"Mr. Obama's site is more harmonious, with plenty of white space and a soft blue palette. Its task bar is reminiscent of the one used at Apple’s iTunes site. It signals in myriad ways that it was designed with a younger, more tech-savvy audience in mind — using branding techniques similar to the ones that have made the iPod so popular."This analogy can obviously be extended past their respective campaign sites. Clinton represents the older, more reliable PC. We all know what to expect if Hillary Clinton leads our country for the next four years. Democrats will be unyielding on policy decisions and unwilling to collaborate with the other side of the aisle. They will attempt to remodel the deteriorating health care and pull out of the Middle East. The fact that Clinton's election would symbolize leaps and bounds in women's rights is the only difference between Hillary Clinton and every other past Democratic president.
On the other hand Barack Obama will the be Mac of Democratic Presidents. Like Hillary, he will be steadfast on his policy positions, attempt to end Bush's "War on Terror", and focus on issues like health care, that have been largely ignored in the past eight years. However unlike Clinton, Obama's inspiring style and ideological politics hints at an eventual blurring of party lines, past politics and on to ideologies. This trend can be seen with the recent surge of "Obamacans", Republicans who support Obama over McCain. (Stephen Mack) And to really change our country and fix the major problems that have become inherent in our democracy, republicans and democrats will be forced to work together.
All of this being said, like a Mac, Barack Obama is new, innovative, and unfamiliar. People used to the comfort Clinton politics are scared of change and unconvinced of the benefits of a younger, more inspiring leader. I only hope that like the recent surge in approval and appreciation of Mac's innovation, Americans will hop on board the new Obama politics before the end of the democratic primary.
1 comment:
This blog post was not only very interesting but also ties exactly into what the theme of my website is about.
I have been talking about political branding a lot on my website, meaning using tangible things like a logo (or in this case, a website) to create a campaign that forces people to associate certain selected adjectives, attitudes, or ideals with a candidate.
For example, your article mentions the look of Obama's website: clean, fresh, and cool - meant for a younger age group (check out my most recent op ed about Obama's relationship with 18-25 voting group). This was not an accident. This was another attempt by Obama's PR team to furthur his image as exactly such: clean, cool, fresh - innovative, exactly as you said.
By using these tangible tools, PR teams build the brands for their clients that guide the American public to automatically think a certain way when asked about their clients.
Fun to read!
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