Making Ripples: post-corporate adventures in Floyd County Virginia

The Meaning of Sarah Palin

Yuval Lenin has written a thoughtful analysis of Sarah Palin's transformation into one of the most divisive figures in recent American history.

Reading his article, The Meaning of Sarah Palin", gave me a much desired sense of closure on this recent chapter in our political history by filling in the blanks that have puzzled me for some time.

Some of the point addressed:

There was almost no middle ground between those who had come to adore her and those who believed she represented just about every dark and dangerous element of contemporary American politics.

Palin became an instant cultural and political magnet, attracting some and repelling others and dragging a helpless McCain into a culture war for which he had little stomach.

Palin became the embodiment of every dark fantasy the Left had ever held about the views of evangelical Christians and women who do not associate themselves with contemporary feminism

Palin did not merit her instantaneous conversion into the Joan of Arc of the American Right, just as she did not deserve the opprobrium that was heaped upon her by the Left.

She really did seize the attention of swing voters, as McCain’s team had hoped she might. Her convention speech, her interviews, and her debate performance drew unprecedented audiences....But having finally gotten voters to listen, neither Palin nor McCain could think of anything to say to them.

She represented a threat to the cultural elites of both parties.

Read the entire article. I believe there is much that can be learned from it, no matter what your political leanings are.

Thanks to Instapundit for the link.

Finally! An analysis of election results that makes sense

I have been trying to make sense of the recent Presidential election amidst the cheering on one side and the second guessing on the other side and I was not getting a resolution. Too much raw data and opinion and nothing that actually explained what had happened.

I think the confusion comes from the fact that I was looking for a political analysis when the election was actually a marketing success and can be explained in terms of marketing and branding strategies which are more basic and are more easily understood.

I read these 15 words on Linda Popky's Marketing Leverage Blog and it opened the door to a new understanding of what happened in this election.

...in a very short time, Obama built a strong, powerful personal brand--basically from scratch.

Forget ideology, transparency, media bias, associations, etc. Obama came up with a better way to present a coherent promise of value to voters that resonated with them. That is what a brand is and does.

While party stalwarts on both sides were working on the mechanics of getting out voters, calling in favors, and attacking weak points of opponents, Obama did what was necessary to create a personal brand that was sufficient to overcome criticism during the campaign.

A brand is an identifying symbol, words, or mark that distinguishes a product or company from its competitors.

Sufficient to say that Barack Obama and his advisors did an outstanding job of this and it won the election.

There is another side to this powerful concept of branding and that is the basis for its power.

A brand is a promise of value to customers, and it sets a certain expectation.

A successful brand launch is a wonderful thing, but there is a Sword of Damocles hanging over any brand which will fall when the brand fails to deliver what is promised.

Barack Obama's expansive brand of "Hope" and "Change" offer a wide variety of futures depending on the expectations of the voters. As a result, he may have created a set of conflicting expectations which he may have difficulty reconciling.

To use an automotive metaphor, I would like to hope that his brand of hope and change will result in a "Mustang" future instead of a "Yugo".

We shall see.

Read more lessons to be learned from Obama's victory after the jump. I have linked to articles on this election by Jack and Suzy Welsh and Linda Popky. They are well worth your time.

A well-documented election

Barack Obama's management of his campaign and the mobilization of a 501c 3 organization as a campaign arm was incredibly brilliant. His oratorical ability and his sense of theater struck a resounding chord with a great number of voting citizens. He won a well-deserved victory in the sense that he did the necessary things that resulted in his being elected. He convinced enough people that he was the solution to their problems to gain enough votes to win.

He was helped in this campaign by avidly partisan Main Stream Media figures, but this has happened in almost every Presidential election. In this election, the majority of MSM outlets did a fantastic job publicizing Barack Obama as the obvious choice while suppressing those challengers like Hillary Clinton, John McCain, etc., etc.

The MSM know they played a major role in electing Barack Obama and they are certainly savoring their victory. Charlie Gibson's fawning interview with the President-elect was right in line with his earlier interviews of Barack Obama. It was a marked contrast to his demeanor in interviews with the other candidates. But this was not unexpected.

The MSM has never been non-partisan, except in their own eyes.

The major difference in this election was that hundreds of thousands of individuals got to see the seamy underside of the political process on the Internet. Blogs and YouTube videos revealed embarrassing details about every candidate and highlighted the unfortunate bias and misinformation emanating from the MSM.

The dirty deeds and unfortunate relationships that were swept under the table as being "unimportant" will not go away as they might have in the distant pre-Internet past. The details of who did what and who benefited are still out there and will be digested and discussed for years to come.

Will these uncovered misdeeds and crimes affect the political fortunes of our elected officials, hard to say. Probably not, as Congress, the Senate, and the President-Elect will have most of their attention on creating alliances that will carry them through the coming year.

