Brand Obama

Turns out that Barack Obama may be less the brilliant politician (as I have argued) than  master of marketing.  That would explain why he was named "marketer of the year" for 2008 by Advertising Age. 

Or perhaps in this American day and age there is no difference between electioneering and marketing.

It also turns out that Obama raised far less of his record-breaking campaign cash from small donors than originally reported.  According to the Campaign Finance Institute, only about a quarter of his haul came from donations of $200 or less, about the same as George W. Bush in 2004, and far less than the 38% for Howard Dean in that same year. 

So much for the grass roots uprising that supposedly carried Obama to victory.  Like most winning politicians, he outspent his opponents.  And he outmarketed them.

In a speech given in Boston recently, Noam Chomsky called Obama's "grass roots" backers essentially a recruited army of enthusiasts.  So did the press. There's a big difference, says Chomsky, between a "recruited army" and a true grass roots movement:

"...the army is supposed to take instructions, not to implement, introduce, develop programs and call on its own candidate to implement them. That's critical. If the army keeps to that condition, nothing much will change."

In the 60's, bottom up movements created the impetus for change in the treatment of blacks and women.  Movement protests turned public opinion against the Vietnam War.  More recently, an indigenous uprising in Bolivia brought one of its own, Evo Morales, to power.  Chomsky explains it this way:

"How did he get in? Well, he got in because there [was] again, a mass popular movement, which elected their own representative. And they are the source of the programs, which are serious ones. There's real issues, And people know them. Control over resources, cultural rights, social justice and so on."

The recent election here was quite different.  It wasn't so much about real issues as it was about character and personality.  Even the pundits have acknowledged that.  Why?  Because, in Chomsky's words, "...on a host of major issues both parties are well to the right of the population.  That's one good reason to keep issues off the table."

I don't blame Obama.  "Keeping issues off the table" is how modern political campaigns work.  If you want to get elected, you don't get bogged down in thoughtful discussions of the issues. You avoid the specifics.  Instead you market yourself with advertising placards that read Change!  Or Hope!  

Commercial advertising, as we all know, deflects attention from the actual product.  It surrounds the product, whether it's beer or cars, with an image that has nothing to do with the actual quality of the product. The message in an advertising spot is intended not to inform, but to delude.

The same is true of political advertising, except the product being hawked is the candidate.  The message is no more concrete.  The image is what counts.

Who knew, based on his campaign and his claim to "compassionate conservatism" and to be a "uniter, not a divider", that the presidency of George W. Bush would prove such a disaster?  (Well I did, but not to this extent.) 

We were all deluded in 2000, some more than others.  Let's hope that we haven't been so badly misinformed --"sold a bill of goods", so to speak-- this time around.

Comments

[Craig]

Yes, "in the 60's, bottom up movements created the impetus for change in the treatment of blacks and women."

However, the 60s (or the reaction to it) also ushered in about four decades of Republican rule in the White House: Nixon, Ford, (the Carter hiatus), Reagan, Bush I (the Clinton hiatus) and Bush II. Some, including, probably, Chomsky, would argue that Clinton, and perhaps even Carter, were Republicans in disguise or at least to "the right of the population."

The fact is that when Chomsky argues "on a host of major issues both parties are well to the right of the population," he's flat out wrong. Even in the LBJ years, opinion polls consistently showed that most people (including, by the way, college students) were, on most economic and social issues, centrists or even center right. Remember Nixon's "silent majority?" Remember "Reagan democrats?"

Opinion polls today place the population mostly in that same centrist category on most issues. You may not like it, but a large part of the reason Obama won (beyond his character and personality) was precisely because he proposed policies that appealed to the real majority, not to some majority that exists only in Chomsky's imagination.

To argue that Obama won because of "advertising" is to disrespect the democratic voice of the majority of the American people. I'm all for bottom-up movements, but not for revisionist history.

P.S: A major reason Evo Morales was elected President of Bolivia in 2005 was because of his ethnicity -- Aymara Indian. For the first time in Bolivian history (or so Morales claims), a member of Bolivia's ethnic majority, rather than only a white or a mestizo, ran for President. The majority of Bolivia's people -- 55% -- are Indian (Quechua and Aymara); 30% are mestizo (mixed Indian and white) and only 15% are white. The AmerIndians of Bolivia are, of course, far poorer than the white and mestizo population and Morales proposed to rectify that injustice. He won --duh!! -- because majority ruled.

