If your competitor is in the process of hanging themselves... don't try to help... just let them kick the chair out from underneath them on thier own. which is exactly what they did. The Obama camp had negative spots ready to go, in fact I believe one aired multiple times across the nation at about the same time mccain started up with their dirty ads. It's just that McCain's camp came out in heavy force because they were trying to play catch-up.... .. too bad they used the wrong ads for that... If you're going to show your 2 week push campaign a month out, you better have a backup plan... The Obama media buys were either quickly pulled or not bought (in some cases) after the incredible onslaught of negative press that mccain/palin received for their barrage of ads. Even fox news came out saying that they were running a pretty dirty campaign compared to Obama. Fox news.... yeah... that's gotta hurt. Holding back on those negative ads was the smartest move. They let the other party hang themselves..... and instead of either just continuing to run them + dodge questions regarding it (like most politicians do), we were showered with clip after clip of Palin talking down about how the "liberal elite media" and how they were making them look bad by bending the truth. No duh, that's what the media does... on both sides though (don't forget her one hour special with a certain 'unnamed' political pundit! She ended up emphasizing the wrong thing, that there was a huge gap between "her people" and "everyone else." By that point, Obama had fair game at continuing with whatever type of television campaign he felt like running... negative or positive. M/P had made a mistake, then made another mistake trying to cover for it! They were trying to pass the blame off on what first started out as the 'elite media' but then snowballed into pretty much anyone that you wouldn't classify as a low to lower-middle class american... aka joe the plumber. Then after that first debate they dug themselves into yet another hole by now having to back this 'joe the plumber' persona, even though we quickly found out he was a fraud in real life!!! By then their main campaign message was so convoluted that it might as well have been "McCain/Palin - F*ck the new england elite/west coast" If I were a teacher, i'd use the last month of this election and make a course out of it.... just rookie PR/Marketing mistakes made over and over again.

I have been amazed at the Obama marketing machine and have thought time and again...who is the genius behind this? Unfortunately, the ability to hire good marketing people does not a good president make. Still...it's a good lesson on branding...business schools now have a new model to teach.

Okay, so branding can be used successfully by capitalists and socialists alike. That revelation doesn't change the fact that this country is in deep trouble.