To avoid partisan potshots, I disclose in advance that I am neither a Republican nor Democrat, nor could I be classified as a liberal or conservative. Thus my following analysis is one purely aimed at examining how brands work in presidential politics.

In other words, don’t bother commenting if the analysis annoys your personal partisan political peccadilloes. This is about marketing and not the mayhem of presidential elections.

Much has been written in the last year about the destruction of the Republican “brand”. A brand - be it for a PC, politician, or even a PC politician - is what the market (voters) think and feel about the product. Yes, politicians and parties are products that can be bought though the price is too high for the average consumer/voter.

Many Republicans felt their party no longer had a brand. Many core Republican/conservative policies appear to have been abandoned by the Bush administration. Translate this into a technology product that had for many years delivered on the core features and functions it promised to provide. Then say that the new release of the product had massive bugs that the vendor did not fix that diminished or eliminated the usefulness of those features. Some GOP members viewed their party as Windows XP users view Vista - failing to faithfully deliver fundamental value.

This is where belief systems enter into marketing. People often believe things about a brand that are not true. But when faced with continuing failure to deliver on a branded value proposition, people quit believing in the brand. In this election cycle we see two brand battles raging. The GOP had lost its brand and is now actively redefining/reclaiming it.

Let’s look at each starting with the Democrats. Obama - like any candidate - needs to keep the trust of all classes of people. He set forth a brand which spoke broadly and elicited an amazing amount of response for a candidate with relatively little history. Bowling badly or making three-point buckets spoke well to the working classes who hold the keys to certain battleground states. But Obama’s “guns and religion” statement while raising funds in a San Francisco “Billionaire Row” mansion shattered that believability and damaged his brand value in those markets. Blue collar and Blue Dog Democrats indicate they may sit out this election based on brand misalignment. His selection of Biden did nothing to help regain those voters.

McCain’s team managed to something that any marketing strategist would love to achieve. They managed to find a brand and value proposition that was broadly popular, that matched the existing brand essence of the candidate, and located a running mate who brought additional authenticity (real or imagined) to the new brand. In other words, GOP marketing strategists scored a trifecta on brand management.

Let’s circle back to the Silicon Strategies Marketing copyrighted definition of a brand: a brand is what the market thinks and feels about your product. McCain had for years developed a reputation as both a maverick and a reformer. In fact the media made so much of this McCain value proposition that it became “knowledge” instead of “belief” among most Americans. The market of voters thus “thought” McCain to be a reformer. Adding Palin to the ticket - exploiting her highly personal “small town, common sense” brand - emotionally reinforced the ticket’s reformer brand. GOP strategist realigned the original “small government” GOP brand to the existing McCain/Palin brands. Then they used this to co-opt Obama’s “change” brand, simultaneously strengthening the GOP brand and weakening the Obama brand.

Polls indicate the plan worked very well.

Obama can only counter this in two ways:

• Try to destroy the McCain brand, which can only be done through negative attacks. This is a bad move because Obama based much of his brand on being a nice guy, rising above “politics as usual”. Going negative would be to destroy his own brand.
• Create a more authentic Obama brand: This is tough because many of the mistakes his campaign made (hijacking the presidential seal, mass rallies in Berlin, the “guns and religion” sound bite) has reduced the public perception that Obama is “authentic”. Even San Francisco’s eccentric former Mayor Willie Brown - a Democrat to the end - thinks “Obama still appears overscripted. Too perfect.”

Here are the basic branding lessons to learn from this year’s election cycle:

1. Be faithful to your brand: The Republican’s learned the hard way that the moment you stop “walking the walk” buyers/voters vanish. The GOP got lucky in finding a new brand that worked in the 11th hour.
2. Do not invent a brand that is not authentic: Obama learned that you cannot talk “small town” in Scranton then disrespect “small town” in San Francisco.
3. Represent your brand at every touch point: You receptionist should reinforce your brand. McCain picked a running mate that reinforced his.

