Leigh Scott, Super Genius
Yes! This folks, is it! Look, I’m not going to let you skip over the link without reading the article. Go, read this article, http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/lscott/2009/05/06/conservatives-need-to-fire-the-marketing-department/#more-127402
Did you read it? Good. I have been waiting for a long time for someone to figure this out. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a super genius who had this figured out. I had parts of this figured out. So did you. But I’ve been waiting for someone to put it all together. There are times when I thought it couldn’t be put together. But it can, and Leigh Scott taught me how. The devil is in the details and every one of us gets mired in the details.
America = Freedom. Conservatism = Freedom. America = Conservatism. You know this. I know this. Polls show that Americans know this. The problem is most Americans aren’t political. You and I live politics. It’s our baseball. It’s our passion. Most Americans have other passions; real, actual baseball, football, movies, television… Most Americans don’t know what “Conservative” means. Most Americans don’t know what “Republican” means. Most Americans don’t understand our Constitution, checks and balances, limits on power… But Americans do love freedom. They do not like able-bodied people who covet what is not theirs. They respect hard work. They admire courage. They respect our military. They love our flag; the Star Spangled Banner, apple pie and Chevrolets (we’ll, maybe not Chevrolets any more…)
The devil is in the details. I have a theory that 90% of us agree on 90% of the important stuff. Unfortunately, news stories on what people agree on don’t sell newspapers, or Sham-Wows. So we have a media obsessed with the 10%; the details, and Liberals have figured out how to control the media. Well, by-pass the details. Take a page from Reagan and go around ‘em. Do a George Gipp, end around; Give ‘em freedom. They’ve got “hope” and “change,” we’ve got “freedom” and “liberty” and “individual rights.” Imagine a Senator standing up and saying this, “Folks, the Congress is trying to take away the states’ Constitutional right to decide this matter on its own; your state’s right. Don’t let them steal your freedom, your right to do this as you and your neighbors see fit. Don’t let a Congressman in New York, Nevada or California tell you how to behave!”
Barack Obama and Joseph Biden and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid want to limit your freedom. They don’t think you can be trusted to make good decisions with the money you earn. They don’t think you can be trusted to use proper care with the gun you own. They don’t think you can make a wise choice on which car you want to drive. They don’t think you can educate your children well. They don’t think you can be a responsible steward of the environment. Hell, they don’t even think you can buy a light bulb!
It’s freedom people!
Many of you probably know that the first several Presidential campaigns happened without the candidates campaigning. It was considered poor taste for a gentleman to actively pursue the job. That tradition slowly went away, but for a long time it was considered in poor taste for someone who wanted the job to be seen in public, speechifying, “begging” for votes. Obviously we got over that tradition also. David Axelrod ramped it up 1,000% and now we’ve crossed a new line; the black-velvet Jesus campaign. That doesn’t mean a candidate has to be an empty suit, like Robert Redford in “The Candidate,” but it does mean any serious candidate had better include a glitzy marketing campaign along with his Presidential or Congressional bid or he or she will have trouble securing the votes to be elected. But we can do that campaign without sacrificing Conservative principles.
Give us robots and lazer light shows and motorcycles and humvees belching CO2 in the sky! Show us American exceptionalism! Show us freedom!
I think that’s my favorite post so far at BH. Make sure you read the whole thing, because I thought I knew where he was going with it, but he fooled me good.
Brilliant piece, Rufus. Leigh Scott’s, and your comments.
I’m not surprised to see this at Big Hollywood. Folks who make their living working the Culture – Arts, Entertainment, Media – understand this better than folks who make their living in Politics.
The Marketing Leigh Scott’s talking about has to come from Culture Warriors (by which I mean, artists, writers, filmmakers, theater directors, editors, critics, etc.) and from politicians. If it comes from the politicians alone, it will be easy to marginalize and ignore.
And we need to get to work on this marketing NOW. Building a marketing campaign, like this one, 6 months before an election would be too late. It is a message people need to hear over and over and over again. We are, after all, fighting against 40+ years of liberal brainwashing.
