An important message for millennials and beyond from Jordan Peterson

Jordan Peterson explains that life is hard and what you have to do to be ready for it.  It's a message for everyone but particularly today's youth who are being trained into a state where they are going to be unready for the challenges that life throws at them.

Are we doomed?

I sometimes wonder if I'm talking to the same 100 people all the time.  I'm pretty sure this blog has been shadow-banned, de-listed, whatever term you choose, by Google.  It's very rare that I see a spike in traffic.  There's no hubris in that statement, 10 years ago it used to happen. I'd get an occasional post with thousands of views.  Now?  Well it hasn't happened in about 5 years.  I get an occasional bump into several hundred more than normal, and that's it. 

I'm not going to turn this into a rant against Big Tech, who clearly have their thumb on the scale for Democrats and progressive liberal causes.  There's a reality that needs to be confronted, because Congress is not going to confront it.  Until there's a conservative version of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and Google, we are going to have an ever-shrinking voice in the public sphere.  We will be silenced.  It will be a death by 1000 cuts scenario, and we are only about 300 cuts into it.

I know there are alternatives that have developed like Parler instead of Twitter but they seem to be stuck below the critical mass needed to become an alternative.  Perhaps it requires a root level alternative, a counter to Google, which is a truly massive undertaking, probably beyond our capability.

So what do we do?

Talking to your neighbors, neighborhood grassroots organizations, and voting are part of the answer but not all of it. At some point that becomes the same as this blog - talking to each other and not spreading the word.  Our message needs to reach into areas that it does not currently reach. There are cities and states that are with 100% certainty, locked down by Democrats. They do not get exposed to a conservative message.

The one weapon we have right now is president Trump. He's not afraid to do the outreach that changing demographics dictate we must at least consider, if not address.  In 2016 Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania proved it.  But if president Trump loses (legitimately or otherwise) or if he's not replaced by a similar fighter who is willing to win over non-supporters we are in big trouble. Are we doomed?  Yeah, maybe.

Even with a Republican congress, senate and president after 2020, we are on borrowed time right now. In every arena, media, education, government beaurocracy (the CIA, IRS, and FBI to name a few), entertainment, sports, law, and Big Tech we are getting our asses handed to us. Even churches are losing their values and caving to the social justice mob. 

It's not over, but as I said, we are on borrowed time thanks to president Trump. We need to make the most of it.  We need a conservative network of support and promotion.  We need one that grows not only in political action committee efforts but to include all of the areas mentioned above.  We need an allegiance to conservative principles and a support system across every area of life.  Yes it sounds like Big Brother, but it's a fight-fire-with-fire situation.  We need to fight back and we need to do it no.  Short of cheating with vote-by-mail schemes like Democrats, we need to coalesce. We need to harden and we need to fight back a lot harder than we are doing.  The reason we aren't is because we can't. We are millions of voices but we are not in unison.  We won't always need to be so homogenous, but the only way to fight the ongoing onslaught by the Democratic hoard is to be an organized, coordinated  hoard on our side. Failing that we probably are doomed.

Medium and message fail by conservatives

Marshall says

Gizmodo is reporting that Facebook routinely screened conservative news stories out of their trending topics.  The built in bias of Facebook is part of a bigger trend every conservative blogger and most conservative voters are already aware exists - conservative views are routinely ignored or marginalized by everything from the major news networks to tools like Flipboard.

That's not the headline.  The real issue is that conservatives, for all of their view on government as a necessary 'evil', put an inordinate amount of attention on winning elections.  And we don't do it nearly often enough.  The reason is simple, as the Facebook scandal points out.  The real war is cultural.  If you win hearts and minds then electoral victories will follow.

As conservatives our attention (mostly; Rush Limbaugh is a notable exception) is in the wrong places.  Defeating Obama in 2012 should have come from a populace who understood that winning the culture war is where the real battlefront belongs.   But from schools, to MTV to Facebook,  the left has a virtual monopoly on the dissemination of ideas because they own just about everything that people use to interact with the world.  

