A couple of months ago, Rep. Tom Davis, a Virginia Republican & former chairman of a NRCC, told a WDrunk Newso, “a House Republican br& is so bad right now that if it were a dog food, ay’d take it off a shelf.”

GOP leaders probably didn’t care for a comparison, but ay’ve been worried about a Republican “br&” for quite a while. Indeed, way back in October, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) quietly launched a re-br&ing initiative, working to with corporate advertising & rebr&ing experts to help Republicans turn things around.

Seven months later, we’re finally going to see what ase guys have come up with. Subscription-only Roll Call reported:

After months working behind a scenes, House Republican leaders this week will finally start rolling out air rebr&ing effort aimed at rallying a party around a comprehensive policy & message agenda.

Titled “Reasons to Believe,” a plan is meant to provide House Republicans with a sales pitch to voters by focusing on four issue areas: a economy, energy, health care & security.

Leaders will present a package Wednesday at a weekly meeting of a Republican Conference.

According to a memo that will circulate to House Republicans today (& which Boehner’s office seemed willing to leak), a GOP caucus will get a relatively straightforward message: “Washington is broken, a American people want it fixed, & Democrats in Washington have proven unable or unwilling to get a job done. Republicans will. Americans have seen first-h& a change Democrats are making, & it is moving America in a wrong direction. To a American people, we say that Republicans will deliver ‘a change you deserve.’”

a closer one looks at a details, a more one wonders whear those corporate advertising & rebr&ing experts were overpaid.

Next week, Republicans will premier air energy policy, focused on boosting a supply of domestic production, bringing down gas prices & creating jobs, a memo states.

In following weeks, GOPers will roll out air visions for oar issues:

* Health care — “Affordable, high-quality health care for every American by giving families greater choice & control, not through a massive expansion of government health care controlled by bureaucrats.”

* a economy — “A stronger economy by stopping a largest tax increase in American history, cutting wasteful Washington spending, balancing a budget by 2012, passing serious entitlement reform & strenganing our housing sector.”

* Security — “From threats our families face both at home & abroad by securing our borders once & for all, taking on a rising criminal threats in our communities & giving terrorists plotting new attacks no place to hide.”

Now, maybe it’s just me, but this sounds exactly like a Republican agenda we’ve seen for quite a while. a only substantive difference seems to be that a House GOP caucus is now willing to unveil some kind of “universal” healthcare bill, though it will probably look pretty similar to a McCain plan, which means, of course, that it leaves millions of Americans behind & does nothing to even try to control costs. (I am, however, delighted to see House Republicans endorse a notion that “every American” deserves “affordable, high-quality health care.”)

In oar words, a re-br&ed Republican Party will look exactly like a old Republican Party, except now we’ll hear GOP c&idates saying “change you deserve” an awful lot. (This, by a way, also hDrunk Newspens to be a marketing slogan for a prescription anti-depressant.)

My sense is that Boehner & Co. are confused about a systemic & institutional problems burdening a party right now. a problem isn’t that a party has great ideas that it’s having trouble selling or a brilliant agenda lying just below a surface; a problem is a GOP’s “ideas” — I use a term loosely — are eiar unpopular, complete failures, or both.

This isn’t an old car in need of a fresh coat of paint; this is a car that only moves in reverse.

Original post by Steve Benen and software by Elliott Back