Guy Smith is the chief consultant for Silicon Strategies Marketing. Guy brings a combination of technical, managerial and marketing experience to Silicon Strategies projects. Directly and as a consultant, Guy has worked with a variety of technology-producing organizations. A partial list of these technology firms include DeviceAnywhere (mobile applications), ORBiT Group (high-availability backup software), Telamon (wireless middleware), Wink Communications (interactive television), LogMeIn (remote desktop), FundNET (SaaS), DeviceAnywhere (mobile applications), Open-Xchange (groupware), VA Software (enterprise software), Virtual Iron (server virtualization), SUSE (Linux distributions and applications), BrainWave (application prototyping) and Novell.

One of the first questions that goes through a person’s mind when they’re charged with a San Diego DUI is: What are the penalties? California DUI penalties are somewhat complex and a DUI sentence depends on many factors such as:

* Any prior DUI convictions

* Refusing to submit to a Breathalyzer test

* Whether or not the DUI led to a death

* Having a child in the car

If you are caught with a DUI in San Diego, there are basically two types of criminal charges. You could be charged with a DUI (Driving Under the Influence or be charged with driving with a blood-alcohol level at or greater than .08%. There’s a chance you could be charged for both.

What happens to your drivers license?

Depending on your prior convictions, your drivers license could be suspended anywhere from 90 days to a year for a first or second offense. If it is your third or fourth offense you could have your license revoked for 3-4 years. It’s best to talk to a DUI lawyer to help save your license.

Other punishments if you are caught drunk driving in San Diego include:

* Mandatory alcohol or drug programs

* Fines up to $1,000

* Public work service

* Time in jail

As you can see from the punishments listed above, drunk driving in San Diego - or anywhere in California for that matter - is not something you should take lightly. I do highly recommend talking to an experienced and professional San Diego DUI lawyer to help you with your case.

Maria Palma is a freelance writer dedicated to helping people with their DUI in San Diego For more information, visit: http://www.sandiego-dui-lawyer.com

Home businesses die by the hundreds daily, a lot of people start up with huge dreams of success and unlimited income only to have it end up dying. So how do you keep your business and dream alive? There is only so much that you can talk about your home business. If your home business is about selling a certain product, there’s really only a limited amount of product selling and information that you can provide. The key is to find what it is that you love to do and make it your niche.

I came across this statement “Find a job that you love and you won’t have to work a day in your life” which perfectly fits this scenario. If you can find something that you love, you can keep providing more and more information about it simply because it’s what you love to do. Find something that you love to do which is free and then, find a way to make money from it. That’s the key to keeping your business alive.

Blogging is a highly suitable means to achieve this goal. What are the benefits of having a blog on your home business page?

1. You get to talk about how you feel about a certain topic in your niche

2. New and updated information is shared freely with your readers

3. People who come across your blog can be potential buyers

4. They help to build your credibility of an honest business

5. You get to interact with people as well

So for example, if you love driving and have a passion for automobiles, you might have a website that has lots of information about cars and you also include a blog that lets people comment on what you think about a certain car make and model. If you love fishing, you might have a website that has lots of tips on good fishing skills, books and videos about fishing, you can also have a blog where you post your pictures about your latest fishing escapades where your readers can share your joy of having caught your largest fish ever.

It is imperative that you remember your blog is a place where readers come to gather information and learn from you - not to hear your rants and raves about something totally not related. Like if your site is about fishing and you have an entry that’s about how upset you were when you went to a particular restaurant and had bad service. The people who come to your site to read about fishing don’t really want to read that.

The only exception is when you are already an established authority in the eyes/mind of your readers. Having a “break from the top” post like that will actually bring you closer to the readers. Your readers will feel that you’re “human” as well. It will still work to your advantage if you’re able to take that particular blog entry and make it related to your niche.

So here’s what I got, I’ve got some great resources about blogging and here’s what it’ll do for you - you’ll learn how to use blogging to make money for your business (the great thing about these resources are that even if you DON’T have a business, you can still use blogging to make money online!). You can visit me at http://www.moremoneytospend.com/blog for those resources. Click Here To Visit Me Now

As an Online Think Tank member, I know that there are two or more sides to every issues and different perspectives and belief systems on all sides of any debate about right and wrong. Yet, I see international intellectual patent protection as a crisis that should have already been solved. The United States must seize this opportunity to fix the problems with our trading partners on the other side of the planet.

Some say that in the future the US will design everything and the Chinese will make it all. But that is not really true and anyone who is watching the changes and trends can see it simply is not so. So what am I saying here?

