U.S. Federal Communication Commission to regulate the distribution of the assets and capacities that comprise the internet … for some reason …

Tomorrow morning, it is said, the U.S. Federal Communication Commission intends to impose its version of “net neutrality” on those who provide the services that comprise the internet. This would be yet another act of regulatory fiat at odds with history, and without a social basis apart from the political classes, and elite opinion.

Caption: A “problem” without a constituency is no more a “problem” than a creepy piece of yard art that looks monstrous is a monster. Hey, did you know that temperatures on Mars are on the rise? Well, so what? If there are no stakes involved, it’s a curiosity, or perhaps an opportunity for inquiry, but it is not a problem.

Robert B. Reich: those Tea-Partiers are NAZI-like scape-goaters of our beloved federal reserve and IRS or something

Whatever decision is delivered on Tuesday in every congressional district of the U.S., the tea partiers have won the debate. The problem now for the U.S. centre-left is how, and among whom, to develop a counter-coalition that can effectively oppose an emerging tea partier agenda. With whom will business leaders cast their lots, Robert B. Reich wonders.

[...] History has shown that people threatened by losses of jobs, wages, homes and savings are easy prey for demagogues who turn those fears into anger at major institutions, as well as individuals and minorities who become easy scapegoats—immigrants, foreign traders, certain religious groups,writes a breathless Mr. Robert B. Reich, in a Wall Street Journal online editorial titled Why Business Should Fear the Tea Party; CEOs who complain about uncertainties caused by President Obama’s policies aren’t going to be happy about a new crop of congressman seeking to abolish the Fed

Caption: Vilify business leaders and then expect them to stand with you? Brilliant

White House Kremlinology: as presidential approval ratings plummet among key demographics, and as Democratic political fortunes wane in electoral contests across the U.S., President Obama replaces senior figures with in-house staffers as a further sign of a collapse into insularity, and isolation, from within—welcome to the new interregnum

Caption: Hello? Mr. President? Come out of your hole and lead us please.

President Obama confronts a fierce and not yet fully developed backlash in the form of Tea Partiers, a GOP establishment that has discovered its spine, moderate Democrat incumbents who hold swing or Republican districts, Democratic candidates forced by their analysis of their electorates to oppose the Democratic leadership, and people who have lost their savings, their livelihoods, and their homes to the still unfolding economic crisis. The question is not whether but how the President can adapt himself to the current political conditions, and somehow manage the backlash while conserving as many of his political gains as he can. What the president appears to want to do is dig himself in by surrounding himself with a diminishing circle of trusted associates at the expense of the air and light of fresh thinking that only senior and established figures in their own right can provide

U.S. political realignment in realtime: 71% of Republicans identify themselves as tea party supporters—welcome to the new, new right

The tea party has emerged as a potent force in American politics and a center of gravity within the Republican Party, with a large majority of Republicans showing an affinity for the movement that has repeatedly bucked the GOP leadership this year, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll has found, write Peter Wallsten, Danny Yadron, and an army of fact-checkers and copy-editors, in an online.wsj.com article titled Tea-Party Movement Gathers Strength, as if the movement were a storm or something about to make landfall.

Wallsten, Yadron et al. continue:

In the survey, 71% of Republicans described themselves as tea-party supporters, saying they had a favorable image of the movement or hoped tea-party candidates would do well in the Nov. 2 election [...]

You don’t say.

consensus collapses among Democrats in advance of November—on taxes, and on austerity

Two more Senate Democrats called for extending tax cuts for all earners—including those with the highest incomes—in what appears to be a breakdown of the party’s consensus on the how to handle the expiration of Bush-era tax cuts, writes the estimable Martin Vaughan, in an online.wsj.com release titled Bush Tax Cuts Roil Democrats.

Similarly

Coral Davenport: “After weeks of indecisive caucus meetings and passionate but vague speeches calling for ‘comprehensive energy legislation,’ Reid’s office on Friday assured POLITICO that clarity, at long last, is coming”

Clarity is coming. We can at least take comfort in that.

Predator—Echelon—and now “Perfect Citizen”—why do super-ambitious government surveillance programs always have such menacing names?

