at marketing? There is no political commentary in this point but speaking purely from perspective of selling ideas to the public, the Democratic party is beyond atrocious compared to the Republican party. Let's take the example of Tea Parties, or Tea bagging, an absolute great marketing slogan, it's a catchy metaphor and also has feel good connotations about patriotism and the war of independence. On the democratic side, their big initiative is called "The public option", it's dull, sounds boring, has no marketing juice at all. I mean I could come up with a better slogan in seconds, calling it "Medicare for All" or "No One Turned Away" would be way better marketing. Other great Republican marketing slogans; No Child left Behind PATRIOT act my point is that the Republican party comes up with great marketing messages time and time again and I cannot remember a great Democratic marketing message. Why?
because when your ideas have no substance, you have to come up with a catchy name to trick the masses.
Nice, the one time that a great marketing message came from the democrats, the republicans got crushed, I just wonder why they don't do it more often.
THE Democrats suck because over the years theyve become the republicans.....and the republicans have become something so scary, religious nuts.
When Democrats fall in love with marketing, their principles often get lost in the shuffle. See: The Democratic Leadership Council. I'll take the party that sucks at marketing over the one that sucks at everything else.
The point is there are a significant amount of "low information voters", they don't spend very much time on following the news, and most likely they will make snap judgements on policies and politicians, by sucking at marketing, you are in essence fighting an uphill battle against an opponent with good marketing. It's like starting a basketball game ten points in the hole, your talent level has got to be much better than the opposition if you want to win.
I agree. Things being what they are though, one party has a marketing deficit and the other has a substance deficit (not to mention a truth deficit). Given that, I'm happy enough with my party. Also, underdog victories are the sweetest kind.
It also helps if you have your own 24/7 "news" network as well as a host of bloggers, talk show hosts, and party hacks who will spew out whatever the day's talking points are.
Since everyone agrees that the Dems do suck at marketing, the question then comes to why? It can't be that they don't understand the importance of it? They could not find a better message than "the public option"? I mean, couldn't they just find a PR company to consult with naming the thing? I am sure some PR company will be happy to do it pro-bono for them. And the funny thing is that it happens over and over again.
Considering the Democrats have beat up the Republicans pretty badly in the last two elections I wouldn't say they suck at marketing.
In most elections the other side contributes to their failure, consider the 1994 elections when even though the Republicans had a great marketing campaign it still took Rostenkowski and the collapse of the Clinton health care to convince voters to kick the Democrats out. In 2006 yes anti-Bush probably played the bigger role in Democrats recapturing Congress but in 2008 Obama and by extension the Democratic brand, ran a masterful marketing campaign.
