There's a front page post today on Chuck Schumer's recent speech in which he says, with all the benefit of hindsight, that the Affordable Care Act was the wrong place for Democrats to go first and that they ought to have focused on making things better for the "middle class". The responses in the comments often focus more on folks' understandable animus for Schumer's history than they do on the specifics of his speech. I have my own issues with both, but it approaches closely a subject I've been thinking about for some time: What is the "brand" of the Democratic party?
I really hate these marketing buzzwords, but this one is useful for discussion purposes.
The Republican party has been very successful in developing a "brand". And not the least inhibited by the fact that much of their brand is based on lies. What's that Republican brand?
"We're the party of small government, low taxes and individual liberty."
Most any Republican politician, at any level, could recite that with no problem. We know that, other than the low taxes part, it's mostly a lie, but it's been a very effective lie.
So what is the Democratic brand?
It seems to go something like this:
"We're the party of a little more rights for workers, a slightly less belicose foreign policy, somewhat more regulation of Wall Street (but not too much more!), a bit slower destruction of the natural world, slightly more fair taxation, A little more equality for women and gays, some degree of protection for the right to vote and more competent and effective government (except when we really screw that up)."
I would contend that the right brand for the Democratic party should be something like this:
"We are the party of economic fairness and justice for working people"
Now, just as the Republican brand has not precluded their engaging on many fronts outside the bounds of that brand, (and often in ways directly counter the message of the brand) the Democratic brand I propose would be no barrier to engaging on other critical issues - the environment, minority rights, etc. In fact, I would claim that most of those are an essential part of a platform of economic justice. But I do think we need a message - and a program and platform to go with it - that are as simple, clear and bumper sticker ready as the Republican brand and that define clearly, for ourselves and everyone else, what it means to
be a Democrat.
I'm interested in any responses.