Brand management: election 2008

I mentioned earlier that I thought the big story of the 2008 election might be brand management. Assuming the polls hold on Tuesday, here are a few thoughts:

Too many of the articles written about it will probably overemphasize the notion that the McCain brand was diluted in the general 2008 campaign. I have a hard time not buying the Frontline narrative which says that the McCain brand became heavily exploited shortly after the South Carolina primary in 2000.

Simply stated, imagine two terms of a McCain circa 2000 presidency. It's hard to think that democrats would be on the verge of a permanent lasting majority in both houses of congress, a shift so monumental that republicans routinely use "divided government" as a talking point. (Interestingly, no republicans I know were interested in divided government and out of control spending in 2004.)

A McCain presidency - had it happened in 2000 - would probably be fairly close to a Gore presidency, I think. But in truth, the McCain brand began to suffer shortly after the general election. "Maverick" moves became badges of honor rather than instinctive. McCain manifested a bizarre schizoid tendency, seemingly wanting to avoid his dishonorable loss by having a "come to Jesus" moment with the RNC orthodoxy and simultaneously sticking it to Bush by being a legislative contrarian. 2004 was awkward. And more and more, the McCain worldview seems, to me, to have become about his person, simply stated.

The other problem is that, I think, in hindsight, congressional quiescence will be seen as a major contributing factor to the growth of executive power over the past few years. This growth has largely served goals with which the old McCain would profess to disagree (torture, unaffordable tax cuts, etc) - and McCain, the trademarked maverick, was nowhere to be seen exerting his precious leadership.

So, flip the question. They want to know who Barack Obama is, but do we know who John McCain is? Really, who is this guy? Is he a fundamentally virtuous person who made a deal with the devil sometime between his loss in 2000 and his endorsement of Bush in the 2004 election? Or was he fundamentally flawed - his "maverick-ness" masking as a virtue when in reality it was just a display of his need to place his ego center stage?

I think, again, that if the story is brand management, the narrative will be simple. Figuring out just where McCain lost the weight of his brand, though, will be much more complicated.