Post Election Report: Part 2, Branding

The day after the election I was talking to a friend of mine who is a Democrat. I was trying to put my finger on what it was that I found so creepy about being in Grant Park on election day.

I've written before about the 7 ft. tall image in Barack's campaign office of his own face.

[Editors note: this image is from AP. The rest are my own.]

I thought it was weird. I still do. But it was the candidate's decision to put it there.
A candidate for president can be incredibly arrogant at times.

What's different about Barack's followers (its the only word I can think of that fits) is that they do things that are even more creepy. Like... they wear his face on their t-shirts.
I'm going to make a great over-arching horrible generalization. Ready for it?
When any populace starts wearing a politician's face on their shirts, its bad news. For everyone.
This guy was one of at least 30 people that I saw selling t-shirts that night. (I'm being conservative in my estimation.) Good for him celebrating the last vestiges of capitalism.
For some reason, I liked the gentleman above instantly. I think its because, unlike most of the crowd, he's an older dude. I can understand how an older black man would feel the history of the moment, whether he liked the candidate or not.
This dude was making bank. He literally had stacks on these posters and he was selling the "Hope" rhetoric as fast as he could roll them up. One guy bought 3 posters for his friends.
I want to - I need to - repeat that.
A guy bought 3 posters of a politician for his friends.

This kind of thing really split me in half. On one hand, I'm thrilled that the man above was able to make his living for the next month by selling people useless shit. That's what America is about.
On the other hand...
What is it about the people in Grant Park that has made them so insecure in themselves that they trust in someone that they've never met to make their lives better???


This is America, folks. You can literally accomplish anything you set your mind to.
The guy above is proof of the 'land of opportunity.' He's selling images of a president-elect!
Then there was this giant horrible painting, above. It was put up across from the big video screen, in the un-ticketed part of grant park. At around 7pm, there were scores of people, like the ones above, taking photos of themselves in front of the giant painting.

Think that's weird?
It gets weirder.
What are all of these people photographing, post-Barack-election?
They are photographing the sign. -And themselves in front of the sign. -And their friends in front of the sign. The sign that says "Obama Presidential Rally Parking."

Anything that said 'Obama' or 'Barack' was selling. -And that doesn't even include the Official Obama Store, below.

I haven't even talked about the Obama watches that I saw. But I might as well include the light-up buttons, that you can put on your hat.

There were tables of merchandise that people had trucked in.
It was a marketing wet dream.

That's when it hit me.
The word is Branding. I learned about it in college in a marketing class. It basically refers to the ability to sell something by making people feel good about the product.

If you're good at Branding, then people want to buy your product based on name recognition. If you're really good at Branding, then people talk about your product in glowing terms.
If you're brilliant at Branding, then people start to wear your brand. If you're wearing a Guinness t-shirt or own a Coca Cola clock, you're a product of branding. Someone spent gazillions of dollars to make you think that you're cool for wearing and buying their stuff.

Which is why its creepy to see so many people vote based on great branding.

By the way, when I wrote this post, I wanted to make sure that I was using the term correctly. While doing a web search, I ran across this article. Tragically, they cock-blocked my point by getting there first:

Like any great brand, Obama has built up a bond of trust with the American people. His election has also given the US the opportunity to reestablish its moral leadership around the world. But like any brand, he has to deliver now on his promises, both actual and perceived. In the current economy, that will not be easy.

In my marketing class, they taught us that good branding needs to be followed up by a product that delivers. Otherwise, the brand will fail.

I'm not sure if that's going to be true with Obama. Already, both his campaign and his supporters are suggesting that if he isn't able to deliver, it will only be because of Republicans.

In political terms, this is called innoculating your candidate from the opposition.
From this point on, when Republicans take positions that are... well, Republican, Obama supporters will tell us that conservatives are just trying to make Obama fail, rather then support the policies that they've always supported.

This creates a president that truly has unlimited power.
That was what I found creepy about the tens of thousands of people that I ran into in Grant Park and on Michigan Avenue. Its what's been disturbing me for the past few months, as Obama-fever ran past critical mass.

So many Obama supporters identify so strongly with their candidate through branding, that they can't separate themselves from the candidate. Thus, if you attack the candidate, you are attacking them.

At the beginning of this post, I mentioned my friend who is a Democrat, who voted for Obama. He's also a black man who has become annoyed with Barack supporters. He told me something that has given me much... er... hope, to use the most over-used word of 2008.

My friend said that he was annoyed with the people wearing the t-shirts too. Not because they were "supporting" Obama, but because there were so many people that - to him - seemed to be jumping onto the bandwagon. That they were trying to be cool by showing their friends how not-racist they were.
My friend then told me about how he took a subway train home that night. A "white suburban girl" sat next to him, and then pulled her purse close to her as she sat down. He couldn't help but think to himself that she had probably just came from Grant Park that night.

