McCain says 'Hopefully she'll be involved.' Eric Cantor says 'no one is not invited.' There's a warm welcome.

FWIW, RedState's description of the conference call says, "Senator McCain also mentioned several times that they had contacted Governor Sarah Palin’s office and asked her to join them with future NCNA efforts. Senator McCain made sure to mention that fact several times."

They should rebrand. They're finally realizing that a party of bible-thumping, anti-gay, anti-abortion extremists is NOT GOING OVER WELL WITH THE AMERICAN PUBLIC. What a concept. It took them this long to figure that out?

Eric Cantor says 'no one is not invited.'

Hey, will Arlen Specter be there?

"It took them this long to figure that out?"

No, it took them this long to lose enough fiscally conservative "bible-thumping, anti-gay, anti-abortion extremists" -- those who suddenly realized cash flow really is more important than morals -- to finally lose the horse, the bridge and the over-loaded wagonful of bullshit.

Arlen Specter is no one.

It's hip to be square!

As for a rebranding committee, 50 should be the maximum age for membership, not the average age. Plus, leave Palin out of it; we need her up there defending the northwestern flank. It was the job she was born to perform.

This is their problem in a nutshell, they still approach governing the country as if it were a marketing problem. No amount of rebranding is going to fix a product that sucks to begin with. It didn't save Pontiac and it's not going to save the Republicans. New slogans aren't going to help a party that has demonstrated over and over again that it sucks at running the government.

Yeah-hyuh, that's the problem -- the brand.

Not the impracticable fiscal policy that's more appropriate to a nineteenth-century New England town than a major world democracy. Not the exclusionary practices, inflammatory and insulting rhetoric, and not the homogeneity and ineptitude at getting things done. Not the bad-faith effort to actually be effective. Or, what octothorpe said.

They rebranded Pabst Blue Ribbon too, and I can't help but notice it's still a cheap, lame, weak brew. No amount of hipster cachet can change it. Like octothorpe said (again) the problem is a failure of the fundamental philosophies to meet the needs of the populace, not just a lack of trendiness.

Actually, Miko, "rebranding" is CNN's spin word. Neither the word "brand" nor any hint of that concept is in the quoted portion of the GOP announcement letter. It may be elsewhere in that letter, but if so, CNN chose not to include it.

Why was that directed at just me, when everyone here has been responding to "rebranding?"

I'm very clear that they said it was not a rebranding effort. But the press is right to call a spade a spade here. They called it a "revitalilzation effort," to be specific. The Washington Post reports

Looking to rebrand a struggling Republican Party, a group of party heavyweights including former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) are launching a new group that will hold town halls around the country and look to produce GOP ideas on issues like education and health care.

and The Note writes

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) are teaming up on a Republican rebranding effort intended to push back on Democratic efforts to paint the GOP as "the party of no."...The organization's goal, according to Cantor spokesman Joe Pounder, is to persuade the public that the GOP is the party of "new solutions" to people's everyday challenges.

"Persuade the public that the GOP is the party of new solutions?" It walks like a duck. I don't think anyone calling it "rebranding" is laboring under false illusions.

The full text of the NCNA announcement (beginning 'Dear Friends,' of course), is here.

The new Republican Party - Now with the same people that drove the old Republican Party to the ground. But a new name.

Kinder, gentler
Compassionate conservatism
National Council for a New America

Only because your comment came closest to the literal meaning of the world, miko. I meant no offense. Even my comment uses the word. However, as we all know from past experience in forums such as this, the closer figurative speech is used in its literal interpretation, the more distorted the discourse becomes.

For me, your comment was just such a crux, because I do not see these actions by the GOP to be rebranding at all. The only real actions I see described in that letter are "building policy proposals" and "implement a comprehensive energy policy". Elsewhere I see phrases like "remain focused", "prevent", "strike the right balance", "continue to focus", "return power from Washington", "reflect", "maintain" and "support", and those are not positive action words that a marketer would use in a rebranding effort.

I see the same old game played by the same old rules pulled out of the same old box with the same old name.

Okay, maybe they used a different brand of white envelope to mail the letter. That would qualify as a different wrapper.

I agree this isn't a marketer's textbook case of rebranding; that would come complete with spokespeople, a full look and feel, a formal rollout with all the parts intact, and certainly, a website.

But rebranding isn't just using action words and making declaritive statements - it's a holistic process meant to redevelop the image of an organization or product in the public mind. This example is subtler than commercial rebrandings, but it is definitely an attempt to cast the GOP in a new light and influence voters' perceptions in new ways. You mentioned language; the language is utterly different from the standard GOP platform language:

"listen to, partner with, and empower"
"engage in a conversation"
"begin a dialogue"
"we must listen, learn and lead"

This is not the language of the GOP SOP. It is language borrowed from the social services world, indicating new qualities the writers wish to put forth and to associate with the GOP - humility, willingness to listen, sharing of power, deeper understanding of public concerns.

Whether or not you want to use an industry definition of rebranding is a rhetorical choice. I don't see a need to stick to such a hard line; my institution recently rebranded, and what we did probably appears about as subtle as the new language being used here. What does rebranding mean? Asking people to see your product in a different and new way. What are these GOP folks doing right now? Asking people to see their party in a different and new way. Calling it "rebranding" isn't unreasonable, either for us in this discussion or for those analysing it with journalistic perspective.

It's not an agenda; that's why there are so few actions listed. Since it's not an agenda, it's a statement of intention. Since it's a new kind of intention for the GOP, it's a new image being put forth to us. Since these leaders are working to create a new public perception of their instution...it's fair to call it rebranding.

declarative

IN other words...you correctly noted that what you see is the "same old" product, and that is totally consistent with rebranding. Rebranding does not require a changed product. Rebranding is about changing image and public perception without actually making much change to the product itself.

That's why this qualifies.

Touché, mon amie.

Now that I have conceded to the semantics, allow me my rant on the rhetoric. "It's not an agenda", exactly, it's bullshit because nowhere do they say they will actually reform future policy based on these conversations. They pulled the same stunt in the 80s, except then their focus was a dialog within the party itself with the extremists and moderates on one side and the centrist and liberal-leaning Republicans on the other. As they talked, they stabbed us in the back and we walked.

Now they say they want to talk to the american public but they really want the contact information of those of us gullible enough to respond so that they can send out their literature next election season. The Republicans know what centrists and libertarians want; they don't need dialogs. They are using the same trick evangelists use to proselytize. "We're not going to preach; we're just going to talk." Yeah, well, they can talk themselves right into extinction.

Meanwhile, to fill the political void the Republicans left behind (pun intended), the Democrats have moved that much further to the right. That is good in the short term, but to be good in the long term, political struggles within the Democratic party will first get damned bloody violent. I still expect to see in my lifetime the Democrats split along class lines into this country's two major parties. That fracture cannot bear the pressure much longer.

Anarchyburger!

I keep thinking "Buddy GOP".

Good analysis, Ardiril.

Yeah, this also reminds me a little of the Contract for (on) America.