Obama as “cutting-edge brand”

Lately I’ve been asked repeatedly how, or whether, various ideas in Buying In (particularly the you-fill-in-the-blanks aspect of murketing) might apply to politics. Laura Miller, in a Salon essay called “Barack By The Books,” suggests that perhaps the answer yes.

Obama the symbol possesses the enviable quality that Walker calls “projectability,” and Obama himself has marveled that he often seems to be “a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.” He is, in short, a cutting-edge brand. But if he does win the general election, what then? A brand can’t be president of the United States….

This is just a jumping-off point for Miller’s piece, which delves deeply into Obama’s own writing, and covers a lot of highly interesting  territory. To see where she goes from there, check out the whole piece. It’s worthwhile.

On a sort-of related note: I wrote about Barackists on Murketing.com here, and in Consumed here.