Monday, November 02, 2015

Jeb? Can't Fix This

So here I am, trying to claim I won't go blogging this month of November because of my NaNoWriMo efforts - P.S. please visit the Writing page on here and support a fellow American by purchasing a few ebooks... ow stop hitting me, what, a guy can't market his ebooks out here? - and while I'm pretty good on my word count so far on the novel effort, I just had to come back and blog about this ridiculous hare-brained marketing idea that the Jeb? Bush people have decided to go with to relaunch their troubled campaign.

(If you're worried about poor sentence structure just now, relax, this happens a lot when you're rushing out a 50,000 writing project)

Anyway.  The Jeb* people have come out with a brand new slogan for their boy to campaign on:

Jeb Can Fix It

Cough.  Heh.  Heeehahaha.  Snerk.  Guffaw.  BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHHAHHHAHAHA gasp wheeze HAHAHAAHAHAHAAHAAAAA.

I am thinking back to that book about campaigning, the classic Selling of the President tome about the 1968 Nixon run for the White House.  Advertising is all about branding, about creating loyalty and love for a product, and intermixing that to political campaigning it means creating an identity for a politician that people can immediately use to picture who that candidate is and what he/she stands for.

Which is part of Jeb?'s problem right now.  His early attempts this 2015 to create an identity - starting off as The Front-Runner Establishment Guy that could not impress anybody, then as The Heir To the Bush Legacy by selling the "my brother Kept Us Safe" lie - have gone nowhere.

So here we are at Attempt Number Three to get Jeb><'s campaign "back on track"... by going with a quickie ebook release of materials - his political emails - already ten years old, and by crafting a slogan that sounds like someone watched Wreck-It Ralph or Bob The Builder too many times.

Just going by Twitter - a method of tracking the current mindset of the public awareness - this relaunch phrase is a disaster.

In a serious examination here: claiming that Jeb "can fix it" in a vague manner opens up that slogan to a myriad of interpretations.  It also allows for his critics to bring forth all the flaws and errors of his previous works - his broken promises as Governor, the sorry shape of the state of Florida as he left it, the terrible education record, his criminal repression of voting rights for minorities, his screwed involvement in the Election 2000 debacle, the Terri Schiavo fiasco...

Claiming Jeb "can fix it" while his poll numbers keep slipping is a joke of a premise, a disaster of a promise.

Trying to change a political persona this late in a campaign cycle after a public slide in voter confidence and support reeks of desperation.

And yet the Jeb? Bush Zombie Campaign slogs on.

3 comments:

Pinku-Sensei said...

"Jeb can fix it"--you're right, it does look like someone's been watching too much "Bob the Builder." At least you met your writing goals for today.

dinthebeast said...

I saw the twitter storm in a post at Crooks and Liars. My favorite said something like: Sure Jeb can fix it, just like the 2000 election..."

-Doug in Oakland

JHarper2 said...

The last thing Jeb! fixed was the 2000 Presidential Election.