What I am saying is two-fold;

1.) It is a fallacy to believe that everything will be designed by High-Tech in the US and then made in China; China and India for that matter will both “design (and/or steal) and build” in the future. Therefore counting on high-tech or a knowledge society to propel the economy is a questionable strategy for the future.

2.) I agree that a knowledge society is smart either way, in that it makes sense to have more intelligent people making better decisions and problem solving, rather than stuck in linear thoughts leading to dead-ends due to the laws of unintended consequence perpetually peppered in Murphy’s Law.

So, those are my thoughts. And yes, the keeping of secrets in the information age is totally out the window totally. Top Secret means two-weeks basically. Confidential means one-email and Super Duper Top Secret is a Myth, heck it will be in Aviation Leak and Spy Technology in the weekly online edition.

Besides in Eastern Culture they value friends and friends mean you share information and knowledge and if you do not share your knowledge with me, then obviously you are not my friend (their perspective). So the dilemma is dealing with the culture issues. Friends=Share Eastern VS. Business Partners=Friends Capital Western win/win culture. I certainly hope that this article makes you think in 2007 and helps you in your quest to be the best.

“Lance Winslow” - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/. Lance is a guest writer for Our Spokane Magazine in Spokane, Washington

Heres a little story that shows you about your thoughts and determination.
One of the most common causes of failure is the habit of quitting when you are overtaken by temporary defeat. Every person is guilty of this mistake at one time or another. An uncle of R U Darby was caught by the Gold Fever in the gold rush - days, and went west to Dig and Grow Rich. He had never heard that more gold had been mined from the brains of men than has ever been taken from the earth. He staked a claim and went to work with pick and shovel. The going was hard, but his lust for gold was definite.

After weeks of labour, he was rewarded by the discovery of the shining ore. He needed machinery to bring the ore to the surface. Quietly, he covered up the mine, retraced his footsteps to his home in Williamsburg, Maryland, and told his relatives and a few neighbours of the strike. They got together money for the needed machinery, and had it shipped. The uncle and Darby went back to work the mine.

The first car of ore was mined, and shipped to smelter. The returns showed they had one of the richest mines in Colorado! A few more cars of that ore would clear the debts. Then would come the big killing in profits. Down went the drills. Up went the hopes of Darby and uncle. Then something happened. The vein of gold ore disappeared. They had come to the end of the rainbow, and the pot of gold was no longer there. They drilled on, desperately trying to pick up the vein again - all to no avail.

Finally they decided to QUIT.

They sold the machinery to a junk man for a few hundred dollars, and took the train back home. Some junk men are dumb, but not this one. He called in a mining engineer to look at the mine and do a little calculating. The engineer advised that the project had failed, because the owners were not familiar with fault lines. His calculations showed that the vein would be found Just Three Feet From Where The Darby’s Had Stopped Drilling. That is exactly where it was found
The Junk man took millions of dollars in ore from the mine, because he knew enough to seek counsel before giving up.

Most of the money, which went into the machinery, was procured through the efforts of R U Darby who was then a very young man. The money came from his relatives and neighbors, because of their faith in him. He paid back every dollar of it, although he was years in doing so.

Long afterwards, Mr Darby recouped this loss many times over, when he made the discovery that desire can be transmuted into gold. The discovery came after he went into the business of selling life insurance.

Remembering that he lost a huge fortune, because he stopped three feet from gold, Darby profited by the experience in his chosen work, by the simple method of saying to himself,” I stopped three feet from gold, but I will never stop because men say no when I ask them to buy insurance.”

Darby is one of a small group of fewer than fifty men who sell more than a million dollars in life insurance annually. He owes his stickability to the lesson he learned from his quitability in the gold mining business.

Before success comes in any person’s life, they are sure to meet with more temporary defeat, and, perhaps some failure. When defeat overtakes a person, the easiest and most logical thing to do is to quit. That is exactly what the majority will do.

More than five hundred of the most successful men the country has ever known, told the author their greatest success came just one step beyond the point at which defeat had overtaken them. Failure is a trickster with a keen sense of irony and cunning. It takes great delight in tripping one when success is within reach.

The gist of this came from that great book Think and Grow Rich.

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