The medium is the message. We seemingly still haven't gotten the memo on that. Well many of us. Some of us recognized it early on.

Ebola vs. Conservatism

Ebola is an enemy of conservatism. It's a deadly disease, it's spreading in Africa and there is more than one case in the United States.  To date the current outbreak has killed several hundred people in Africa. But it's not going to become an epidemic - at least in the Western world.  Africa could be another story. In fact that should be the story, here without proper intervention, thousands more could die.

Influenza by comparison, kills hundreds of thousands of people every year.  But Ebola is a virus that lends itself to sensationalism in journalism.  That's because the symptoms and relatively quick and inevitable death is so gruesome. 

Refining the small government movement

The best approach: Defend aggressively, advance slowly.

Back in 2011, I commented on a Hot Air article about the Conservative party in Canada and their chances of winning elections but the focus of my comment was more about how Canadian conservatives are not less conservative than those in America, we are simply faced with a different reality.  But it's one that provides a lesson on how to move America back to the right, and in retrospect, one that requires a little additional nuance to it. As I wrote in response to Ed Morrissey's point about Canadian conservatives being less so than our American counterparts;

The conservative party of Canada is far less of a center-left party than you suggest. While it is not currently conservative in the sense of American conservatism, it’s still a center-right party. The way it governs is affected by the country as a whole. The conservative government is hampered by decades of liberalism and socialism, so moving the country back to the right will take considerable time. The country fears conservatives as being radicals and Prime Minister Harper has had to temper his lower taxes, stronger national defense, pro-business views to suit what is still a center-left country that is slowly testing the waters with a conservative government (three elections later).

Harper’s prudence isn’t as exciting as Reagan or Thatcher in a full on charge to the right, but it’s the smartest approach in a country ready to run back to the liberals at what it regards as the slightest hint of radical conservatism...

In short - in Canada we have had to take baby steps back towards the right, not giant leaps. Our electorate needed to learn to be comfortable with the positives of conservatism and will only eschew the liberal rhetoric about us over time. Canada is now more comfortable with a conservative government than it was in 2011. The same logic holds true in the United States. As I've written about many times, Democrats and their progressive ilk have successfully pushed the U.S. to the left over the course of decades by moving the ball slowly, while occasionally taking advantage of a crisis to move the ball a lot more all at once. That's because they know, as Rush Limbaugh has often pointed out, that if they were up front about their true intentions, voters would balk en masse.

That seemed true until the current president bought into his own hype and decided that the country was fully behind him on the aggressive march to the left. You see how that's worked for him. His re-election was arguably an incumbent's advantage win. He has met with growing resistance and weaker job approval year over year. That's because Americans want change to be managed, not a headlong, ill-planned plunge into something new.

As many have argued - an aggressive refutation and loud opposition to the progressive liberal agenda is definitely necessary. But if the GOP wins in the midterms and wins the next presidency, should they engage in a headlong plunge back to the right, or manage the walk back and advancing the agenda in a smart, organized and palatable way? Obviously that's a bit of a rhetorical question.

The lessons of Canada and of Obama's leftward plunge apply. Replacing an extremely liberal agenda with a very conservative one will accomplish two things - a lurch of change that will be as mismanaged as Obamacare, and a knee-jerk reaction from voters wiling to test the waters of conservatism.

That's an unfortunate situation since the country clearly needs to be brought back to smaller government, fiscal conservatism, non-interventionist courts, American exceptionalism etc. in a big, big way. Obama has slid and/or allowed the nation to slide into a disgusting malaise of lowered respect, lowered expectations and a dead end, debt-riddled future without a future.

But with so much to accomplish, in order to govern effectively, there is a need to prioritize. That in itself will help manage the return to the right and make it a more orderly change. The best way to prioritize what needs to be done is to look at the low hanging fruit first - where there is major agreement on the right, indicates itself as a good place to start. For example, rolling back Obamacare is an easier sell on the right than pretty much any social issue or an issue of libertarian smaller military vs. conservative defense hawks.

