Brand Assymetries

One common response to my suggestion that if Democrats want to do better with the politics of national security liberals need to think more about the substance of national security as been the "Billy did it too!" defense. This takes note of the fact that the GOP does well on the politics of national security without offering much in the way of policy proposals (what, for example, was it exactly that Bush committed himself to doing in his second term?) so the Democrats don't need to either. That's fair enough, but it's also irrelevant. Democrats need to recognize that the two main brands in American politics are assymetrically situated with regard to national security policy. The Republican brand has been built up over a series of decades, while the Democratic brand was dragged through the mud by the events of 1968-1972. The Carter administration further weakened the brand. The Clinton administration did much to improve the Democratic brand in some other areas, but had little impact on public perceptions of national security.

When, like the GOP, you have a strong brand, you can run a candidate like George W. Bush in 2000 who's obviously very weak personally on national security and still win the "world affairs" vote. The GOP has also been able to get away with switching from marketing a right-realist ideology to marketing a right-idealist ("neoconservative") one, without inducing much cognitive dissonance outside of the chattering classes. This is good for them, but it doesn't work for the party with a weak brand. Democrats have certain branding advantages -- on health care, retirement security, with regard to African-American voters, etc. -- but national security is not one of them. The primary voters in 2004 gambled on the idea that nominating a decorated war hero as the party's salesman would help overcome that branding disadvantage. For quite some time (most notably at the 2004 DNC in Boston), the party's consultants drove forward with this strategy. And it might have worked, too, if the Swift Vets had been more effectively responded to. Or it might not have worked. But either way, it would be useful to be able to expand the list of possible nominees beyond those who've demonstrated personal heroism in combat. That means improving the brand. And given the assymetrical relationship between the two brands, that means you need to do much, much better than the Republicans to get any credit out of it.

I had hoped in 2004 that the Bush administration's evident failures would be enough to put Kerry into office. But my hopes were dashed. The underlying weakness of the Democratic brand prevented a large number of people who were disquieted by the incumbent's performance from rushing to embrace the challenger. Something must be done to change that situation. Going and taking a long look at what liberal security people are putting forward as substantive policy is a good first step. There's a need for the marketing people to familiarize themselves with the product so they can come up with a less vacuous sales pitch than "respected in the world."