Campaign 101 Tip: Develop a message

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The "Campaign Message" is a crucial part of the candidates image and their personal brand. Obama has effectively branded his campaign as that of "Change" through his message "Change we can believe in." This has stayed consistent throughout most of his campaign and has been used with much success.

Now as for McCain, he has been unable to create a message. His "Straight Talk Express" approach has framed his approach to politics; trust, transparency and leadership. However, it does not do enough to meet the consumer (voter) sweetspot.

McCain's campaign slogans have changed frequently in the general election. He once used "A Leader we can believe in" but it was riduculed for being too close to Obama's slogan. In fact he even tried to use the Obama colors on his site...This, of course, could have been a violation of intellectual property but more so I believe the worst decision the McCain campaign could have ever made because when you saw the site, it made you think of Obama.

McCain is now using "Reform. Prosperity. Peace." This is better, but I still don't believe it captures the consumer (voter) sweetspot. I feel that voters want change but with experience. McCain represnts both. He needs to do a better job packaging himself into a campaign message.

Law School En Banc

A few days ago I set up a blog called Law School En Banc that will track the lives of myself and my friend Eugene as we venture into the Law School world. Both of us will be attending two different schools in two different cities and will be blogging about our experiences from two different prospectives. I will definitely urge you to check it out. As of August 11th, I will be blogging daily throughout my first year of law school.

I will continue to blog on Zevitas' Blog, however since class ended I'm still debating on what topic I should begin blogging about. Currently, I am leaning towards creating a blog devoted to Political Branding in the 2008 Presidential Election. I believe not enough is being written about the importance of branding and the strategies currently being implemented by both the McCain and Obama campaigns. What do you think?