Which is why so many of us are fed up with the Frums and Brooks and Powells and McCains (father and daughter). These are the people who’ve been marketing the GOP for the past decade, and in the process they’ve destroyed a brand name. By never pushing back, they allowed the Dems to poison the positions of the right in the minds of the uninvolved and uniformed middle. Then they have the gall to blame everyone else but themselves for the hole they find themselves.
The biggest favor Snarlin’ Arlen did for conservatives this past week was to show the world that the Dems no longer need these middle of the road squishes, and don’t want them either. As they’ve been saying about the conservative base of the GOP, “where else are they going to go”? With deals like the “Gang of 14″, the squishes have been threatening to give the Dems what they wanted if the squishes didn’t get their way. Well, Powell, and co? you served your purpose and finally got the Right out of power. And look how the Dems repay your kind. Where are you going to go now that neither side wants you, and your ego won’t let you admit “I was wrong.”
(One thing I want any “marketing campaign” on the right to avoid is the Cult of Personality trap. Make it about ideas and ideals. It needs to not be associated with any person, dead or alive. No Gingrich, no Reagan, no Powell or Palin or any other saviour. Leave that to the Dems, especially as their Teleprompter Messiah slowly deflates.)
Glenn Beck called Specter Spectator today because Reid basically lied to him about how important he’d be to the D-Rats….HIGHLARIOUS!
Arlen should have called me. I’dve filled him in on Ol’ Dingy’s penchant for truth stetching. Nevada will love this man when he’s finally out of the Senate.
Give me freedom!
You hit the nail on the head.
By the way, plants love CO2. So when your driving your motorcycle and 57 Chevy belching CO2, your making the trees happy!
It’s amazing how these things happen…
As someone who makes a living making TV commercials, I couldn’t agree more! I would absolutely fire every person in the GOP marketing dept. They obviously don’t understand the current state of media – probably all nephews or buddies of party leaders. Too bad.
Kenn, Since when did nepotism not achieve it’s goals of the free exercise of the Peter principle?
BTW, how come that stupid ad for “The God Who Wasn’t There” keeps showing up? There aren’t GOP marketing gurus working for Google, too?
GOP marketing gurus working for Google. That’s funny.
Google a few years back didn’t acknowledge memorial day, but does Earth day, Arbor day, save a whale day, kiss a same sex person day….
I may have made the last one up.
Rufus here; perhaps, Tracy, but I do remember them honoring kiss a whale day.
No Tracy… that last one is Googery.
I agree with the focus part but I do still worry that our ideals will get lost or shuffled to the side. If we sell freedom but then don’t let them kill babies, how is that going to go down with the pro-choicers?
I do remember reading that many of the early candidates not only didn’t campaign but had to be convinced to take the job. Any man who wants the job is showing an amazing amount of naivety or hubris. Hey, we got both! I also remember GWB at least reporting that he was unsure of running and had to be convinced. I don’t know if that’s truth, but I like it better than, “I could do that, that EASY!”
That’s precisely why I like Scott Leigh’s post and suggestion so much, Tracy. You’re allowing yourself to get mired in the details. Abortion is obviously a very serious and important issue, but what if we had federal representatives who understood the importance of allowing the states to manage themselves? Roe v. Wade would be overturned, it would be back in the states (where it belongs) and 80% – 90% of states would not allow abortions.
We (all of us fall for this) get obsessed with the details and then it becomes an all or nothing game. We have to get out of that trap. The devil is in the details. Keep the message on the big stuff, the important stuff.
Freedom and liberty. Don’t even focus on party names. Stress the fact that Congress is trying to take freedom and liberty from the states. From you. We want to restore our country to the founders’ intent; a limited, Federal government. If we do that, the rest will happen. You know most your neighbors agree with you on most of the important stuff. Have faith they will make the right decisions when control is given back to them; to us. The founding fathers did and look at all our predecessors accomplished with just four sheets of paper.
Big picture. Focus. No details. Forest. No trees. You and Dr. Zoon and your neighbors will take care of the trees, and me and Mrs. Firefly and our neighbors will take care of the trees in our neck of the woods. We need to get Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi out of the forest.
Huge campaign in my forest, Nevada, to unseat Sen. Reid next re-election cycle.
“conservatism = freedom” is not intuitively obvious to the casual observer. Which is why I am a (now regrettably small-l) libertarian instead of a conservative.