America's Two Party System: The Marketing Party and The Product Party

By Dave Johnson
Created Dec 20 2006 - 9:38am

Co-written by Dave Johnson [1] with James Boyce [2]

We do have a two-party system in America: The Product Party and The
Marketing Party. We have one party that spends its energy and its resources
creating a product that will improve the lives of its supporters, and then
we have a second party, one that invests its energy and its resources
managing perception.

One party offers substance but without the sizzle, and one is so incredibly
adept at selling that it can charm you into supporting an agenda that helps
only those who don't need it, and actually hurts you and your family.

By mastering the management of perception and with an utter disregard for
facts and reality, the Marketing Party's agenda and vision gets
implemented - despite its horrendous consequences for the country, and the
world. It has never been worse than it is now. The chasm between their
vision, its consequences and the lifestyle and security of the average
American is mind-boggling.

Do not underestimate the power of marketing. With enough money, a good
campaign and some time, you really can make people think and do almost
anything. Exactly why do you think Coke and Pepsi outsell all the other
brands - because their sugar water is vastly superior to others? Exactly why
do you think one brand of shampoo is "premium" and another is $5 a gallon -
is it because they have different ingredients? No, it is because marketing
works, especially on a public increasingly trained to respond.

Marketing works so well that some businesses have grown so accustomed to
looking for marketing solutions rather than product solutions that they have
developed a mindset that it is cheaper to manage perceptions than to fix a
product. If people think the product tastes bad - market it as the
best-tasting product and make the rubes think THEY're the problem. The
result is they can spend millions on the symptoms and nothing on the
disease.

Our "CEO President" Bush appears to be cut from this mold. As it became
clear that the Iraq occupation wasn't proceeding as intended, Bush didn't
change the product - he changed the sell.

The administration spent $20,000,000 on hiring a PR firm to plant positive
stories in the press - instead of spending $20 million on body armor to
actually reduce the casualties that fostered the public relations disaster.
It created "Vets For Freedom" and planted bloggers among the troops in Iraq
to send back positive posts. President Bush made major speech after major
speech. And top officials made surprise trip to Iraq after surprise trip to
Iraq.

But now we are in a time with the marketing no longer is sufficient to solve
the problems. Increasingly, the American people have stopped buying the
sell. Just as the American automobile manufacturers are forced to increasing
amounts of dollars selling a product that increasingly the public does not
want to buy, so too did the Administration have to step up the marketing of
a war that the public no longer is willing to support.

Sadly, the past two weeks have showcased the collision of perception and
reality. Tragically, the administration continues to hold a cult-like belief
in the power of perception management, regardless of circumstances and the
politically acceptable options that it has provided itself.

The Iraq Study Group recently came forward with a lifeline for the
administration, but their recommendations did not sync with the
administration's vision for a moment of victory - again, cheaper to change
the marketing. So instead of working with the ISG, Baker and other members
were - characteristically - smeared in the right-wing's echo chamber to
"soften up" public perceptions in advance of the coming Bush rejection of
their advice.

Last week, James appeared as a guest on MSNBC's show THE MOST [3], and was
asked how President Bush could improve the "public's impression" of the war.
He said,

"The president doesn't have a problem with the perception of the war, the
President has a problem with the facts. ... Eventually the product has to
speak for itself, and I think the American People are rapidly coming to the
conclusion that we have an Edsel on our hands here. They want a solution,
they don't need a new slogan."

Between us, we have more than forty years experience in marketing and
advertising, and we both know, all too well, that it is exceedingly common
for companies to approach product failures as marketing and advertising
failures - it allows them to continue to live in denial about the weakness
of their product.

With today's Republicans the first instinct is always about the marketing,
and not about the country. According to Bob Woodward, Karen Hughes
reportedly said, when she first saw the smoldering ruins of the World Trade
Center, that it was "the perfect backdrop" for a photo opportunity. Even in
tragedy, the instinct is toward the marketing instead of the managing.

