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The Democrats' Marketing Mistake

How the Dems insulted the middle-America voters they were trying to court.

11:00 PM, Nov 29, 2004 • By TRENT WISECUP
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THE NEW FAD in American politics in 2004 was data mining. The Republican and Democratic National Committees invested heavily in building large databases that used consumer marketing information to segment voters into groups for highly customized communications.

Given the seriousness of the effort in both parties, it is hard to see how the Democrats ended up being so far off in the messages they delivered to the much ballyhooed NASCAR-dad voter. Clearly, the Democrats attempt to co-opt the marketing techniques of corporate America was undermined by their disdain of big business and the purchasing habits of average Americans.



There is a reason Democrats are finding it difficult to win anywhere outside of the east and west coasts. The party is scornful of the cultural tastes of the people who live in "fly-over country," the region of the country also known as "Red State Majority America." While it must boggle the imagination of well-heeled liberals in Hollywood and on the Upper East Side of Manhattan that people would actually drive a truck that gets fewer than 20 miles per gallon or that they would shop at a store that refuses to allow unions to drive up its labor costs, every time the Democratic party attacks Wal-Mart or one of the Big Three car companies, it is essentially telling a sizeable chunk of the American electorate that it should feel guilty about making wrong choices.

John Kerry could don camouflage, tote a shotgun, and preen for the cameras in a made for Hollywood hunting trip in Ohio. But his effort to look like an ordinary guy came across as contrived because it was. By embracing the anti-corporate rhetoric of liberals who bemoan the Wal-Martization of America and the evils of auto manufacturing, Kerry had already shot himself in the foot.

It doesn't take an MBA in marketing to figure out that attacking NASCAR-dad's favorite store and the truck he drives to work every day is not best way to convince him that you share his values. The entertainment, environmental, and academic elites who form the backbone of the modern liberal coalition are driving the party of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy off the cliff, Thelma and Louise style. Here's to giving Susan Sarandon a starring role in Michael Moore's next movie.

Trent Wisecup is a vice president at DC Navigators, a national public affairs and political consulting firm.