The Republicans Are On Drugs

For years, the Republicans have been the party of fear and smear, of divide and conquer. But after so long, the American people have finally woken up to this simple fact, and this fall are poised to give the GOP a shellacking of historic proportions at the ballot box. The party leadership is running scared, and are finally beginning to realize that using hate and paranoia to turn people against each other might not have been the smartest idea. So they hired a crack marketing and PR team to "rebrand" their image.

Well, we now have the results. Roll Call reported that the new GOP message is titled "Reasons to Believe" and is based on four core issues: the economy, energy, health care and security.

For example:

Next week, Republicans will premiere their energy policy, focused on boosting the supply of domestic production, bringing down gas prices and creating jobs, the memo states.

In following weeks, GOPers will roll out their visions for other issues:

• Health care - "Affordable, high-quality health care for every American by giving families greater choice and control, not through a massive expansion of government health care controlled by bureaucrats."
• The economy - "A stronger economy by stopping the largest tax increase in American history, cutting wasteful Washington spending, balancing the budget by 2012, passing serious entitlement reform and strengthening our housing sector."
• Security - "From threats our families face both at home and abroad by securing our borders once and for all, taking on the rising criminal threats in our communities and giving terrorists plotting new attacks no place to hide."

I'm curious - just how much were those PR guys paid? Whatever it was, it's too much; it's still the same fear-and-loathing agenda, just reworked with a smiley face.

But that's not the best part. The GOP memo to its members calls this lipstick-on-a-pig makeover "The Change You Deserve." If that sounds familiar, it should: the exact same slogan was used for an antidepressant medication called Effexor.

The pill's ad copy might as well be copied word for word into the Republican playbook:

The Change You Deserve™

Are these symptoms of depression interfering with your life?

• Not involved with family and friends the way you used to be?
• Low energy, fatigue?
• Not motivated to do the things you once looked forward to doing?
• Not feeling as good as you used to?

And it gets even better. The FDA went after Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, who make Effexor, because the ad quoted above "overstates the efficacy of Effexor XR, makes unsubstantiated superiority claims, in addition to other unsubstantiated claims, and minimizes the risks associated with the use of Effexor XR."

You can easily say the same thing about the Republican Party nowadays.

Whoops. Does this mean the GOP is really on drugs rather than just seeming that way? It would explain an awful lot.