In politics, there are certain names that only need to be mentioned to conjure up a very clear image. Among Republicans, for example, the names “Henry Kissinger” and “Howard Baker” immediately conjure images of experience, power and influencial opinions. For progressives, these names instantly conjure Vietman and the Reagan era. For better or worse, we know exactly who these players are when their names enter the national conversation, because their names have become "brand names".
On the Democratic side, the Kennedy and Clinton names have become the country's most powerful brands, with the highest name recognition and a reputation for ambitious dedication to public service. But in America, where public servants are ultimately elected by the people if at all, dynasties are verbotten but brand names are very important.
A "brand name" is
one of the most valuable elements in an advertising theme, as it demonstrates what the brand owner is able to offer in the marketplace. The art of creating and maintaining a brand is called brand management. This approach does not only work for consumer goods B2C (Business-to-Consumer), but also for B2B (Business-to-Business), see Philip Kotler & Waldemar Pfoertsch. WIKIPEDIA: BRAND
A brand name, once established, has immense value. Harper's Magazine reports former U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger is regularly booked at fees in excess of $30,000 (U.S.), and Newsweek magazine reported in 2002 that former president Bill Clinton expects speaking fees of $125,000. http://globeandmail.workopolis.com/...
The Clinton name has become similar in terms of branding. It stands for energetic efforts to solve problems confronting humanity, from Sunami relief to AIDS to the damage of Hurricane Katrina and even the reestablishment of Harlem, NY as the respected business center where the ex-President keeps his offices. In 2001, President Clinton, “"the self-declared ‘comeback kid,’ a hero to his new office neighbors in Harlem, (broke) a world record, signing the biggest non-fiction book deal in history, worth a reported 12 Million dollars. MEDIA RESEARCH
Because of Sunami relief, Katrina efforts and other humanitarian work with bipartisan appeal, the value of the Clinton brand has begun to cross party lines.
Many of us doubted the wisdom of Hillary Clinton running for the US Senate seat from New York back in 2000. We were convinced that either she would not win or she would win only because of her family name. Of course, her name and her prominence were big advantages going in. But her “listening tours” and attention to individual constituents’ concerns convinced many people to support her who were not impressed by her family name. The value of her name is it wins her an opportunity to to convince future constituents and the media, who might otherwise ignore her.
There is a clear difference between a “brand name” and a “dynasty”. The Clintons have been accused of being a dynasty in the making, but the epithet simply doesn’t fit. The Clinton Admininstrations, rather than foist unworthy family members upon the public regardless of their aptitude, have nurtured a stable of bright young Americans to whom they have no family relationships, but with whom they share certain other characteristsics: humble backgrounds, great native intelligence, a highly developed drive to succeed and a deep commitment to the Democratic Party.
In 1994, when Bill Clinton hired Atty. Deval Patrick to work in his the Clinton Justice Department, he was a young well-educated lawyer with a bachelors degree and law degrees from Harvard University, who had served on the national board of director of the NAACP Legal Defense fund because of his commitment to civil rights and justice for “little people”. He had considerable experience, but he was not well-known outside of Massachusetts.
Demographically, Patrick didn’t look much like most previous Justice Department lawyers (He’s Black), but Clinton had put out the word that he wanted to hire, rather than pass over, capable minorities and women whose education and experience prepared them to serve their country. In other words, Bill Clinton had opted to bring change and equity to the the federal government that had too-often been an “old boy’s club” where only white men were welcomed.
Aside from skin color, Bill Clinton and Deval Patrick had something less obvious but more important in common: they had both come from single parent homes and grown up knowing poverty, Clinton in Hope Arkansas and Deval Patrick in Chicago. DEVAL PATRICK BIOGRAPHY
Given a chance to succeed in spite of his skin color, Deval Patrick excelled as Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, the nation's top civil rights post, working on a wide range of including the investigation of church burnings throughout the South in the mid-1990s, prosecution of hate crimes and abortion clinic violence, cases of employment discrimination, and enforcement of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Deval Patrick handled his government service with excellence.
In the 2006 elections, Bill Clinton’s bet on Deval Patrick and skin-color equity paid off handsomely for the Democrats when the man to whom Clinton gave a chance became the first Democratic Governor of Massachusetts, after DEVAL PATRICK BIOGRAPHY
The Boston Globe says that Bill Clinton’s up-from-poverty story still resounds in the politics of Deval Patrick.
The Democratic gubernatorial nominee's rhetoric echoes the soapbox style of the former president, who comes to Boston to campaign for Patrick today . Just as Clinton did 14 years ago, Patrick portrays his candidacy as a movement for change, aiming at an electorate that polls suggest is ready for fresh leadership. Like Clinton, Patrick built his campaign narrative around an up-from-poverty life story. And, like Clinton, Patrick casts the campaign as a battle between the ``politics of hope and the politics of fear." BOSTON GLOBE
In its pre-election endorsement of the Deval Patrick, the Boston Pheonix said,
After 16 years of Republican rule, it is time to return a Democrat and a leader with a sense of humanity to the governor’s office. BOSTON PHEONIX
Like President Clinton, the Massachusetts Democratic Party and media were able to look beyond stereotypes that said that only a white candidate could win the Governors office, and that enabled them all to choose the Democrat who ultimately was most able to beat the Republicans. In doing so, Deval Patrick became the first African-American Governor of Massachusetts, an attainment for the Democratic Party and the nation that validates the equality struggle for which Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his life four decades ago.
