I've had an abiding interest in marketing for a couple of decades now and the last decade or so has gotten very interesting as the traditional avenues of mass-marketing have cratered and crumbled. I was thinking about this again as I put The Chaos Scenario on my Amazon wish list.

Marketing is in fact indistinguishable from politics, which might explain my interest in the latter subject as well. Please note that marketing is a much more comprehensive process than mere advertising--a point I make only because ignorance of the difference seems so pervasive.

The book, like so many similar tomes, makes the observation that we just don't have the same concentration of eyeballs we used to. A successful television drama like the Mentalist, draws only a third of what Gunsmoke use to draw back in the 1970s. I'm surprised that it does that well, since I lost interest in yet another American series with a foreigner as the lead, after only one episode.

The Obama campaign seemed to understand the new marketing dynamic extremely well, focusing their efforts on viral networks using new media like IM, and blogs, and pre-technological modes of organizing their supporters into mutually supportive cells. For all the media love that Obama got, the campaign relied instead on as massive web of virtual relationships to get things done.

So what the hell happened?

Obama seems to have reverted to a traditional reliance on friendly mainstream media to talk about (or discreetly ignore) his agenda. The direct connection to his virtual web of supporters has been allowed to decay and fall away, while opponents of his policies have picked up the very tools he's abandoned to beat him over the head with.

Last weekend, thousands of off-road enthusiasts suddenly showed up for a rally in Salt Lake City, garnering substantial local coverage by Salt Lake media outlets. People are showing up at Congressional town halls to punch their representatives in the nose (metaphorically in most cases...). Tea parties large and small are popping up like dandelions on the lawn, all over the country--all rather mysteriously off the radar.

Its an odd reversal of fortune to say the least.

Its pretty clear that those opposed to the administration had little choice in their approach--the state media has studiously denied that an opposition even exists. But the administration had a choice, and seems to have forgotten which avenues led to their initial success.

That leads me to a question--is the administration's healthcare and economic agenda so irrational, so weak, that it defies Marshal McLuhan's axiom that the message is the medium?

It seems to me that this is the real nature of the administration's problem--they simply haven't been able to craft a message that will convince people that this tofu turkey is just as good as the real thing. Without the fuel of an effective and inspiring message, the medium goes dark.

Obama has proved that you can get elected on slogans that elicit the right combination of emotions, but you can't govern that way. I've come to the conclusion that this isn't just a misstep--the White House gang is simply congenitally unable to produce rational policy proposals that can inspire broad support. Jimmy Carter has to be looking forward to the coming day where Obama replaces him as a punch-line.