In the current tragedy the Bush image makers continue to search for the
photo-op moment in Iraq. They are looking for the right image - the kiss in
Times Square from World War II or the Japanese Admirals on the deck of the
aircraft carrier, signing a treaty.

The fact that no such moment exists or ever will exist only increases their
desire for it.

Why is their first instinct to market rather than to manage? And how exactly
have they gotten away with this total management of perception? How have
they been able to sell the American people over the past five years?

The answer may lie in the study of how the "conservative movement" took
control of the Republican Party. As Dave wrote last week in Are Progressives
Good? Then TELL PEOPLE! [3],

There are literally hundreds of conservative organizations that primarily
exist to persuade the public to support conservative ideas (and, therefore,
conservative candidates.) The people you see on TV or hear on the radio or
who write op-eds in newspapers are paid by, or at the very least draw upon
resources provided by, these organizations.

You might or might not have heard of the Heritage Foundation or the Cato
Institute or Americans for Tax Reform or the This Institute or the That
Foundation or the Government-and-Taxes-Are-Bad Association - but there
really is a machine or network of well-funded conservative organizations
marketing the conservatives-are-good-and-liberals-and-government-are-bad
propaganda every hour of every day and they have been doing so for decades.

Yes, marketing. They have been doing this solidly for over three decades and
they've been doing it well, and with an incredible amount of money,
resources and talent behind it.

The people in power in the Republican Party got there by marketing and
perception management, and using a $ell and $mear strategy [3] to demolish
and humiliate their opponents, and that is what they know. They come from a
culture of saying anything as long as it keeps the rubes buying. Why would a
company spend all that money to clean up the product when you can instead
spend less and sell the idea that Toxic Sludge is Good For You [3].

The conservative movement understands this. They understand if they are
going to cut student loans, hand over the management of Social Security,
arguably the most successful government assistance program in our history,
to the private sector, give away valuable public resources and then, on top
of everything else, wage a war without reason or basis, the spend must be
astronomical.

The American people are a living focus group to the success of their plan.
The past thirty years has seen a slow and steady decline in the public's
understanding and acceptance of progressive values - like equal rights for
all our citizens or the acceptance of all religions.

It's important to point out another old expression: great products sell
themselves. And while in practice, it holds that to reach great heights,
great marketing combined with great products is actually the key - think
Apple and the iPod - the better the product, the less marketing dollars need
to be applied to drive sales. YouTube, Facebook, MySpace... If you're
selling the best made car in America, the press reviews, customer loyalty
and word-of-mouth marketing greatly enhances your paid advertising. If
you're selling a lemon, you better have tens of millions to spend.

This brings us to the other party in our two-party system - the well-meaning
Product Party that doesn't understand marketing. The Product Party stands in
bewilderment as time and time again, The Marketing Party works its
perception management magic to win elections, control the debate and lead
the media and public to diss its leaders and policies. As Dave wrote last
week [3],

We can see the results of the conservative marketing campaign all around
us: War. Debt. Crumbling infrastructure. Falling wages. Loss of pensions.
Loss of health insurance. Declining union membership. Massive trade
deficits. Distrust of government, courts, schools and other institutions of
community. The list just goes on and on.

But really, after decades of conservatives pounding out their message and
progressives keeping their message to themselves, what should we expect?

And to make this problem worse, the Marketing Party is very good at shifting
the blame for their bad product. For example: take a moment and look at the
reality of the financial mess that is being handed to the new Congress - it
is stunning. And yet, if the Democrats don't explain this clearly and
succinctly to the American people, the result will be that the mess will
land - squarely - in the wrong party's lap.

The Product Party's product is responsible and involved government: a
government that can fix the schools and patch up the potholes. A government
that would actually practice hurricane rescue not just preach it.