On the other hand, bloggers of the Left and of the Right and every position on the political spectrum will have ample time to uncover information and connect the dots so that a coherent picture will evolve of every incident worth discussing. The shifting positions of the candidates will be laid out on a time track for all to see and analyze. These analyzes will probably be used in an effort to predict future behavior and to anticipate weaknesses.

Efforts to obfuscate and hide data rarely work and there will be a cost to those who attempt it. Who does not know for example, that the LA Times has been sitting on a video of Barack Obama. A news organization suppressing news? How noble of them! What will that do to their bottom line? Probably more layoffs.

By the end of the first 100 days of the new presidency, there could be more well-informed citizens of every political persuasion than ever before in history. The scrutiny that will result from this access to information will cast light in more dark places than you might imagine.

Scrutiny by bloggers will continue to force MSM outlets to cover issues at the risk of being discredited. Bloggers are no more intelligent than the media types they compete with, but bloggers are resourceful and often highly motivated to expose injustices. Their alliances are clearly labeled and you can quickly see where they stand on most issues.

We will see whether the new Administration handles this challenge with style and grace or by repression of dissident voices.

We live in interesting times.

This election is the ultimate test of voter judgement

Almost everyone wants what is best for their families, their communities, and our country and they rely on the election of a President who will make changes that will improve conditions in those areas.

The Presidential candidates have told us what they intend to do and the promises are either enchanting or horrifying, depending on your viewpoint and level of experience. If the voters are good judges of human nature, they will select a candidate who delivers what he promises.

If they vote on what they believe the candidates have told them, their expectations will undergo some readjustment in the months to come. The difference between what a Presidential candidate says and what he can deliver depends on his personal integrity and on his ability to mobilize support in Congress and the Senate.

There is also a difference between what a candidate says and what he means. Campaign promises undergo a predictable downsizing in the months after the election. No matter which candidate wins, the first announcement will be that more time will be required to institute promised changes because the incumbents have left things in such a sorry state of affairs.

The next announcement will be that more money is required to make the promised changes than expected and that some programs will have to be delayed indefinitely.

The announcements of advisors and key staff will disillusion some of the most dedicated campaign workers because this will probably signal a major shift in the new Administrations priorities away from what was promised to voters over to what must be delivered to fulfill promises to key supporters and financial backers.

If voters listen only to candidate promises and haven't looked closely at what the candidate has done and who he has associated himself closely with, there may be some disappointment after the election.

The candidates have done their best to show us what they are capable of. Voters will decide what promises fit their concept of a desirable future.

By next Spring, we will know for certain how well the voters have chosen. Let us hope that the new President has a higher approval rating than the current one.

If we reward non-production, we get freeloaders

Families which reward children for bad behavior or nonproduction raise young adults who are not trained to support themselves. Governments which reward non-production end up with freeloaders clogging ever-increasing welfare rolls.

We have all gone through tough times, some of us more than once, but we are encouraged to bring ourselves through our travails when we are rewarded for our efforts. If we are rewarded for not trying, then there is little reason ever to improve ourselves. We are encouraged to become freeloaders

What if we lost our job or house in a catastrophe? We would hope that friends and neighbors and the government would give us a helping hand until we got back on our feet financially.

We see that time and time again in rural communities where neighbors and the local churches pitch in and everyone comes together until the crisis is over. People find room in their homes for those who have lost theirs and life goes on.

Most people want to earn their way in the world and they take every opportunity to keep their exchange in with those who are supporting them. Those who choose to be freeloaders are actually criminals who want something for nothing.

But people can actually be coaxed into becoming criminal. If a situation is created where  rent money and food is provided for those who do nothing to help themselves, there is no reason for them to work for a living.

Here are three situations which illustrate how this can happen:

Where do you get reliable political information?

Barbara Kaye at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville has an interesting survey to examine the Internet's influence on the U.S. political process.

2008 Politics and the Internet: A Survey of Internet Use for Political Information

I took this survey and was surprised by what my answers revealed in terms of changes in my political awareness and awareness of reliable information sources. Take this survey and see if you have similar results.

Thanks to Glenn Reynolds for the link.

Political discourse and junk food

I have been sampling the recent blizzard of liberal and conservative discourse and I find most of it is too much like junk food in that it titillates my interest but offers little in the way of sustenance or real value.

Political news from the MSM and from many bloggers is heavily biased and pushes emotional hot buttons to hide inferior research and lack of logic. This is quite similar to the adding of chemicals to junk foods to make them seem appetizing and cover up the lack of real food value.

The MSM is so obviously partisan that it makes little sense to turn on the TV and expect to get news. FOX supports the McCain campaign while ABC, NBC and CBS are media extensions of the Obama campaign. These journalists fawn on their favored candidates while pouncing on the opposition candidates.

Very rarely does an event get reported as it happens. Professional journalists feel obliged to "shape" the news so that the audience gets the journalist's version of what just happened. Political bloggers have fallen into the same trap.

This "shaping" takes the form of leaving out words when quoting someone's answer or editing videos to change the meaning of what a candidate said.

There is so much blather being foisted off on us as news that many of us no longer respect the "talking heads" who once dominated TV news. Rathergate should have acted as a warning that "manufactured news" will no longer pass muster, but this presidential campaign has shown that professional journalists have no shame and less integrity. Many bloggers no longer offer a useful alternative.

Whether it involves spreading rumors of Obama's affair with a staff member or hyping the "ethics investigation" of Sarah Palin's actions regarding a rogue Trooper, it appears there is little investigation or factchecking before spewing half-baked ideas to all and sundry.

Statements by the candidates are ridiculed by those journalists and bloggers who have a vested interest in the success of another candidate. I have read so much negative reporting by bloggers and MSM journalists that I have tuned most of them out now. I think that others are doing the same.

Joe Biden's recent comment on the possibility of a post-election aggression from a foreign government was ridiculed by journalists and bloggers alike, but there is some basis for believing that an inexperienced President will be seen as an opportunity to be exploited by some foreign leaders. JFK was seen as a weak President by Nikita Khrushchev. Kennedy's eagerness to be reasonable and encourage understanding was no match for Khrushchev's determination to debate and out-argue the less experienced president.

I am tired of the political junk food I am being served. There is too much unsupported opinion and too many obfuscations offered up by well-meaning partisan hacks. The more I dig into actual transcripts and videos by the candidates, the better I understand where they are coming from and what their goals are.

None of the candidates are perfect and they all have made their share of mistakes. What I am looking for is the meat of the matter and that is a sense of what they will do in office based on their past experiences. Anyone can make promises, but a person's ability to deliver can be extrapolated from what they have already accomplished.

Leopards do not change their spots and politicians rarely change their pattern of behavior. Getting a true picture of a candidate's history will provide a good clue as to how they will perform in office. The MSM does not currently provide a true picture of any of the candidates.  Bloggers are more open about their allegiances and they generally provide links to original source material. It is easy to crosscheck one blogger against others and draw some useful conclusions.

The truth is out there, but it takes some digging.

Messages converge - trust becomes the major issue

In the third Presidential Debate at Hofstra, both candidates did a more effective job of articulating their ideas, but their messages are converging. Public trust in the candidates will be the differentiating factor.

Their proposed solutions are becoming more aligned as the day draws closer when one of them will be elected and have to lead all Americans, not just their supporters. They have different philosophies, but it seems that both recognize the practical realities of life in 2008 and are sincerely trying to propose workable solutions to those problems.

It comes down to a matter of trust now. If two groups propose similar results through different approaches, who do you trust to achieve a meaningful result?

Take education for example: Both candidates agree that our school systems are not producing the results needed to give America a prosperous and secure future. One candidate thinks lack of money is the answer. The other thinks the school systems need to be improved by introducing competitive offerings, such as charter schools and vouchers so that parents can choose the schools that provide the education they want for their children.

Your choice will be determined by your trust in the person proposing a particular solution as much as the desirability of the solution. If you have real experience with the problem being addressed, it will make it easier to recognize real solutions.

Becoming informed on the issues that matter to you will help you decide what candidate to vote for. All candidates have strong points and weaknesses. Each has a balance of style versus substance. You can't know everything about each candidate, so you choose the candidate you feel you can trust. In that way, you will probably be able to live with whatever that candidate brings to the table.

Will we know any more when tomorrow's debate is over?

That depends on whether we watch the debate or let someone else explain it to us. Journalists and bloggers of all political persuasions are so polarized at this point that their "facts" are almost buried in baseless opinions.

The American political process is moving into full scale Halloween mode. Skeletons are dragged out of closets and tens of thousands of dead people are registered to vote.

The candidates are so consistently viewed as caricatures that their basic humanity is lost to view. Opponents are demonized and the worst side of human emotion is put on view.

With the Internet at your fingertips and channels like PBS and C-Span, that doesn't have to happen.

If you are interested in getting information from the candidates themselves, tune in tomorrow to the General Election Presidential Debate. My personal opinion is that C-Span coverage gives you more candidate time and less commentator snarkiness.

John McCain (R), United States Senator (AZ) and
Barack Obama (D), United States Senator (IL)

Date: October 15, 2008
Location: Hofstra University
City: Hempstead, NY

Time: 9:00 - 10:30 p.m. Eastern

Sponsor:  Commission on Presidential Debates
Moderator: Bob Schieffer, CBS

Topic:  The Economy and Domestic Policy

Format:  90-minute debate with candidates seated at table with moderator. Candidates questioned in turn with two-minute responses, followed by five minutes of open discussion for each question.

Transcripts are available on http://debates.org

Photo credit: SFWEEKLY.COM

Click on "zombie voters" for more information on this international phenomenon.

Move along, nothing to see here...

According to Tom Brokaw, William Ayers who is shown here desecrating the American flag is just a school reformer in Illinois, nothing more.

He used to be a domestic terrorist. Now he is an educator. What do you think his idea of a curriculum for children is?

The picture was taken in 2001 when this man was on the Board of the Woods Foundation.