With each issue tackled, there is a need to move cautiously and intelligently forward. A simple repeal might be something most every conservative can agree upon, but it is way to easy for the liberal media to frame as bringing America backwards. Armed with Congressional Budget Office proof, the GOP could move forward with an intelligent mix of their dozens of proposals that the Democrats and media ignored while claiming the GOP had no plan. The message - we are not returning to the status quo, we are moving forward but in a different direction than the previous president with ideas that are more cost effective, will help more people, offer more alternatives to people and be simpler to understand.

Each area will eventually snowball and it will give people a chance to adjust as it grows its own momentum. That's what Obama has been trying to do with all of the delays to Obamacare. The difference is that the president is attempting to hide the true cost, the true implications, from voters. The GOP will necessarily have to be up front about their real goals, more choice, and lowered costs. The approach of slow and steady is a necessary evil for America.

Because charging headlong never works. I know, I've posted this before, but it's still funny and apropos here.  (more below the video):

One last point - the advance slowly notion need not be equally applied in all areas. If there is a true emergency with the national debt for example, perhaps a bit of not letting the crisis go to waste becomes not only feasible, but advantageous to conservative ideals.

Thursday Hillary Bash - National Journal Edition

Ed Morrissey ar Hot Air beat me to this story, but let's face it, he is full time, better funded, and let's face it, more talented than me.

Hillary Clinton may have missed her window thanks to Obama's tenure.  That seems to be the case the liberal National Journal is making, or at least hinting at now. The question asked - is she peaking too soon?

Crack organizers from President Obama's campaigns are the latest political honchos to join the Clinton-for-president movement and, like others involved, they say they are just trying to make things "Ready for Hillary" if she decides to run. But the bandwagon effect is fueling an "inevitability" narrative that damaged Clinton in 2008, and is allowing her no reprieve from politics.

The Ready for Hillary super PAC announcement of a partnership with 270 Strategies, coming on top of earlier testimonials from prominent Democrats, feeds the impression that the non-existent Clinton campaign is a runaway train about to reach top speed (albeit without an engineer at the controls). Former Clinton campaign aide Mo Elleithee says the actual significance of the new partnership is merely that "there are a lot of people that want her to run. That's all it means. She is not in this race yet, and there's no guarantee that she ever will be."

The early and intense focus on Clinton recalls 2008, when she was wrongly assumed to be the prohibitive front-runner for the Democratic nomination. The constant spotlight now means Clinton remains a political target even as friends and associates say she is trying to focus on advocacy, speeches, and writing a book about her tenure as secretary of State. "What they're doing is fantastic," Elleithee says of Ready for Hillary, but "I do think it is adding to the hyper-politicization of every move she makes." He says her advocacy for women, children, and families, a lifelong crusade, is more important to her right now than politics.

As Morrissey points out, Clinton may look even more like yesterdays news by 2016, even as nostalgia for her may grow as the Obama presidency plays out. But there's another possible dynamic at work. There is no evidence being proffered that she has indeed reached a peak. She may still be ascending.

A better question might be is her trajectory one guaranteed to supersede other potential contenders? If the economy stays tepid at best, might a popular Democrat governor like (now Senator) Mark Warner be most appealing to Democrats?  If the hope and change isn't complete yet, might someone like Andrew Cuomo or more likely a Deval Patrick have a better shot?

Clinton is by no means inevitable, but as conservatives have been surprised by expected weak opposition in the recent past (both Bill Clinton, and Obama), who the candidate becomes, is probably less important than the connectivity of the message they craft versus the message of their Republican opponent composes.

A new message - Restoring trust in government

That has to be the message that the Republican party must adapt for 2014, 2016 and perhaps beyond.

The Democrat party is the party of big government.  The Republican party is supposed to have been the party of limited government. They haven't been entirely successful at that message, and worse still at explaining why limited government is in the best interest of people of all creeds and ethnicities.  They have failed to fully capitalize on the notion that the party of big government has become the party of Big Brother.

Just trust me and you'll be okay, alright? Uh, I think I'll pass on that.

