GOP Should Stop Looking To 'New Coke' for Answers - Granite Grok

GOP Should Stop Looking To ‘New Coke’ for Answers

GOP wants to be new_cokeNew Jersey Governor Chris Christie argued that you must first ‘Get Republicans’ Elected if you want policy decisions made from a Republican perspective.

To my ear that admonition is little different from the phrase ‘We need more” teachers (cops, firefighters, social workers).  The result of more of any of those things is not necessarily better education, safer streets, fewer fires, or stronger families.   You will produce bigger budgets, higher taxes, and more bureaucracy, but that is about all you can guarantee.

You get the exact same result when the nostrum for the GOP’s misfortune hinges entirely on the idea that all we must do is elect someone with an (R) after their name. We just need more republicans.


Anyone can claim to be a Republican.  If the entire Democrat caucus in the New Hampshire House, which currently holds a majority, announced in total that they were all switching to the GOP, the NH-GOP establishment would throw a parade.  The Republicans would declare victory and strut about publicizing their new-found political prowess.

The new republican majority would vote for increased spending and mandated conception to birth abortion.  It would attempt to overturn parental notification, make home-schooling untenable, and pass oppressive fire-arms regulations. It would endeavor to expand the bureaucratic state and use state power to control your lifestyle. These republicans would empower unions with fresh evergreen laws and card-check to add members. It would regulate free-speech, redefine what a journalist was, make expansive corporatist partnerships, and institute a sales and an income tax.

That would make a difference, yes?

Well it makes a difference when it is just a dozen republicans, and it could make a difference if it were just one.

Consider.

If you went to McDonald’s expecting a Big Mac and you got tofu burger, you’d feel put off.  If it happened more than once you would consider taking your custom elsewhere.  If you had no way of knowing, when you walked through the door, regardless of what you ordered, what you would walk out with, you’d stop going there, and you might just stop eating out all together.

(In politics, only one party benefits from that, and it is not Republicans.)

What you are, who you are, has to mean something tangible.  If it does not, you are nothing.

Successful brands are consistent.  They protect their trademarks and defend themselves and their ‘products.’  If the GOP, the NH-GOP, any set of ideas at all wishes to thrive and survive it must deliver something that people need and it must do so with consistency, passion and conviction.

Republicans have a platform that delivers, if they only had enough sense to promte it and to then insist that Republicans at least try to follow it.

Freedom is sexy.  People do not want to be burgled by bureaucrats or robbed by policy makers.  Most of us just want to be left alone to live our lives with the expectation that government while present not be ever-present.

We want to keep most of what we earn, donate to charities we support when we are able and we’d rather not be shackled by red-tape or bureaucrats poking into our business or our families business.

We want everyone to have the same opportunities and to be able to go as far as they want or are able.

If a real tragedy were to strike, or real need present itself, and family, friends, or private charity was not enough yes, there would be a basic safety net to manage, close to home, to limit waste, fraud, and abuse.  As often as possible, the decision making would be as close to the taxpayer, as possible.

These are the basic principles of the GOP.  They align with the thinking of a majority of Americans.  So what exactly is the problem?

A few decades back, Coke tried to be Pepsi.  It created ‘New Coke.’   Coke realized it’s mistake and promptly went back to its roots, survived, and thrived.

The GOP has been trying to emulate the “success” of New Coke.

A Knock-off is always cheaper (quality-wise) but why settle for the fake when you can have the real thing for the same price?

I am not being divisive.  I am being practical. I don’t want New Coke.  I want The Real Thing. I want Platform Republicans–at least until they change the platform to match their New Coke death spiral.

If I can’t find it in the Republican Party I will look someplace else.

I am not alone.

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