But the election of Democratic Governor Deval Patrick is not the only example of the Clinton’s openness ultimately making good politics for the Democratic Party. Bill Richardson's mother was Mexican and his father a non-Hispanic banker from Boston. Showing early on his interest in public service, he majored in French and political science at Tufts University before obtaining a master's degree from Tufts' famed Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. After college, he worked on congressional relations for the State Department. He was later a staff member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
He represented New Mexico in the US Congress and had been re-elected six times when in 1997 President Clinton appointed Richardson Ambassador to the United Nations and, later, US Secretary of Energy. In 2002, he became the nation’s only Hispanic Governor, defeating the Republican candidate by 17 percentage points and replacing a two-term Republican governor. WIKIPEDIA: BILL RICHARDSON US LIBERALSChairman of the Democratic National Convention in 2004, he was re-elected New Mexico’s governor this year and is now running for President of the United States. STATE GOV WEBSITE
Ron Brown, was an renowned and remarkably energetic and gifted American power lawyer, who became the first African-American Secretary of Commerce when he was appointed in the first Clinton Administration. Tragically, he was taken from America before he could give America all that he had to give.
Because the Clintons have successfully provided opportunities for leadership to gifted leaders such as Deval Patrick and Bill Richardson, who previously would have been excluded by their skin color or gender, the Clintons cannot reasonably or fairly be called a “dynasty”, which is a structure that maintains unmerited family power based on blood lines and nepotism. The Clintons have had the good judment and courage to promote young leaders from other ethnic groups, to whom they were related only by native intelligence, superior educational attainments and the drive to serve the public and succeed as leaders in higher public office.
Some might still argue that the Clinton Administration hired Deval Patrick and Bill Richardson only because they were minorities, and not because they were the best future leaders for the job. But this false dichotomy – between being a black or a woman and being the best - is a dichotomy that is the product of racism and sexism denigrating the attainments of minorities and women no matter hard they work or how much they achieve. That’s precisely the sort of “old politics” to which the Clinton Administrations have said, “Basta já!”
Equity is not a matter of gender or race-based favoritism; The brilliance of the Clintons is in recognizing that the wider the nets are cast, the greater the chances of catching the most and the biggest fish.
Meanwhile, the suggestion that the Clintons are a “dynasty” is disproven by the fact that, when the public is asked to choose among public officials for the Governorships in Massachusetts and New Mexico, it has choosen Clinton protegés –- who have no family relationship to the Clinton’s whatsoever. Rather than promoting a family dynasty based on nepotism and bloodlines, the “families” that the Clintons promote are the Democratic family, the American family and the human family. Theirs is a profound commitment in the context of an electoral democracy, a form of government where only the voting public ultimately decides who advances and who doesn’t.
A brand is a collection of images and ideas representing an economic producer; more specifically, it refers to the concrete symbols such as a name, logo, slogan, and design scheme. Brand recognition and other reactions are created by the accumulation of experiences with the specific product or service, both directly relating to its use, and through the influence of advertising, design, and media commentary. A brand is a symbolic embodiment of all the information connected to a company, product or service. A brand serves to create associations and expectations among products made by a producer. A brand often includes an explicit logo, fonts, color schemes, symbols, sound which may be developed to represent implicit values, ideas, and even personality. WIKIPEDIA: BRAND
Salon observed,
For many Americans, the Kennedy presidency -- the Kennedy brand name -- still represents not just glamour, not just Camelot, but an aspiration to a politics of idealism and possibility. The fact that the Kennedy White House, and various Kennedys themselves, so often betrayed that aspiration is beside the point. Older Bostonians remember in their bones that Jack Kennedy's election, overcoming naked hostility to the idea of a Roman Catholic president, seemed to blast open an order that had once declared, "No Irish Need Apply" and that in 1960 still preserved the upper reaches of power and finance as bastions of Brahmin privilege. SALON FEATURE
Salon calls the Clinton family “a dynasty in the making”, but we’ve established here that the Clintons really are a very established national brand, the work ethic and determination of which is not limited to the Clinton family. Rather, the Clinton Administrations are a hothouse for talent who – like Bill and Hillary Clinton – have similar work ethics, poltics and ambitions, but share no blood lines whatsoever.
And yet family names do become brand names that instantly communicate party affiliation, humanitarian ethos and policy emphasis.
Salon online compares the Clinton family to the Kennedy family.
It was the drive of Robert and Edward Kennedy, and later some of their children, to follow Jack into the electoral arena, that made the whole idea of a political dynasty safe for public consumption. In that sense, Hillary, George, Al and Liddy are all Jack Kennedy's children. SALON FEATURE
And family name does confer electoral advantages in America. Would Patrick Joseph Kennedy, son of US Senator Edward Kennedy, have moved to Rhode Island and won a seat in State Assembly at the age of 21 without the benefit of the Kennedy brand? In fact, the Kennedy’s reputation for leadership and devotion to national service could not but have helped. Even once having established his commitment to his work in state government, could Patrick have moved on to the US Congess in 1994, at the age tender age of 26 without the benefit of the family brand?