The flaws of big intrusive government are staring America in the face.  Heck, they are slapping America in the face. Big government invites fascism but people just aren't getting it.  

Still if the message is not getting through we have two things we can change - the messenger or the message. Since there is no Ronald Reagan on the horizon who can cut through the morass of biased liberal media, and take the case to the American people in a straightforward and engaging manner.  What's worse, is that conservatives can't even agree on who the messenger should be.  That leaves the message.  And the message needs a face lift.

We conservatives can all agree that government is an out of control behemoth.  But how we take that message to 'centrist' voters can be done far more effectively by simply tweaking how we say it.  And now is an extremely opportune time to do it. With the scandals tripping over each other for headlines - IRS favoritism, NSA telephone and email eavesdropping on everyone, the deaths and cover up of government ineptitude in Benghazi and the Fast and Furious debacles, and the government's snooping and potential persecution of news agencies and individuals - there is no better time to plant the seeds of a new message.

The message needed is simple.

We must restore America's trust in government.

That's pretty simple.  It appeals (or should) across party lines.  It doesn't say we need to reduce the size of government, but it does not preclude it. It acknowledges that mistakes have been made but does not need to affix blame.  It's forward looking and has a ring to it that hints of change (and hope). It implies that bipartisanship is needed but does not mandate it.

The same points could be made for other messages, certainly, but it allows a lot of flexibility while not being so vague as hope and change as to not address any specific problem.  Conservatives know restoring trust in government means that bureaucratic departments must be answerable to a watchdog and ultimately the

American people. Liberals on the other hand would be grateful for the transparency that Obama promised but has steadfastly avoided.

As a political point, the message is simple, memorable and not even something Obama could argue against except by saying there is no need to restore trust in government I/we are already trustworthy.  Really? That's a head-in-the-sand response and not one likely to carry any weight with most voters but particularly younger voters who seem to have a libertarian bent to their liberalism or conservatism.  Further on the political front it makes a great foil to Hillary Clinton and where "what does it matter" defense of the administration's bungling and cover-up on the September 11th Benghazi attack.

Carpe Diem GOP, carpe diem.

Electability is not a winning general election message

Mitt Romney has a 50-something point economic plan.  Can you name any one of the points?  Can you remember 9-9-9?  That guy isn't even in the race anymore, but he had a message that could be distilled down to something simple.  Mitt Romney's talking points perhaps could be distilled down but they aren't being simplified like that.  Why not?

Hey conservatives: Insights on message from a master

This is a topic near and dear to me.  In fact some of my earliest blog posts were about this topic.  Going into an election year, a reminder to all is in order.  It's not what you say that matters, but how you say it.  

So often conservatives try to frame their debates around being right about a topic.  The problem is, that doesn't always carry the day.  Sometimes, quite often in fact, the winner of a debate is the one who can best appeal to an audience's emotions.

Seriously, we need more Beck rallies.

I'm not kidding, more Beck rallies.  If we could get one a week until the election, that would be perfect.  Those rallies should go on tour.  Why?  Because if MSNBC and CBS want to argue about the attendance of those rallies, it keeps them from focusing their attention on getting the Democrats' message out.  Let them say that Glenn Beck only drew 87,00. Better that, even though it's insulting and wrong, than them trying to get out Democrat talking points.  Talking about Beck doesn't help the Democrat chances in November.

Democrats off message for a reason

Back in 2008 the Democrats rode the "Hope and Change" message to the White House and large Congressional victories. Twenty two months later they are floundering and in large part it's because reality has subverted their narrative. The message that got them here is not able to be used to keep them in power. This November, when the Republicans are looking to do to Democrats what that rogue wave did to the Aleutian Ballad a few years back, the Democrats themselves will apparently still be looking for a coherent message to sell to the American people.

