Strong Brand Names in American Politics
When children have taken over family built enterprises, the results have been as different as people are different. Different skill sets are required to start, operate, grow, and manage enterprises during different phases of their existence. The skills that give a person the courage and foresight to see a new market opportunity and start a company are different than the skills which will take a very good idea in a company yet to take root. Grooming, managing and nurturing growth may be third generation skills. But look at favoritism in the most elementary form.
When nepotism is the reason for succession, we are not talking about someone getting a job because of a “good name” earned through experience or accomplishments within a field, nor where someone’s reputation precedes them to a certain position or appointment. With nepotism, favorable traits are imputed to a person solely because of their name, not due to their accomplishments. The person may have desirable traits, but when the value of the name is what gets the job, that’s nepotism in the work world.
This is exactly what happens with politicians as well. So it is always important to keep in mind that wherever you find nepotism, the fact is that nepotism is not outside our everyday human experience.
Still, nepotism is generally looked down upon in our democratic society. It contrasts with our belief that every person should achieve according to his ability. But American society is not entirely egalitarian. We like to think we are different. We like to believe America is a meritocracy. So it strikes a lot of people as unfair that a person’s name alone could be influential. Though it happens daily, we don’t like the idea that people are getting jobs just because they have “connections.”
People get all sorts of opportunities because of their name. Someone may be hired as a favor to a friend or an acquaintance. Sometimes it may be with expectation or hope of a reciprocal favor. But there are other circumstances where a person’s good name puts them in line ahead of others with seemingly identical qualifications, sometimes even with more impressive qualifications.
Even if a job is given to someone based on their name, in many cases, it is not merely as simple as trying to cultivate favor. The name represents something. The name has a certain secondary meaning. That name tells the person hiring (let’s temporarily suspend considering temporarily belief in various legal regulations of the hiring process) that an applicant’s father is honest. He is hard working. I believe him to have values that I respect and that are admirable. I know where this person came from. I think I know what their background could be. I know what their values and skillset may be. On paper, this person balances fairly evenly with other job candidates. But those are people I don’t know. Those other job candidates may be perfectly friendly, cordial, gregarious, funny, even charming, handsome, or attractive. All of those can be valued traits in a job applicant. This person may be many of those things or all of them to a lesser degree, so why do people hire based on a name? The answer is found in the same reason why people will buy Colgate toothpaste time after time, year after year and (quite literally) decade after decade. It is the brand promise.
The brand makes a promise as to a certain level of quality. Remember that the brand promise is one of consistent and reliable quality. It is a promise of realistic and reasonable expectation. The brand promise does not necessarily have to mean that the product is of the highest possible quality. It is not the job of the brand to convince the buyer that there is no other product in the world that is better. The object of the brand is to convince the buyer and reassure the buyer that purchasing this product will entitle you to a certain bundle of predictable rights, expectations, features, traits, or characteristics. A job candidate’s father may be a well-grounded guy who does the job well, and reliably. He is not necessarily the brightest guy who you know, or the most industrious, but he provides solid characteristics, including the fact that he appears to be devoted to his family. On paper all of the traits that you read about the candidate are consistent with your understanding of the candidate’s father. Acting on a brand promise is a risk-averse choice, but a common one.
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Today’s brands are so heavily leveraged, widely extended and broadly licensed, that we take for granted that a brand may travel from one type of product to a completely different type of product. The brand owner is still hoping to transfer the idea of goodwill or the promise, but that was not always the case. Think about soda. The first time Coca-Cola Company wanted to introduce a low calorie alternative to Coke, it came up with a product. No, not Diet Coke or New Coke. They invented Tab. Coca-Cola did not want to risk messing around with the venerable Coke trademark. The Coca-Cola name promised certain features to be delivered to the customer and Coke did not want to dilute the image. That was contrary to good brand management.
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In politics, of course, the brand name conveys more information than family political legacy. The name may send messages that appeal to some people, and will alienate others. Start with an easy one, Barack Obama. No doubt a portion of the population took notice of a name that is unusual by contemporary American standards. Both his given name and his surname were generally unknown to the majority of the population. They are names that the vast majority of Americans have never encountered. The number of Americans who personally knew someone named Barack or surnamed Obama likely are minuscule.
His middle name, in particular, became the source of considerable campaign discussion. There was speculation that people would be prejudiced against a candidate whose middle name was Hussein. The American population tied very emotional and almost entirely negative connotations to the name Hussein. Much of the surnames and given names in the Middle East as in many parts of the world are opposite from the United States that is the family name comes first. During the 2008 Presidential election most Americans still associated the name Hussein to the controversial Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein from the controversial American/Iraqi wars. The Obama campaign did not use the full name Barack Hussein Obama very often. In one well publicized incident, a minister from Obama’s home area in Illinois wanted to emphasize that not only was Barack Obama supported by his followers but that they should be proud of his middle name. In a video widely replayed on television and online, he insisted on vociferously repeating Barack Hussein Obama giving the word Hussein greater emphasis each time. This was not about the fame of anyone named Hussein or Barack or Obama. It was about the connotations that the name Hussein, all by itself set forth.
It is somewhat remarkable that a man named Barack Obama (with or without the “Hussein”) was elected President of the United States. During the campaign he was fond of saying that he did not look like the Presidents who people see on the American currency. It is equally noteworthy that his physical appearance wasn’t the only factor that differed from tradition. His name all by itself conveyed a number of messages, which to many voters probably as often caused concern as affinity.
It is striking how much of a departure the Obama name takes from the comfortable and familiar names attached to almost all of America’s presidents. Names like Clinton, Bush, Nixon, Ford, Truman, Wilson, Coolidge, Harding, Hoover, Lincoln, Buchanan, Pierce, Fillmore, Taft, Jackson, Monroe, Madison, Jefferson, Adams, Washington. No O’Briens (though there was a Kennedy). No Lafleurs. No Kozlowskis. No Goldschmidts or Goldbergs. No Wangs.
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What is the attraction of the incumbency? Maybe it is a feeling of the known against the unknown. This is actually a true measure of a brand? Could it be even simpler than that? Is it a question of a recognized name and voting for what seems to be familiar even in the case of those voters – perhaps a significant majority – who really know very little about their incumbent representatives other than the fact that they are incumbent? It may be too cynical to say that the voters feel that if an incumbent has not been discovered in dirty dealings, fraud, illegality, or worse in all the time they’ve been in office, they can probably be trusted.
The number of members of Congress who run for reelection and who retain their seats as incumbents running for reelection, is exceptionally high.
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For a brand name politician entering post political life, the name will still have value beyond its utility to later generations in the family. In a world of inescapable information, a known name is an asset to the politician, who can cash in on his fame by writing and speaking and endorsing. When you come right down to it, is there any different between a post-politics brand name and any other celebrity name? It used to be that the only value of a political name was goodwill that could be handed down to the next generation. Otherwise the brand name asset could shrink and then eventually die.
Think about poor President James Monroe, who had to sell his beloved estate to pay off his creditors. Contrast that with the six, eight, or ten million dollar book deals by members of the Clinton and Bush administrations when they left politics. The money available to someone with a good name in the current 21st Century economy, with the premium value we give to celebrity, fame, and adoration we heap upon the famous and even the infamous. The exploiting brand name is something that perhaps was seen as unseemly in prior generations. Today it will deliver huge windfalls for the retired politician, especially those at the highest levels of government such as a former President of the United States. Not only are there eight figure book deals to be had, but speaking engagements will bring easy six figure revenues for every one hour appearance the brand will draw.