The Katrina debacle laid bare the failure of the right wing's
anti-government agenda. The reason they didn't do anything for the people of
New Orleans and the Gulf Coast is they don't really care. Government - or
product - is just not what they do - marketing is.

However, they cared deeply when they began to lose the public relations
battle - like 9/11 and Iraq, the reality is inconsequential - managing the
perception of the reality is paramount.

The Product Party is known for fiscal management and international diplomacy
and building mass transit and roads and bridges and schools. This is the
party that brought us the middle class and the weekend and Social Security
and inspections for e-coli.

But the Product Party is a political party full of boring policy "wonks"
holding community meetings where hours are spent arguing the best and most
democratic ways to provide services and, well, fix those potholes and even
working on the finer points of health care finance administration management
policies subsection 3, paragraph... ... and who wants to hear about THAT?

So where the people in the Marketing Party got there using marketing pizzaz,
the people in the Product Party got there by plugging away and delivering a
product. They're not the most adept at marketing. Whereas the people from
the Marketing Party don't understand - or care - about the actual product,
apparently the people in the Product Party don't understand - or care -
about marketing - reaching and persuading the public. Democrats have long
had the product but are woefully unskilled in the marketing and the
willingness to spend and support the marketing. There is something to the
idea of marketing and selling people on something that goes against the
nature of the wonky democracy idealists of the Product Party.

Which leads to their problem. Don't people realize that almost all the
veteran leaders in America are Democrats? They ask this - thinking of Max
Cleland, Wes Clark, John Kerry, Joe Sestak, Chris Carney, Tim Walz, Jim Webb
and more. Don't people understand the Democrats want to raise the minimum
wage, improve health care, make global warming a priority, enact the
recommendations of the 9/11 commission and more? Don't the understand how
much better the Democratic product is for their families and the future?

No, the people don't.

Because you can't just be the party that does the boring work of cleaning up
the toxic waste left behind by that wrecking crew - the people known for
marketing, selling and heading for the county line. If you want the public
to understand what you are about you have to be the party that does the
work, and communicates the fact in clear simple English to voters who have
better things to do with their lives than listen to the nuances of toxic
waste policy.

In fact, The Product Party is not only running against the sell and smear
tactics of the right, they're running against a coordinated program that
says "government itself is bad." The Republicans have spent 40 years running
down government. Ronald Reagan famously said that "government is the
problem" and then left for the county line leaving us with 4 trillion of
debt. George W. Bush, the "CEO President" emulated Enron, and implemented
"no-bid" contracts while the Republican Congress got rid of the system of
oversight.

So what can be done? The Democrats have to understand that people respond to
marketing, and that building a better product doesn't always mean that the
people will flock to you if they don't find out about it. They must remain
the party of the Product, but they also need to be the party of the
Marketing. Only we can be both, the Republicans can not.

Why? Because the last six years has not only demonstrated the Republican
mastery of their marketing but it has shown the misery of the product. From
not implementing the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission to the absolute
abandonment of our fellow Americans in the aftermath of Katrina, and the
outrageous lies regarding the solvency of Social Security, the product that
we are being sold is dangerous and destructive. "You can't fool all the
people all the time." And on November 7, 2006, the marketing plan fell
apart.

So now the Product Party has the ball and there is no question that the
Democrats will deliver the goods. However, the danger lies not in the
performance but in the perception of the performance and especially in how
we clearly communicate the mess we inherited.

If Democratic leaders believe that all we have to do do is do a better job,
and surely the American voters will reward us with the White House in 2008
and continued control of Congress, watch out.

Our moment in the sun, and moment in power, will be very short-lived indeed.

_______

About author Dave Johnson is the lead blogger at Seeing the Forest [4] and a
Fellow at the Commonweal Institute [5], where he studies the conservative
movement's network of foundations and think tanks and the extent of their
influence on American society.

--
NOTICE: This post contains copyrighted material the use of which has not
always been authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material
available to advance understanding of
political, human rights, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues. I
believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright
Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107

"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson