The Good Villain

The Obama campaign has sought out ways to appeal to young hip voters. Both McCain and Clinton have very little sway with this group, and one of the main reasons was that Obama used design to his advantage. His “O” logo with the flag inside of it has now become iconic. His name has been replaced by words like “hope” and “progress” on his extremely well-designed posters and flyers. The artists he used to design the posters and flyers are some of the most talented and cutting-edge in the the entire country. And now designers and artists are doing pieces for free just because they believe in Obama’s message. Some old-school thinkers may discount all this as a bunch of MTV whitewash, and stick with the belief that the election will be decided by the issues and not by cool marketing and hip slogans. And those people will be removing their collective feet from their collective mouths come November. Look back historically and you will find many elections won exactly the same way. Americans love good propoganda. We love good marketing. We will reward the effort with our money and our votes every single time. Just look back at the 2000 and 2004 elections. Which candidate had the cool stuff? Gore? Kerry? No way. It was Lil’ Bush with his “W” marketing theme. Those stickers were everywhere. People still have them on their cars. McCain has no chance. He lost his window for cool marketing and is at a loss to catch up. I have started to see a few McCain stickers and some signs on the front lawns of decidedly upper-middle-class homes. One word. Boring. Navy blue background with McCain in white capitol letters. Not like the cool white Obama stickers, complete with logo. As a Hillary Clinton supporter I have to stand back and respect the genius staff of the Obama campaign. They out-cooled our girl by a lot. I just hope they take her on as VP, and maybe she can get a little cool back in the process.