record for the most filibusters in history in 2007 and are adding to that record, you realize that the Democrats in Congress have had little chance to make any changes. Kind of ironic, seeing as Republicans were so opposed to filibusters when they had the majority.

McCain and Palin also attacked Washington politics in general, attempting to cast themselves as reformers. However, McCain's record over the last eight years shows that he isn't the Maverick that he either used to be or claims to be. Over the last 8 years, McCain has voted with President Bush 90% of the time, and in 2007 voted with President Bush 95% of the time, according to Congressional Quarterly. McCain has even bragged about this point.

The McCain campaign is on a major advertising campaign now to re-brand and re-cast themselves as being different than Bush-Cheney. But the more that you research the topics, the more you realize how similar they are. I will post more over the next few weeks showing how McCain-Palin does not equal the change we need, but is, as the Obama campaign says, more of the same.