Rand Paul: GOP Brand “Sucks” Like Domino’s Pizza

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) wants
the GOP to avoid the political equivalent of the Domino’s Pizza
Noid.

The Noid was the
late, ulamented mascot of Domino’s Pizza long before the
company admitted
just how bad its pizza really was.

From The Hill:

Paul acknowledged Wednesday a problem that many Republicans
admit only privately: their party brand “sucks.”  

The weakness, Paul added, is particularly serious when it comes
to appealing to black voters.

“Remember Domino’s Pizza? They admitted, ‘Hey, our pizza crust
sucks.’ The Republican Party brand sucks and so people don’t want
to be a Republican and for 80 years, African-Americans have had
nothing to do with Republicans,” he said.

“Why? Because of a perception,” he said. “The problem is the
perception is that no one in the Republican Party cares.”

Read
the whole thing.

Actually, I’d argue that the deeper problem is
that the perception is actually pretty accurate. With the notble
exception of school choice, the typical Republican politician
doesn’t spend a lot of time talking about public policies that
would have a particularly positive affect on black communities.
Some of that is understandable, given that blacks overwhelmingly
vote for Democrats. But the failure to reach out to African
Americans even rhetorically doesn’t just sour black voters
on the Party of Lincoln, either. It alienates a lot of moderates
and independents who are bothered by the way in which Republicans
seem indifferent, if not hostile, to blacks. While white
Republicans have only marginally higher results on indices of
negative racial attitudes than white Democrats, they are also
dealing with a particularly charged recent history that includes
Nixon’s southern strategy, Barry Goldwater’s willingness to pander
to neo-Confederates, and even
his father’s racist newsletters. That sort of narrative isn’t
going to rewrite itself.

For more than the past year, Paul has been engaging black
audiences around the country. It’s precisely this sort of activity
that helps make him “the most interesting man in politics”
according to Time. And it’s not simply on this issue, of
course. He’s actually pushing for new discussions on privacy,
sentencing reform, military spending, domestic spending, foreign
policy, and more.

In other words, he’s taking the future of his
party seriously. After the 2012 election and Mitt Romney’s pathetic
showing against the weakest sitting president in recent memory,
that GOP promised a thorough, top-to-bottom overhaul of its
messages and policies. Not much has really come of that effort.
That’s partly understandable: The Dems and Obama have been so
relentlessly bad on so many things, all the GOP has to do is keep
quiet and they can win back the Senate. But when Rand Paul and
others point out that the party’s limited-government rhetoric
doesn’t match its spending record, foreign policy, or respect for
privacy and civil liberties, you’d think the reformers were
preaching Menshevism or something.

Republicans can bitch and moan about how unfair it all is and
how no, really, they’ve never done anything wrong (even increasing
spending under George W. Bush by 55 percent in real dollars). But
the fact is that even big wins next week won’t change the party’s
long-term problems connecting with voters. Self-identification as
Republican hit a 25-year
low among voters this year. That’s a sign of a “brand” that
needs changing. Unsolicited advice: Try actually living up to your
semi-libertarian rhetoric when it comes to reducing the size,
scope, and spending of government at all levels. Even if you bank
on the Democrats sucking all the time (not a bad gamble), people
can always disaffiliate with either party out of disgust. Which is
exactly what’s happening.

In April 2013, Reason TV covered Paul’s speech about race
and politics at Howard University. That was the first stop in his
continuing outreach to minority audiences that the GOP has ignored
for years. Take a look at reactions: