One thing we’re going to hear a lot about during the Republican primary season is what kind of conservative each candidate is. More than that, each candidate is now trying to build their brand. Right now, I see three potential conservative brands coming out.
I’ve talked before about Sam Brownback’s full scale conservative branding. This is a powerful meme – it conveys commitment, forcefulness, and an unapologetic stance. It sounds a lot like “full contact fighter,” which anyone who’s a fan of Ultimate Fighting knows is a phrase/brand that describes mixed martial artist combatants. Not a bad idea to keep floating around your candidate at a time when the Republican Party is in retreat.
Full scale conservative also is a shot at Mike Huckabee. Huckabee’s brand is largely based around his massive weight loss. Brownback is saying nuts to that – I’m full scale and I’m not backing down. Now Brownback will never say this, but the diction brings up reactions in the voters mind based on the phrasing the candidate chooses.
Representative Trent Franks called Duncan Hunter a Valley Forge Republican. I have no clue what that means. Sure, it connotes an original, conservative brand. It makes you think of the founding principles that carried Washington and the revolutionary army through a brutal winter to victory and independence. But what does that have to do with today’s politics and today’s Republican Party? Valley Forge Republican sounds nice, but is vacuous.
Lastly, Mike Huckabee has taken to calling himself a true conservative. While not defining what that means, Huckabee casts himself definitively. His meme is the simplest and most direct. Despite his appeal to “true conservatives,” Huckabee has claimed that he will appeal to moderate and independent voters. The implication is that true conservative is not reactionary and that today’s Republican Party under the Bush administration is not a party of “true conservatives.”
We’ll see more twists on how the Republican field brands themselves as conservative. For now, a race is on among a full scale conservative, a Valley Forge conservative, and a true conservative.
Technorati Tags: Duncan Hunter, Mike Huckabee, Sam Brownback
1 Response to “Conservative Candidate Taxonomy”
Something to say?
So while Hunter, Huckabee and Brownback get into it with Gilmore over who has a bigger conservatism, where does that leave the trifecta of moderates?
Left by Matt Ortega
December 31, 2006 at 11:04pm