If the people in Grant Park want to prove to me that they really do believe in Change, I'd love it if they would start with themselves.
You are in charge of your destiny. Not your president.
If you want to prove how you aren't a product of branding, then please stop wearing those stupid T-shirts. Stop doing the group-think, and get out of the line of lemmings.
Change your own lives, and stop being a complete jerk to the people who aren't in Grant Park.

Change isn't a slogan.
Its what you're capable of all on your own.

Post Election Report: part 1, Two Americas

In Barack's America, there really are two Americas.

On November 4th, 2008, I voted for McCain. Then I went down to Grant Park.
My sister suggested that I should go down there and record history.

At first, I balked at the idea. I didn't want to add to the spectacle. I didn't want to be another camera down there recording the coronation of Barack. But then I started looking at it another way:
20 years from now (provided I'm still alive) I'm going to be asked by a younger generation how it was that so many people became obsessed with a presidential candidate.

By then, the shiny sheen of celebrity will come off of Obama. It happens with all public figures that are worshiped. JFK was the one exception, and only because he was assassinated before he could fall from grace.
We have little film from leaders who were truly worshiped, and even less film of the people who worshiped them. I went down to Grant Park with the intention of interviewing those people who loved Barack. I wanted to get their actual opinions down on video. I fully admit, I wanted to embarrass them with their lack of substantial answers.

There was only one problem. It was dark by the time I got there. So much for interviews.

That didn't stop me from taking some photos and making this cogent observation at the entrance to Grant Park.
Below is a video that I took. The images themselves are not as important as what you'll hear.



This is where the Barack faithful were sorted.
You see, Barack's campaign staff had Grant Park divided into two Americas: the ones with tickets, and the ones without.
This is far different from the 'one America' that Barack had talked about.

In this photo, I'm on the side of the have-nots. I didn't have the golden ticket to see Barack.
In the future, you can think of this as being a 'red-stater'.

I kinda felt this was symbolic, and ironic.
Obama went to Berlin to give his speech near the famous wall that was taken down, the one that divided Berlin for such a long time.
-And here his campaign had built their own little wall; One to divide grant park into two distinct social groups.

First, there was a line of wooden police horses. Then the security guys. And if you got past them, you still had to make it over the fence. Unless you had a ticket. The people that you can barely see on the street in the background had tickets.

I know what you're thinking: "But wait... they couldn't fit everyone into one place to watch the speech. There simply wasn't enough resources to accommodate everybody. They had to divide it into a ticketed area, and non-ticketed area."

Which is the point.
Stick with me for a moment.
The promise of Universal Health Care is that everyone should be able to have the same health care. Right? No matter what your problem, you'll still be covered. Right?

Don't get me wrong. As an older guy, I find that a tempting con to buy into. Except... its just not possible.

We just don't have the resources to give everyone everything. We never will.

It doesn't matter if you're talking about sports cars, or yachts, or health care without limits, or a rally in Grant Park: there is a finite amount of resources that you have to draw from.

So that was my first observation of the night: watching the two Americas in progress and marveling that the Democrats didn't seem to mind at all.

Particularly when these cats were stalking the event.
Now I need to start by giving the Democrats who were at Grant Park a lot of credit. The vast majority of dems either walked straight past these guys and went to the video screen in the background, or politely took their flyers and nodded. Like you should to any aging hippies who are spouting 40 year old stale communist rhetoric.

But here's the point: these guys thought that Obama was the first step to a better socialist tomorrow. Its the kind of thing that should make Democrats go "Errr... wait. You think we're forwarding your cause by electing Obama?"

I'm going to do these guys a 'favor' by linking to their website and quoting them voraciously. Keep in mind, these guys think that Obama is headed in their direction, but that he doesn't go far enough.

You couldn’t miss it on Election Night. People actually pouring into the streets to celebrate the election of a president. Emotions ran high, and tears flowed.

And in the days after: people talking to friends and strangers alike of hope. Hope for a coming era of change from the horrors of the Bush years. Hope for overcoming racism. Hope for a new era of service to the common good.

Hope—hope that is founded on the real possibilities for fundamental change in this world—is indeed precious. Dedicating your life to something higher than the ethic of “I-want-mine” is so vital that the future of humanity actually depends on it. And overcoming—truly overcoming—the divisions of society based on inequality and oppression must be at the heart of any real movement for social change.

Note the important part of the second paragraph, above: "Hope for a new era of service to the common good." Like the "America Serves" program that Barack proposed, where each high school student is required to do 50 hours of 'mandatory voluntary' work.

Change.
To a socialist state that you can believe in.
To two Americas, divided into those who have the ration tickets, and those who don't. Please empty all of your valuables out of your pocket. Only those who have acceptable items will be allowed into the park.
Enjoy the new freedom.