Actually hurting one’s political brand is different than simply saying something silly. There has been plenty of that in 2012, too. But hurting the brand, for our purposes here, is regressing on a political tenet that’s already been decided on — refusing to acknowledge that the wider public is on one side of an issue. In other words, it’s not simply that there’s been an issue with the product. It’s that the product was sometimes so off that it may cause the consumer to think about ditching the brand altogether.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=102484