The federal government is launching an expansive program dubbed “Perfect Citizen” to detect cyber assaults on private companies and government agencies running such critical infrastructure as the electricity grid and nuclear-power plants, according to people familiar with the program writes the estimable Siobahn Gorman for online.wsj.com in a story titled U.S. Plans Cyber Shield for Utilities, Companies

Who is the PERFECT CITIZEN in PERFECT CITIZEN, is what I would like to ask. Is it you, or is it me, conditioned by the panopticon to model behaviour?

branding and the Axelrod method

In an earlier transmission we wrote about Professor Michael Hogan’s presentation on public address and civil society. Hogan had a number of caller-questioners. One of them, a woman from Penn State Lehigh Valley—if I recall correctly—took issue with Hogan’s characterization of what he called “Dale Carnegie self-promotion.” The caller-questioner cited approvingly President-elect Obama’s 2004 address to the Democratic National Convention. In this address President-Elect Obama famously cited his own biography as grounds for his political views and goals. President-Elect Obama’s biography would later become the basis of his entire campaign. In an online.wsj.com article titled The Axelrod Method, Matthew Kaminsky writes of both President Elect Obama and MA Governor Deval Patrick:

[...] The candidate himself was the message; the campaign dwelled on his personal story, not the issues. As one Patrick advertisement trilled, “His life has been the triumph of hope, hard work and determination” [...]

Kaminsky also writes:

[...] His story provides a useful prism to view the current presidential race. The Patrick campaign is the model for Barack Obama’s effort, down to the messages of “hope” and “change” and the unofficial Patrick slogan of “Yes, We Can!” The men are friends with similar backgrounds (raised by single mothers, educated at Harvard Law) and electoral appeal (unconventional, “historic” candidacies built around an inspiring personal story). More importantly perhaps, they share an image-maker and political guru in David Axelrod, the strategist who told the New York Times Magazine last year that Obama presidential campaign themes were field tested in Massachusetts.

As a path to power, the Axelrod method appears to be the best thing going today. Coming into the 2006 race, Mr. Patrick was a political novice with 1%-2% name recognition in a state that’s 6% black. He faced off against a sitting state attorney general favored by the Democratic Party establishment. The former Clinton administration lawyer energized the grass-roots and youth vote with superior organization and stirring oratory. The candidate himself was the message; the campaign dwelled on his personal story, not the issues. As one Patrick advertisement trilled, “His life has been the triumph of hope, hard work and determination” [...]

In our experience high level political operative-innovators—the Ayers,  Atwaters, the Carvilles and Begalas, the Roves—enjoy a useful half-life of about 5 years at the national level. The ground-level organization, the Dean 50-state strategy, and the fund raising operation of the Obama campaign will have changed political campaigning in the U.S. forever. But it is an open question how long the Axelrod method of biography or branding over issues will remain effective. Patrick Ruffini explains what he means by marketing—i.e. branding—it reduces to the decoupling of experience from attribute or specification.

[...] The Obama campaign is not selling Obama. It is not selling a public figure with progressive political beliefs. It is selling Hope — and Change. This is why distant historical references aside, it is deliberately difficult to find the politics in the Will.i.am video.

Most campaigns never get beyond talking issues. The sophisticated ones run on attributes in the foreground (cares about people like me) tied to issues in the background (a health care plan). The Obama effort seems to be something wholly different. The campaign and its marketing seems designed to evoke aspirational feelings that have virtually no political meaning whatsoever. This is what great brands do. They evoke feelings that have virtually zero connection to product attributes and specifications [...]

[...] The end result is that great brands are fungible. They can be all things to all people. The branding approach liberates Obama to be the candidate of the MoveOn wing and of national unity. That’s not a criticism. It is a compliment. Now we’ll see if it stands up in the land beyond the energized core, in the land of 50% plus one nationally, where evangelism alone is not enough [...]

Answer: it did stand up.

I think the notion of branding—as much as I despise the vogue the term enjoys at the moment—captures more precisely the Axelrod method than “self-promotion.”

yours &c.
g.