One Version of a Conservative Roadmap - Part 2

In a recent article in Commentary Magazine, authors Peter Wehner and Michael Gerson wrote about the path to Republican revival. I had some previous comments about it with respect to how the Republican party representation in the House, Senate and White house has gotten to such a sorry state as it is in today. But their article goes on to focus on the more important issue of how the GOP can work it's way back from the wilderness. That, in my opinion, the most important thrust of the article. The remedies proposed by Wehner and Gerson have a dual focus. They concentrate on WHO to win demographically (improve vote share) and WHAT platforms to espouse in order to do so. By combining these two focal points, they may be avoiding falling into the classical conservative trap - have the right ideas and the votes will come. If only it were that simple, Obama would not be President, and his main opponent in the election would not have been John McCain, but a more conservative Republican. Such is clearly, and sadly, not the case.

Battling liberal mind control

Everyone knows what the problem is. Hot Air did a story on educational institutions and how liberals are controlling the message right out of the gate. Read the comments section for some personal insights from people frustrated with teachers indoctrinating our children with liberal dogma. From Kindergarten through university, it's one long liberal chain.


Beyond the schools there's the mainstream media. Beyond that there's trade unions. They control the message. It's no wonder conservatives have to play so much defense; liberals have all the offensive weapons. Really offensive ones too. That's the problem. What's the solution.

Whether it's schools, media or unions, there's really only a couple of options available.

1) Take back the institutions that give these unfair advantages to liberals. At least to the point where we have an equal say, an equal footing. The advantage to this approach is that it would foster a true educational environment where opposing viewpoints were discussed and debated. The obvious negative is that it is a massive undertaking, requiring co-ordination, perseverance and time. Decades of time. Further, the liberals who own these channels will fight tooth and nail to prevent this from happening. So add an extra five years to the strategic plan for victory.

2) The other option is to find alternatives. I've harped on this in the past. Use community outreach efforts. Use community events. Develop our own educational alternatives. Devise alternatives to education and the mainstream media. The down side is that it is polarizing to have dueling institutions. The upside is that while it will still take co-ordination and a lot of effort, the undertaking would be quicker and easier than re-taking the schools and TV.

What's a conservative party in the wilderness to do? Honestly, choose both options. This is a long war of ideas. We tend to focus on winning the battles, while liberals seem to have a better focus on winning the war. Or at least, they've put themselves in a better position to do so than conservatives. But while we cannot stop focusing on 2010 and 2012, we also need to take the steps towards making the battle easier for ourselves and the next generation of conservatives to come. We must earn people's trust and take our ideas to them. They may not react well initially, but overall they will be less hostile and more receptive than you might think.

The litany of McCain errors - Part 4

The 2008 McCain campaign made several errors that likely cost him a winnable election. Money, strategy and demographics prime among the errors. Another area in which the McCain campaign underperformed was in Branding and Messaging. Those are crucial parts of any marketing effort, and running for President is in many ways similar to selling shoes; getting the message to sink in matters, and getting the branding right matters.

Branding/Messaging

During the election cycle, I listened to POTUS '08 on XM satellite radio religiously. It provided great insights from Sept/Oct 2007 onward. A number of guests were of interest but particularly interesting was Thom Mozloom of themnetowork.com. He talked weekly with host Scott Walterman about branding in the campaign. He critiqued the efforts of each campaign. Unfortunately I've only been able to find a few older podcasts in the early spring of 2008, otherwise I'd try to share some of his commentary with you. He made some great points though about branding.

Two of his key points stuck with me;

1) You have to brand yourself, don't let the other guy do it for you or you'll get a brand image that suits them and not you.

2) You have to be clear and consistent in your branding. Your messages that follow, should be in alignment with your brand and will make more sense in that context.

With respect to both points, McCain failed miserably. By the time it became clear McCain needed Pennsylvania, it had also become fairly obvious that McCain's message could not penetrate the cacophony of Obama messaging in any of the key states he needed to defend. Worse still the message was all over the place, as if in the waning days of the campaign he was still looking for some message to resonate and stick with voters. Think about what was being put out there - drill baby drill, an all of the above approach to energy independence, Joe The Plumber, I'm a maverick, I'm change with meaning, I was right on Iraq and Obama was wrong, look at me I'm on Saturday Night Live so I'm cool and hip, Obama isn't ready for this. The list goes on and on. The messages may have been some of the right things to say, but look at that list. No wonder nothing stuck.

