1115.org

The San Francisco Chronicle ran an interesting piece looking at candidates as brands. Here’s a quote from my old boss:

“A candidate is like a brand because (a brand) lives in your mind, and you differentiate it from competing brands,” said Bob Gardner of the San Francisco-based ad agency Maiden Lane, which has produced political spots for President Gerald Ford and for companies including Fisher-Price, Williams-Sonoma and Fireman’s Fund Insurance. “Every piece of communication goes to build that, and reinforce that. ”

That last bit is critically important, and not just for candidates, but for the parties as well. This is why I react so strongly to Obama’s constant calls for “moving beyond partisan politics,” because it necessarily communicates “our party’s ideas aren’t good enough on their own.” And his completely unforgivable usage of the Republican frame yesterday when he said: “I think that nobody wants to play chicken with our troops on the ground,” only echoes the nonsense regularly spewed by the President and Vice President.

It’s not pretty, and I’m sure it turns off everyone looking to be inspired, but a campaign is a sales job, and it’s time to sell ideas that work, and candidates who can offer an alternative to the failure of the last six years. There’s a huge market for it.