Opinion: Political campaigns mirror business, require reform

Business party

The Republican Party is considered the party of business for good reason. The Republican Party’s campaigns are an exercise in business.

All the things that make American business successful – relationship building, networking, branding and aggressive, targeted marketing – are at the core of the Republican Party strategy.

Ask people on the street what the Republican agenda is and – whether they agree with it or not – they can probably articulate it. Ask the same people what the Democratic agenda is and you’ll get half a dozen different answers. You’re much more likely to get a solid answer on what the Democrats are against versus what they are for.

That’s branding. That’s marketing.

That’s business.

Unfortunately, where Republicans, or at least the Bush administration, are not meeting the standards of business is in transparency. Just as public corporations need to be transparent in their accounting, so the administration – in which every American is a shareholder – needs to be transparent in its policymaking.

Secretiveness might be acceptable on intimate matters of national security, but not on domestic policy.

Old assumptions, new world

I know a lot of Democrats are scratching their heads, wondering what went wrong with the great get-out-the-vote plan.

My personal theory is that the party has taken for granted – and lost touch with – its traditional base: working people. The working people have changed; the Democratic Party has not.

Democrats paint themselves as the advocate of the common man – the little guy. Yet a favorite theme of Democratic rhetoric is “closing corporate tax loopholes” and financing programs by raising taxes on business.

Working people are increasingly either small-business owners or employees of small businesses. Higher taxes for these businesses can be crippling.

When talking about corporate anything, a wise politician, of whatever party, will specify between multinational giants and Main Street American business.

Take care of business, folks. It’s taking care of you.

Campaign advertising

Based on the garbage I saw in political ads this year, I would like to see a stringent truth-in-advertising law applied to campaign ads. Here’s how it would work: If a political advertisement makes false claims or statements, the group or party that funded the ad must pay as penalty the cost of the ad plus 25 percent. Who gets the payment? The party or candidate the ad lied about.

The 527 groups will be so busy suing and counter suing each other that the rest of us can get on with our lives unaccosted.

Hey, it’s a thought.

Third party

I don’t know about anyone else, but I am sick of hearing people say they’re not really voting for so-and-so, they’re voting against his opponent; or they’re voting for “the lesser of two evils.”

I think three evils would at least provide variety.

A successful third party would be one that appeals to the real power base in this nation, the moderates – a group I see as a dissatisfied silent majority.

Dissatisfied because no matter whom they voted for this time, they didn’t really agree with their candidate’s position on many of the issues.

Silent because neither party truly speaks for their interests.

Clarissa French is editor of Springfield Business Journal.

[[In-content Ad]]