When Colin Powell is savaging your message, you've got real, serious problems. Colin Powell has done little to endear himself to the conservatives that once supported him. Back in October he endorsed Obama for President. Colin Powell's words probably mean very little to conservatives any more, but there are a few to which we should be listening (pay attention at 1:35, where he starts to make relevant statements. Ignore his take on it, but pay attention to what he says about shifting arguments and negativity);

What was Obama's brand and what was McCain's? I skipped over to The Huffington Post to look at a head-to-head comparison on branding. Keep in mind HuffPo is left, left, left and there's bias in the analysis. But just because they are the ideological enemy doesn't mean they don't have some valid points on the mechanics. Besides, if your 'enemy' does your work for you, why not leverage it?

John Tepper Marlin in October, had this to say;

On November 4 the American people will buy the Obama or McCain brand. I think the Obama brand is winning on seven criteria:

1. Logos. The Obama Campaign chose an icon that captured the feeling of sunrise over a field of red and white stripes. There is also a subtle "O" for Obama that is in play here though the name Obama is not used in the icon. This makes it a universal logo/icon to which anyone can bring his or her own meaning.  

It also communicates the Obama brand style. The McCain Campaign chose a logo that comes directly out of his family heritage of three generations in the U.S. Navy, as well as his prisoner-of-war-hero-status political leader. The colors of blue and gold are the U.S. Navy colors; the star icon comes directly from military-rank designations on uniforms. Graphic icons are more new school in the branding world, indicating change. Names on logos are more old school, indicating traditional values.

2. DNA. The Obama brand has a clearly defined brand code delivered in a simple three-word line. "Yes We Can". McCain has not clarified his brand code.His brand has delivered multiple messages - "Change You Can Believe In", "Country First", "Reform Prosperity Peace", "Don't Hope for a Better Life, Vote for One", "Courageous Service. Experienced Leadership. Bold Solutions".

3. Benefit. Obama has a clear product benefit. "Hope". It is hard to discern from the variety of McCain's brand messages what his product benefit actually is.

4. Positioning. The Obama brand positioning is We/People based. The McCain brand positioning is more Me/McCain based. If you would like to see evidence of this go to the Brooklyn Art Project site and see their Visual Word Maps. These word maps reveal the Obama and McCain campaign strategies by the top words used.

5. Values. If a brand is to be trusted it has to shed light on its values. Obama conveys the values of hope and unity. The McCain campaign has attempted to undermine these values, starting with exploitation of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's sermon on YouTube. This inspired Obama to give a well-regarded speech on race in America on March 18 at the Constitution Center in Philadelphia. This strengthened the Obama brand, as Obama showed he could stand up to adversity. McCain has clearly communicated that he values country and service but it's not clear how this message relates to current economic, energy, and environmental challenges facing America. Television coverage today showed Palin with "Country First" in the place of McCain's name on the campaign logo. These two words sound like implicature - a new word for the ancient practice of implying or suggesting something more than what it said. Saying that McCain puts his country first implies that Obama does not. It's as if Coca-Cola advertised "No Arsenic Added" - a statement that is surely true, but carries the (false) implication that other brands of soda do add arsenic. Sarah Palin at the same time was suggesting that Obama "pals around" with terrorists, the evidence being a long New York Times story on Bill Ayers that in fact concludes that the connection between Ayers and Obama, who both served on the Chicago Annenberg Project, was not very strong.

6. Mission. A brand must have a clearly defined mission so that its messages flow in one direction. Obama's mission is to bring "Change to America". The fact that he is the first African American running for the president of the United States is the embodiment of this mission. There could be no bigger change than an Obama administration and the Obama family in the White House. McCain's claim that he will bring reform to Washington with bold solutions is harder to buy into, no matter how much he positions himself as a maverick. The McCain brand simply hasn't demonstrated that his administration would be different from the last eight years under George W. Bush.

