A Marketing Revolution
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5569171/site/newsweek/
Do elections now reflect what the voters really want—or does victory
ultimately belong to the party with the most clever sales campaign?
By Robert J. Samuelson
Newsweek
Aug. 9 issue - We all descended on Boston last week—Democratic
delegates, party consultants, political junkies and journalists—for
what often seemed more a sales convention than a political convention.
If you doubt the analogy, consider this: in the 2000 election,
Americans were showered with 245,743 TV spots for George W. Bush and
Al Gore, says the University of Wisconsin Advertising Project.
Spending on TV spots this year will likely be double the 2000 level or
higher.
Politics has adopted all the tools of modern
merchandising—advertising, polling, telemarketing and demographic
targeting. Conventions, which once selected a party's candidate, are
now part of the marketing plan. Deliberately drained of controversy,
they aim to sharpen the campaign's message and to reward fund-raisers
and the party faithful. By one count, the Democratic convention had
more than 200 parties, receptions, seminars and golf tournaments.
"This is a way to fire up your troops," Terry McAuliffe, chairman of
the Democratic National Committee, says.
Robert J. Samuelson
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