In fact, the immense popularity and decades of public service of Senator Ted Kenney in Massachusetts were bound to help young Patrick when he asked voters in neighboring Rhode Island for their trust and support, not because of blood lines and family rights but because of the family’s brand name recognition and public expectation – the belief, since confirmed many times over, that the son would work just as hard, dilligently and productively as his father always has.
Those who dislike dynasties might well dislike both Hillary Clinton and Vice President Al Gore, both with important family names. But anyone who likes success can also understand the value of having a brand name that is well-established and well-liked.
The difference between the Clinton and Gore family names is that while Al Gore’s father is deceased and remembered mostly in Tennesse, Bill Clinton is an active past president with stellar present approval ratings nationally and internationally, for his present-day non-partisan work to improve the human condition, as well as his dedication to the goals and candidates of his Democratic Party.
Like them or not, in the politics of the United States of America, the Clintons are in the big leagues in terms of political brand names.
The psychological aspect (of a brand), sometimes referred to as the brand image, is a symbolic construct created within the minds of people and consists of all the information and expectations associated with a product or service.WIKIPEDIA: BRAND
What make the Clinton brand name so successful? Bill Clinton is a big man who soldiers on to success in the best and the worst of times, in spite of his detractors who tire or fall by the wayside. Bill Clinton wins victories not just when circumstances or history favors him, but also when the forces of the "vast right wing conspiracy" are arrayed against them, and this makes Bill Clinton transcendent. He is at once too human and superhuman. Paradoxically, the more the Republicans have whacked the Clinton name, the more popular, enduring and tougher it has become.
Some public figures have jaws of glass. Their campaigns are predicated upon a facile and quickly-contrived narrative. Even when the narratives are life-long journeys and not transient metamorphoses, the narratives often don't wear well when sorely tested. It is much easier to invent a narrative than to successfully defend it in the court of public opinion.
With three successful governor’s races in Arkansas and two Presidencies to their name, the Clintons have more successful experience creating a successful brand name in politics than any other family except the Kennedies, which also encompassed a Democratic President and senators.
Although the Clintons, like the Kennedy’s have weathered scandals, these have only to have strenthened and humanized the brand name, as polls show that both of the Clintons – Bill and Hillary – have high and enduring American national popularity.
A brand which is widely known in the marketplace acquires brand recognition. Where brand recognition builds up to a point where a brand enjoys a critical mass of positive sentiment in the marketplace, it is said to have achieved brand franchise. One goal in brand recognition is the identification of a brand without the name of the company present. For example, Disney has been successful at branding with their particular script font (originally created for Walt Disney's "signature" logo), which it used in the logo for go.com.
Brand equity measures the total value of the brand to the brand owner, and reflects the extent of brand franchise. The term brand name is often used interchangeably with "brand", although it is more correctly used to specifically denote written or spoken linguistic elements of a brand. In this context a "brand name" constitutes a type of trademark, if the brand name exclusively identifies the brand owner as the commercial source of products or services. . . . In non-commercial contexts, the marketing of entities which supply ideas or promises rather than product and services (e.g. political parties or religious organizations) may also be known as "branding".
Consumers may look on branding as an important value added aspect of products or services, as it often serves to denote a certain attractive quality or characteristic. From the perspective of brand owners, branded products or services also command higher prices. Where two products resemble each other, but one of the products has no associated branding (such as a generic, store-branded product), people may often select the more expensive branded product on the basis of the quality of the brand or the reputation of the brand owner. WIKIPEDIA: BRAND
With brand recognition essential to the success of a brand in the marketplace, Hillary Clinton has among the highest name recognition of any politician in the country and about 70% of Americans say that she, like Bill Clinton, is qualified to lead the most powerful country on earth.
A brand image may be developed by attributing a "personality" to or associating an "image" with a product or service, whereby the personality or image is "branded" into the consciousness of consumers. WIKIPEDIA: BRAND
In America, the rich cheer on the Goliaths, but we common people prefer to cheer for the Davids, the underdogs. In our culture, we love to cheer on the underdogs and hope they will succeed, because we succeed with them. The Clinton brand will be tested in 2008 and, with it, the fortunes of the Democratic Party. If David slews Goliath the whole country - including all of our genders races and ethnicities - will flourish again professionally, economically and socially.
As Democrats chose a Presidential nominee in 2008, we need to look beyond disproven dynasty fantasies to the Clinton Brand, that stretches from the State House in Massachusetts to the Governor's Mansion in New Mexico, to the junior US Senate from New York State, embracing leaders who were not born into the Clinton family who all share the Clinton dedication to public service. Far from abandoning - running from - the Clinton brand that has served us so well and historically in Massachusetts and New Mexico, we need to show the courage that Bill Clinton demonstrated when he promoted the careers of Bill Richardson and Deval Patrick. In 2008, once again, we can make history by running and winning with the Clinton Brand.