Republican Marketing Genius

The fact that Mitt Romney is in a dead heat with Obama is evidence Republican's are very good at Marketing.  Consider these facts:  

1.  There are always significantly more registered Democrats than Republicans. 

2.  Empirical historical and economic data show that over the last century the country generally suffers economically when Republicans run the show, and generally does well when Democrats run the shoe.

3.  Empirical historical and economic data show that over the last century the countries national debt generally shoots up after Republican's have run the show, and levels off or falls when Democrats have run the show.

4.  Within the recent memory of most voters Republicans controlled Congress from 1995 to 2007 and created the conditions that caused the financial collapse of 2008-09 which bogged us down in recession.

5.  Mitt Romney's stated economic theories are rooted in beliefs and assumptions identical to the theories the Republican's put into effect between 1995 and 2007 (and also between 1919 to 1933 that led to the great Depression), and indistinguishable from George W. Bush's campaign rhetoric.

6.  Barack Obama took office in January of 2009 when the economy was in free fall.  The economy shrunk something like 4% in the couple months before he took office and we were losing a million jobs a month.  He was like a Dr. who arrived at the scene of a crash as the patient was bleeding out.  His administration stopped the bleeding and has the patient well on the way toward recovery.  We have now had a couple of years of modest growth while Japan, Europe and the other large economies also sucked into the economic collapse we spawned in 2008-09 are still mired in recesssion.   

7.  After Republican's took over the House in 2011 their publicly stated policy was to prevent Obama from having any success that would help him get re-elected.  They put their policital agenda ahead of the countries business.  They played the major role in making the 2011-13 Congress statistically the most do-nothing Congress in history.

On these objective facts the Republican's should get obliterated in this election.  The vast majority of voters who are not political and are most interested in figuring out who is going to do the best job for the country should, on these simple facts, vote for Obama and the Democrats.

But it is the facts that have been obliterated.

I thought the Republican's made a crucial mistake about a year ago when they decided to have 12 or 13 televised debates to choose their candidate.  I thought it would educate the public about the nonsense of many of their positions.  To some extent it did, Republican's have garnered alot of votes over the last couple decades by appealing to voters prejudices about gays, or their outrage about abortion.  Both of those issues have lost most of their ability to generate more votes than they lose for Republicans (for the moment).

But the much bigger problem for Republican's in this election was economic.  They controlled all the levers of Government in the years leading up to the worst financial collapse since the great Depression.  How does one distract voters who lived through those years from that simple, damning fact?  

Their answer, which seems to be working, is to inundate the public in politics until they are sick of it.  Endless debates, coupled with unprecedented advertsing blitzes on every possible media, have created a sort of fact fatigue.  Voters have jobs to do, families to take care of, and want to have some fun.  They don't want to spend their spare time sorting through the overwhelming avalanche of information that has descended on us all.  

Once fact fatigue is in place the simple principles of marketing that business Republican's are so very good at can be effective.  Appeal to emotions with simple messages, and happy images.

It reminds me of the US auto industry that used their marketing expertise to sell us tail fins and images while the rest of the world was developing better cars.  Eventually the US auto industry hit a crisis point where a critical mass of consumers realized the US auto industry were selling lousy cars.  The US auto industry has never fully recovered.

So when will voters realize the Republican party is selling lousy economics?  

Not yet evidently.  A tip of the hat to Republican marketing, a razzberry for putting marketing ahead of good policy.