The Good Bye Brands

Lots of big news this past week to chew on with my Trader Joe's strawberry breakfast bar. General Motors announced one of their most recognizable brands, Pontiac, was toast. The magic of muscle under the hood combined with sleek design and marketing acumen crumbled away like burnt sides of white dough under the heat of competition and mismanagement at General Motors. It was, for decades, one of the most recognized brands in America. Poof! Rubbed away in a cost savings restructuring to try and save GM.

The fact is Pontiac has been a figment of a brand for a long time. The real innovation John DeLorean brought to this division had disappeared by the mid-1970s. Pontiac became a knock-off of itself, much like General Motors is today.

In my youth I got to see up close and personal what the demise of a brand meant when Chrysler put an an end to DeSoto. It ended the family dealership close to fifty years ago. Mom started teaching, dad got a new job at the local Pontiac dealership and life went on. It's funny but I remember in the early 1970s this same dealership started selling Hondas. Most of the staff joked at how small the cars were (the honda-tonka was the lot's nickname for the new arrival) and that this company would go nowhere in America. The original had a two-cylinder air-cooled engine. Great gas mileage, no creature comforts. This same local dealer has sold only Hondas for more than two decades.

The United States Supreme Court, gets a small makeover in the coming months with the announcement that Supreme Court Justice David Souter will be resigning this June. America's 41st President, George H. W. Bush, nominated David Souter who came to the Supreme Court almost 19 years ago. He was a moderate Republican nominee, and has surely found that the moderate Republican views he still holds are now labeled by current Republican leadership as being nearly socialist in nature. Whatever the reason for the Justice Souter resignation the Supreme Court finds itself swimming backward in time. Last summer the Roberts led court struck down the longstanding Washington D.C. ban on handguns. Gun violence in America still shocks the rest of the world for its size and scope.

Another major issue with a lot of history on the Supreme Court's current argument list is the Voting Rights Act. On the surface the use of the law to ensure voting rights are maintained does seem to indicate that some states are more equal in the eyes of the federal government than others. However, the Republican Party's indifference to the needs of minorities amid the South's changing political landscape might argue that this Voting Rights Act should remain unchanged.

The Republican brand of today is a strange mixture indeed. The great coalition between fiscal conservatives with a libertarian view of less taxes and more individualism (ie: no government oversight for big business) joined to the fervent evangelical amalgam of Falwell and Robertson along with the segregationists who fled the Democratic Party after the Civil Rights legislation of the 1960s appears on the verge of collapse.

Compassionate conservatism is one thing you never hear from Republican leadership today. That principle, or goal, or sales point is dead. Republicans today hate poor people, and there are a lot more poor people in this country than at any time in the nation's history. This is why only 21% of America identifies itself with the Republican Party. Only Republicans would argue that poor people, many who cannot afford a motor vehicle, and hence have no driver's license, must show a photo identification to vote.

Republicans are sinking into irrelevancy. Gallup conducted a poll in January on the State of the State looking at where the political parties favored Democrats, and where they favored Republicans. Republicans showed a double digit lead over Democrats in only four states- Utah, Wyoming, Idaho and Alaska. Those are some sparsely populated states, and graphically illustrate the complete demise of the Republican brand. If that is all you have, along with some voter finagling in the South you might be a figment of a brand at this point in time.