[Harry Kershner]

But look who loves his right-of-Clinton cabinet picks ("pragmatic" is the Rovian term used by the Democrat disinformation strategists):

James Baker: "I see them as being sort of center-right of the Democratic party"; Karl Rove: "Reassuring"; Joe Lieberman: "Virtually perfect ... "; David Brooks: "Superb ... the best of the Washington insiders ... this will be a valedictocracy -- rule by those who graduate first in their high school classes"; Max Boot, former McCain staffer and neoconservative activist: "I am gobsmacked by these appointments, most of which could just as easily have come from a President McCain ... this all but puts an end to the 16-month timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, the unconditional summits with dictators, and other foolishness that once emanated from the Obama campaign ... [Hillary] Clinton and [James] Steinberg at State should be powerful voices for 'neo-liberalism' which is not so different in many respects from 'neo-conservativism'"; Michael Goldfarb of the neoconservative Weekly Standard: "Surprising continuity on foreign policy between President Bush's second term and the incoming administration ... certainly nothing that represents a drastic change in how Washington does business. The expectation is that Obama is set to continue the course set by Bush ... "; Henry Kissinger, war criminal: "Hillary Clinton will be 'outstanding' as Secretary of State". (Right-Wingers and Neocons Love Obama's Cabinet Appointments)

Obama has indeed succeeded in reassuring the elites.

The important thing is that a president like Obama looks like he's changing things even if he's not. McCain never would have looked like he was changing things, and that's why your vote wasn't wasted. Appearances are what counts, as any decent product marketer could have told you.

[Harry Kershner]

Craig's ego notwithstanding, Chomsky is a first rate, world-famous social scientist who doesn't say things that he has not researched thoroughly. You can read his sources in his books, and you can debate with him if you pay $3 to zcommunications.org, but you can't just mouth off and expect anyone to value your opinion more than that of one of the world's leading intellectuals.

By the way, Chomsky has gone out of his way to demonstrate that most of his positions are centrist. Actually reading Chomsky is a good way to understand what he says.

[Terry]

I have to agree with Harry on Chomsky. You may disagree with his conclusions, but there's no disputing the quality of his research or the depth of his "scholarship".

His passing reference to Evo Morales was in a speech about the recent election. He undoubtedly knows far more about the particulars of Morales' rise to power. But it was a speech, not a book or a published study.

[Craig]

Terry, rather than just stipulate that Chomsky has done his research, show me the data that prove that he's right when he says that "on a host of major issues both parties are well to the right of the population" and that I'm wrong to say that on most issues, the population holds centrist or even center-right views.

I am not championing centrist or center-right views. I am to the left of Obama on many issues, particularly gun control, health care, and the pace with which we should exit Iraq. But it does no good to ignore reality or, worse, to stipulate, with no evidence, that the majority of the American people hold views that are somehow to the left of both parties -- or at least to the left of the Democratic party. They don't.

As for Morales' rise to power, I don't disagree that Morales won the presidency in Bolivia because of "real issues." But it's at least disingenuous for Chomsky not even to mention the ethnic factor.

[Harry Kershner]

Craig needs to actually read some Chomsky before he again embarrasses himself. I usually don't like to do others' research, but...

"The indigenous majority, the most oppressed population in the hemisphere (those who survived), elected a candidate from their own ranks, a poor peasant, Evo Morales." (The Election, Economy, War, and Peace)

"[Morales] became the first indigenous president in Bolivia, where a majority identify themselves with indigenous groups." (Afterword: Failed States)

(These are two of many examples. For Craig and others who don't understand how google works: type in "Chomsky" and follow it with key words like "Evo Morales" "indigenous").

The same kind of research can be done on Chomsky and "centrism". Here's a copy of a message I posted here in July about "centrism" as defined by David Sirota:

Terry: I agree with most of what you say, and I appreciate the progressive perspective. However, I want to again call you on your (and Arianna's) misuse of the term "centrist".

Here's what David Sirota (In search of the American 'center') has to say:

"As the Associated Press claimed in a typical description, Obama's shifts are designed 'to appeal to the center of the electorate.'

However, empirical data prove 'the center of the electorate' is exactly the opposite:

-- Polls by Quinnipiac University and the Mellman Group found majorities support warrant requirements for wiretaps and oppose immunity for companies that released private consumer information without such warrants.

-- Surveys by Fortune magazine, CNN and the Wall Street Journal report that most Americans oppose NAFTA-style trade policies.

-- For years, major polls have consistently shown Americans want a firm timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. As just one of many examples, five separate USA Today surveys since 2007 have shown majorities want the president to 'set a timetable for removing troops from Iraq and to stick to that timetable regardless of what is going on in Iraq.'

So, the undebatable evidence tells us precisely where the center of public opinion is. Yet when a presidential candidate moves away from the center, we are told he is moving toward it. What gives?"