"Branding" political candidates is nothing new. It's been happening for decades ever since they first figured out the concept of "mass media" and how easily minds are swayed by it.

The article about immigration in the UK wasn't clear: was it the fault of the immigrants or the government for not preparing for a population growth in the countryside? In the US, quiet little suburbs across the country are facing population explosions. When I last visited my old stomping grounds outside of Philadelphia I was amazed by the traffic congestion in areas where you'd see one car an hour just 5-10 years ago. This occurred because everyone wanted to move out of the hustle-and-bustle of the city and get away from traffic and overcrowding. Now, if you want peace and quiet, you have to buy a farm an hour outside of the city.

As much as I'd like to blame the namby-pamby "oh it's too loud in the city" wimps, it's the fault of those areas zoning boards for failing to grasp you can't put 50,000 people into an area with infrastructure that's designed to handle 10,000. If the countryside in the UK is overcrowded: STOP BUILDING!

Posted by: Upstate Guy on July 21, 2008 5:02 PM

Whoa, Obama has... stickers? And... novelty merchandise??? Like what, every other Presidential candidate in U.S. history? Seriously, what am I missing here?

I find the attitudes towards Obama fascinating, on the left and the right. It seems to me that he's running a pretty conventional political campaign, yet everyone seems to act like he's (to borrow a line from the posters for Altman's NASHVILLE) "the damnedest thing you ever saw."

Posted by: Steve on July 21, 2008 6:44 PM

Do I sense a couple of Obama enthusiasts being a little defensive, or touchy? But why? 1) Nowhere (in this posting, at least) is Obama being ridiculed. 2) It isn't as though Obama is being given a rough time in the press generally.

Besides, things are going to get rougher as November approaches -- might as well start getting used to that now.

Posted by: Michael Blowhard on July 22, 2008 8:25 AM

I do find Obama's voice and manner agreeable, but his established supporters are almost other-worldly in their enthusiasm. Some of the funniest stuff would have to be Camille Paglia's adulatory articles on Obama. They're a mix of her impossibly overloaded conceits ("talk radio...has become a tornado alley of hallucinatory holograms of Obama") and golly-gosh commonplaces ("The guy is smart as a whip...an alpha male like Obama..."). I'm not making this up. Here's a sentence that Lisa Simpson couldn't beat: "An Obama-Sebelius pairing would be visually vibrant and radiant, like a new day dawning."

People should remember that there was a time, around 1996, when Tony Blair was the ultimate in cool. When I was a boy it was cool to put tinned pineapple in salad. I'm an Aussie, you can say it's none of my business. So vote how you like...

Just don't vote for COOL. It passeth.

Posted by: Robert Townshend on July 22, 2008 8:57 AM

Hardly an Obama "enthusiast", as I'm voting for him solely because he's not a dominionist looking to bring about the rapture and is therefore the lesser of two evils. The devil himself could step out of hell and run against McCain and I'd vote for him because in that case, McCain would still be the greater evil.

Welcome to 21st century where if you mention one candidate without mentioning the other, you're biased.

Posted by: Upstate Guy on July 22, 2008 9:28 AM

Not touchy at all--just seriously wondering what I'm missing. The photo spread called his campaign "groundbreaking" for its "sophisticated and extremely effective brand marketing strategy" but what it shows is run-of-the-mill political signs and buttons.

Posted by: Steve on July 22, 2008 10:40 AM

fuck mccain and obama. they both suck. ya know what?i don't like the idea of the government tapping our phones or giving government funds to religous organizations and i'm not talking about bush i'm talking about obama.
i voted for ron paul in the primaries (in virginia you don't have to register with a party to vote in the primary) and i'm probably voting for bob barr even though i think he's an asshole.

Posted by: t. j. on July 22, 2008 11:48 PM

The one political crusade I'm on these days is "automatic run-off balloting." As long as a vote for Ralph Nader = one less vote for Gore, or a vote for Bob Barr = one less vote for McCain, then too many voters will either hold their noses and vote for the lesser of two if-not-evils than not-so-hots or else stay home. We need to open things up or the Good Cop/ Bad Cop parties will continue to serve the interests of the elite while the rest of us pay the tab.

Posted by: Chris White on July 23, 2008 8:07 PM






Post a comment

Name:


Email Address:


URL:


Comments:


Remember your info?