The strategy isn’t anything new.
If you aren’t an insider, then by definition you are an outsider.
If you aren’t a force for the status quo, then by definition you’re an agent of variation.
Voters who don’t like what they have will vote for something different; sometimes they’ll vote for anything different.
Perception is reality when someone closes the curtain on Election Day.
Is he an “elitist” or “experienced?”
Is she “fresh” or “naive?”
This time around the polls are screaming that voters want something different, even people tied most closely to the way things are.
When it comes to political branding in 2008, only one image is left that matters:
“Hey Buddy, got any change?”
Barack Obama used a tightly focused message of change to beat the better positioned, better monetized and more experienced Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary.
Like McDonald’s means hamburgers and a Harley means freedom, the Obama camp made sure that every speech, every appearance shook the same tree; the need for a new approach in Washington.
It was brilliant marketing in that it turned Clinton’s greatest strength, her experience, into an Achilles’ tendon that eventually brought her up lame in the stretch drive of the primary.
Then the message was “A Change We Can Believe In.”
Now it’s “Obama-Biden: The Change We Need,” which may have been planned all along but more likely was sharpened as the current administration rode an increasingly sinking economic ship.
John McCain chose early on to focus on what I’m sure is one of his core beliefs: “Country First.”
Those signs filled the convention hall in Saint Paul as the Republicans made the nomination official after a primary that was largely uncontested down the stretch.
And what is the brand message of the Republican ticket now?
“Change is coming.”
Is this an attempt to cut into the other guy’s message or simply the realization that what voters want more than anything else is something else?
And of course the real irony here is that Barack Obama, Joe Biden and John McCain all talk about changing Washington but all have jobs inside Washington.
The only real change on either party ticket is Sarah Palin, the most scrutinized and mimicked VP candidate this side of Dan Quayle.
And in the Year of the Message of Change, why is Palin being criticized?
For not having enough experience in Washington.