The decisive defeat Republicans suffered in Tuesday’s election came because conservative voters decided the party had lost its way, not because the electorate has shifted to the left, according to Issue Autopsy ’08, a survey of swing state voters in Colorado, Florida, Ohio and Virginia commissioned by the American Issues Project, the group that accounted for the largest outside expenditures made to advocate conservative issues during this election cycle.

On the immediate economic issue, the credit crisis and bailout, voters blame Republicans more than Democrats by 11 points (34 percent to 23 percent).  By a huge majority (69 percent to 21 percent) the voters also believe the bailout passed by Congress is unfair to taxpayers.

so, what we have here is a failure to communicate. the autopsy also revealed that voters gave democrats an edge on tax cutting and keeping government spending under control. what??

yes, this further proves the way the GOP is getting its message out has failed miserably. the democrats hold a large share of the blame for the economic disaster, yet the republican party waited too long to pin it on them and john mccain failed to do it at all.

The survey found that approximately 72 percent of those voters agreed that:  “The Republican Party used to stand for keeping government spending under control, but not anymore.”  More than 75 percent of likely voters agreed with the statement:  “When the Republican Party took control of Congress in 1994, they promised to reform government and clean up corruption in Washington, but they failed to live up to that promise.”

there is a questionnaire that i use when developing a brand for a client. i actually got it off of the about.com marketing channel. it’s worked pretty well for me in the past, as it really gets the client to think about what they want their company to be. these are some good questions that need to be answered.

1. What products and/or services do you offer? Define the qualities of these services and/or products.
2. What are the core values of your products and services? What are the core values of your organization?
3. What is the mission of your organization?
4. What does your company specialize in?
5. Who is your target market? Who do your products and services attract?
6. What is the tagline of your organization? What message does your tagline send to your prospects?
7. Using the information from the previous steps create a personality or character for your company that represents your products or services. What is the character like? What qualities stand out? Is the personality of your company innovative, creative, energectic, or sophisticated?
8. Use the personality that you created in the previous step and build a relationship with your target market that you defined in Step 5. How does that personality react to target audience? What characteristics stand out? Which characteristics and qualities get the attention of your prospects.
9. Review the answers to the questions above and create a profile of your brand. Describe the personality or character with words just as if you were writing a biography or personal ad. Be creative.

barack obama’s campaign website was by far the best candidate website i have ever seen. and now, they have moved on to www.change.gov – the official website of the “office of president-elect barack obama”. how brash.

for one, there isn’t such a thing as an office of the president-elect. two, aren’t there regulations about who can register a .gov domain?

as i write this, i visited michelle malkin’s site and saw she has a post up about this very topic: change.gov smells like a fund-raising front

looking at the site, it’s pretty obvious they plan to move barackobama.com over to this site.

ps. take a look at his mandatory volunteerism.

i think this blog will be very constructive but i feel constrained by the medium. of course, by creating a website i put more work on myself (typical freelance designer), but i think it will be a valuable experience. plus, it will be a great way to get those conservative designers out of the woodwork and using their skills to better the republican party.

as for the site, i have a lot of ideas that i need to diagram out first. i am envisioning something that can be a community to exchange ideas, refine our message, and figure out who is leading our party. i find myself at a loss about where to go to look up republican representatives and how to determine their “conservative-ness” so to speak. i do not know where to go to find out how to run for office, etc. i hope the site will become a clearing house of ideas.

also, thanks to the couple of comments i’ve received. this blog is obviously new, and not much content here yet, so thanks for stopping by, i hope you continue to do so and please leave your ideas about the website.

[Branding is] the intangible sum of a product’s attributes: its name, packaging, and price, its history, its reputation, and the way it’s advertised. – David Ogilvy

when you look at the GOP right now, you see the GOP branding themselves as the big-government, moderate, socially conservative party. whether they are doing it consciously or unconsciously is not the question, those are the signals they are giving.

+big government republicanism is not effective when running against democrats.
+pretending to be moderate is a sham.
+relying too heavily on social conservatism is a mistake.

the intangibles of the current GOP brand are not good, and that is why the GOP has sustained heavy losses in the past two elections. people do not trust the GOP brand: its advertising, it’s messengers. the history of the GOP has been lost. it’s reputation is in shambles.

how do we change this? we change the product. we take our old formula and promote it better, with better messengers. people don’t need to be convinced that small government and fiscal conservatism is the answer. they already know it.

rasmussen reports took a poll in september that produced interesting results that support this theory:

62% of americans feel that improving the economy is most important.
51% feel that government has too large of a role in the economy.
54% feel the goverment can best help by getting out of the way, reducing taxes and regulation.
50% favor a tax policy that stimulates growth rather than ensuring everyone is paying their “fair share”.

i don’t get the republican party right now. a majority of americans – including a majority of “independents” – think traditional conservatism is the answer. and yet, barack obama and the democrats who embrace the idea of paying your “fair share” and are in favor of more taxes and regulation, won the election.  

why? because the republicans look too much like the democrats. this is what needs to change.

now, before you start throwing stuff at me, i want to be completely clear about something. when i say rebrand, i mean it in the complete opposite way than some pundits and republicans have been using it in the past 24 hours. when they say rebrand, they mean more movement to the left. when i say rebrand, i mean taking our winning philosophy – conservatism - that won elections in the past and use the tools we have at our disposal to spread that philosophy more effectively.

let’s face it. the GOP is a public relations and marketing nightmare right now. why?

+abandonment of core beliefs (fiscal conservatism, limited government).
+too heavy a reliance on social issues (gay marriage, abortion).
+a lack of fresh blood at the local/state level.
+a general refusal to defend conservative principles.
+too quick to bend to liberal attacks.
+poorly executed marketing & general malaise towards new techology.

this is a very general list of symptoms that are plaguing “the brand”. i will flesh them out in the coming days and weeks.

the purpose of this blog is not for me to whine about republicans and not do anything to try to fix it. i am not cut out to run for office, but i have strengths in marketing and design that the GOP needs to get its most appealing messages out to the public – which is something the democrats are VERY good at.

in the wake of heavy losses in 2006 and now in 2008, it is time for us to re-evaluate our party. we have the proven, successful product they can go back to: CONSERVATISM. now it’s a question of why we are not getting our message out successfully. it’s about putting that successful product in 21st century packaging.