7. Vision. Finally, every great brand must have great vision. The Obama brand's "One Nation" vision is wrapped up in his quote "There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America." This viewpoint is the uniting principle that the Obama brand has promulgated throughout the country. The McCain brand vision is a world that is more threatening and fear based. He says: "We must win in Iraq. If we withdraw, there will be chaos; there will be genocide; and they will follow us home." A vision of fear in how we face our challenges here and around the world will diminish us. It will make us smaller and this is not the America that we want to see at home or how we want to continue to be seen around the world.

Interestingly he starts with the superficial - logos. Would you expect anything different from a liberal? Tomorrow 'll discuss communication, charisma and celebrity, and look at this. But I digress. The points he makes, while partisan, are fundamentally valid points. Democrats, taken by superficiality, and hampered by an inferior product have typically been better at branding. They've had to be. But the time is upon us when branding has become a critical facet of campaigning, and it's something the GOP had better have buttoned down for 2010 and 2012 if they hope to stem the blue tide of electoral victory that has unfortunately swept across America. If America is still a center-right country, there should not be so much blue on the map. But better marketing makes for more success. There's plenty of examples where an inferior product beats out a better one with inferior marketing. Think VHS versus Betamax. More recently Blu-Ray bead out HDD for high definition DVDs. Was it better? Honestly I have no clue, but Sony sure did something right.

McCain interestingly did get some positive traction with the celebrity ad trying to define Obama. But the campaign didn't have a successful follow up for it. Perhaps, given the dispersed messages they thought they had an adequate follow up. Or perhaps they were unprepared for the success of this piece.

So they were capable of making a splash. Unfortunately it was in defining their opponent and they had nothing in the hopper to do the same for defining John McCain as a brand. At the convention the intro video was all about John McCain and it defined his past very well. But it didn't give you the idea of what his vision was. In fact, as mentioned above, it was about him, not about America. That in itself was a branding problem.

I've never understood why real estate agents try so hard to sell themselves. They take pictures of themselves to feature in ads, but honestly, WHO CARES what your real estate agent looks like? I am buying or selling a house, not the agent. What I'm interested in his the house itself. What I'm peripherally interested in (if I'm selling) is the agent's sales record of success. If John McCain's branding team is selling the picture of McCain on the For Sale sign, and not the house (America) or what the agent (McCain) can accomplish, then they have entirely missed the point of branding. We're not 'buying' McCain. We're buying a fixer-upper house (America), or a mansion (America) depending on your point of view. But neither view cares what the agent looks like.

Obama got this one right. He beat Clinton on branding and handily beat McCain too. Ad Age honored Obama as Marketer of the Year, as well the should have. He sold a mansion as an agent who knew virtually nothing about the housing market - both figuratively in my analogy and literally as it turns out in the mortgage crisis.

January 4th, in Part 5, I will look at the final area of the McCain campaign weakness.

Bypassing the MSM

Conservatives aren't winning simply because we aren't effectively communicating our ideas and the reasons behind them. The recent video on how Obama won, is proof. The message isn't getting out. Liberal messages get out. They've got Saturday Night Live. They have Katie Couric. They have Oprah.

Where's our media? On the Internet and talk radio. These are excellent sources of news and opinion - for the converted that is. But if you get your news from the occasional tune-in to CNN or NBC Nightly News or worse - The Daily Show, there is no way you get any sort of counterpoint. Fox News, while fair and balanced, only wins the network ratings because it's the only MSM outlet conservatives can stomach. It may have a conservative bent but Hannity has Colmes while Olbermann has...sounding boards. I'm not denigrating Fox. Thank God for Fox! But I'm saying they are preaching to the choir and the choir, having no other church to sing in, is sort of a captive audience (sorry for the mixed metaphors).

We need to be flogging our message non-stop to break through the liberal clutter. We need more of our own outlets. Yes, alternatives like the Internet, but we also need to break through in an MSM way. There are ways to do this. Reagan did it.

And now there are more avenues open to us. This is about an air war, not boots on the ground outreach and fundraising (which we still need to do better).

