Easy:
Posted on 02/25/2015 1:28:00 PM PST by Kaslin
Is Hillary Rodham Clinton a McDonald's Big Mac or a Chipotle burrito bowl? A can of Bud or a bottle of Blue Moon? JCPenney or J. Crew?"
That was the opening question of a front-page Washington Post story on Clinton's effort to figure out her "brand." To that end, she has recruited a team of corporate marketing specialists to "help imagine Hillary 5.0."
"It's exactly the same as selling an iPhone or a soft drink or a cereal," Peter Sealey, a longtime corporate marketing strategist, told the Post. "She needs to use everything a brand has: a dominant color, a logo, a symbol. ... The symbol of a Mercedes is a three-pointed star. The symbol of Coca-Cola is the contour bottle. The symbol of McDonald's is the golden arches. What is Clinton's symbol?"
A columnist less charitable -- and less constrained by the rules of a family newspaper -- might be tempted to suggest some fitting symbols for Bill Clinton. But for Hillary, that's a tougher question.
Which is why the Hillary Industrial Complex is setting up a Manhattan Project to answer the question, "Who should Hillary be this time?"
They'll have their work cut out for them. More than any other politician in American life today, Hillary Clinton is an ironic figure. When she does or says anything, friends and foes alike ask, "Why did she do that?" "What was she thinking?" No one takes Clinton at face value because it seems that, after decades of public life, even Clinton doesn't really know who she is -- or at least who she should be this time around.
Her fear of giving the wrong impression -- before she can figure out what the right impression would be -- has understandably encouraged risk aversion. Even friendly reviewers proclaimed that her book "Hard Choices" read like it was written by a subcommittee tasked with avoiding saying anything.
Fortunately, that will all change soon, now that Clinton has enlisted the help of the Purpose Institute, whose co-founder Haley Rushing is known as the "chief purposeologist. Really.
Alas, Rushing is not working on the Clinton campaign, but the institute's other co-founder, marketing guru Roy Spence, is on board. By all accounts, Spence is great at what he does. Why, he conceived the "Don't Mess With Texas" anti-littering campaign.
Risking the accusation of damning Clinton with faint praise, let me say Clinton isn't litter. Nor is she a Big Mac or an iPhone.
She's a human being who has been on the public stage for nearly four decades. And yet, according to the New York Times, she has a team of 200 policy advisors trying to figure out how to "address the anger about income inequality without overly vilifying the wealthy."
Brain trusts are fine, but this isn't merely that. Since her days trying to overhaul health care, Clinton has been the kind of wonk who thinks you can solve every problem by consulting enough experts and compiling enough data. There are some tasks that lend themselves to such approaches, but electoral politics isn't one of them. Her husband knew that. He may not be able to put the formula in a strategy memo, but Bill Clinton could riff off the cuff in a way that could thread such needles with ease. That natural talent didn't become community property when Bill and Hillary got married; she doesn't have the gift.
And so she compensates by controlling the things that she can control: an ever-expanding retinue of consultants and advisers who tell her not to worry about the missing ingredient. That's what they're there for.
The hitch is that the desperate quest to find a brand is itself a kind of branding. Former Republican Florida Gov. Charlie Crist tried to rebrand himself as a liberal Democrat in his bid to get back his old job. He lost in large part because the only image that stuck was his craven political opportunism, not Charlie Crist 2.0.
No doubt many voters -- and pundits -- will happily buy whatever they come up with for Clinton. But others will focus not on what's new in Hillary 5.0, but what is a constant in all of the versions so far: a purpose defined by the pursuit of power.
With good reason FR people loathe this creature. However, you are looking at the next President of the United States. Look who the American people currently voted into office. American triviality has only deepened.
Originally, she was a “child advocate” who was lousy to secretaries in the Rose Law firm. Since then, she’s nothing - absolutely nothing - the original invisible man but with worse legs.
The best they can do is keep double fingers crossed hoping that gruber was right and that the USA really is Brazil.
Nobody parties like a Clinton!
Hillary loves a Drink and Bill Loves the Little Girls
Easy:
Hillary loves Huma too...LOL
I’d tell you what she is but it would get me banned as a Freeper for life plus 10.
Her identity in a word: SKANK!
Identity? when I saw the title I was wondering if Hillary was debating whether to run for President as a woman or as a man
She’s a cankle. DUH.
Every time I see a picture of Hillary, I think of “Granny” on the Beverly Hillbillies. I don’t know why.
FDR's theme song was "Happy days are here again." Bill Clinton's song in 1992 was "Don't stop thinking about tomorrow." Hillary's should be "Devil woman."
Money quote. What 2008 revealed is that she is not a very good campaigner. Despite the advantages of being a virtual incumbent, she got taken by a two bit turd blossom parvenu from Chi-town.
A candidacy put together by "marketing consultants" will not do the job this time either.
Hillary’s No. 1 problem is she’s not authentic. She is not being herself.
All the branding in the world won’t address that problem.
Who is the real Hillary Clinton? No one knows. And I don’t think the candidate herself knows who she is.
You don’t need hundreds of highly paid consultants to figure out your identity and what you stand for. The oldest rule of politics always comes down to one thing.
Its you people vote for and they don’t vote for anything else, period. If Hillary needs a makeover, she’ll never get elected President.
Hillary Clinton is not that good at retail politics. Her husband was a natural at it.
Despite a lifetime of being in politics, she has no identity of her own.
Of course her asset is her gender but that’s not going to take her where she wants to be.
And the more people see of her, the less they like her. Its not going to go away in a national campaign.
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