Direct mail is one way. (Go to www.c-spanarchives.org, and search Richard Viguerie - America's Right Turn.) If this interview doesn't put you to sleep, then we are on the same page. For an abridge version, you can look here;

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/archives/viguerie_vid.html

But that doesn't do it alone. Think about all of these untapped communication opportunities;

• Text Messaging & MMS messages.
• Viral email campaigns.
• Web portals - own the search, like Google does.
• Talk radio - not AM, we own that. Are the FM lite talk opportunities?
• Yet another Fox type network. An MSM outlet built from the ground up with shows and news and that are from a conservative perspective. Conservative values product placement is an interesting idea.
• Another option is to do the MSM type network on the Internet. Become Internet television.
• Pod casting.
• Polling and data mining - not push polls, but doing statistical analysis to discover profiles or clusters that can be successfully communicated to with a message. Then find the right means to contact them.
• Social Networks - Creating new online networks or building applications for Facebook for example.
• Films - fund on-message movies and documentaries.
• Commercials
• Interactive Media - video games
• Leverage PACs for message spreading outside of the Beltway instead of inside it.
• RSS Feeds
• Create our own broad-interest magazines (like Women's, Men's, Vibe, Rolling Stone) with some messaging and articles with a conservative slant.
• Door to Door canvassing (more of a ground game approach but not a bad idea)
• Becoming truly interactive with a Web Ring of conservative ideas with an interactive feedback mechanism of some kind.

Process versus Principle

In an article in at Townhall today, Star Parker outlines her reasons for believing that the Republican party needs to focus on principle rather than process. She makes a reasoned argument about how the process focus killed the McCain campaign. Others have argued that re-branding is not what's needed for the party to rebuild itself into a vibrant and meaningful national force.

I disagree.

In an earlier post, I mentioned that the two key areas for the party in rebuilding are agenda and process. I think the party platforms (agenda) don't need an overhaul. In fact, any changes required are quite minor compared to the process of getting elected. And re-branding to me doesn't mean that we need to change the brand. It means we need to change the image of the brand.

Let's face it - McCain's image WAS erratic. Not only to Democrats. Think back to the Gang of 14. Think back to how often he was focused on tilting at his own windmills rather than playing for the team. From a Republican perspective, that is erratic. And while the Democrats saw George Bush as steadfastly evil, as a Republican, if you think about it, he was quite erratic too. Expanding entitlements, and Harriet Miers are just two examples of where he left the Republican 'plantation'. So did the erratic image do anything positive for McCain's campaign? At best it could be considered neutral.

But the point is this. We have an set of principles and guiding principles - an agenda. We don't need to re-invent them. I think that's where Star Parker and others and I agree. But where I diverge is that we need to sell that image far, far better than we have been doing. That's why I think process is so important. It's not whether it's Coke or Pepsi in the bottle, it's how you sell it. And judging by the 2006 and 2008 cycles, we are not selling it very well. How is it that Reagan could sell his ideas but Bush and McCain could not? True, they weren't as steadfast in their adherence to the core principles. But they were also abysmal in their sales jobs.

Policy just does not win elections. Image does, if that image is one of inspiration (Reagan), hope and change (Obama) or even empathy (Clinton). There is no question that we have the better cures for the country's ills. But can we convince people that is the truth? Yes, we need leaders who believe in the agenda. That is a given though. What we really need is a leader who can sell it, embodies it, and communicate it. We need someone who can wade the through the figurative swamp of misinformation and come out the other side with a legion of new believers.

Ideally you want someone who has the core principles and the unparalleled ability to drive the message home. We can talk about what the principles are until we are (forgive the unintended pun) blue in the face, but it won't win us any more votes. Besides, if we codify the core believes and polled the Republican base, I'm sure you'd see an average buy-in of at least 90% to each of the principles. Yes moderates would likely agree with less. But do we want to fight them over 10% or 20% of the difference, or do we want to focus on the 5% to 10% of the voting public we lost because our message is unclear? The latter is where the victories are.

All that said, I don't want to see another soft Republican ticket. I think the best brand to sell is a strong conservative agenda. I just want to see a far, far better sales job.