How the Democrats Were Betamaxed

According to Robert McNamara in the "Fog of War," the first lesson of life is, "empathize with your enemy." In order to understand the conservative movement's ascendancy in American politics, progressives should take McNamara's advice and try to view the world through the business lens of conservatives.

Think of a "marketplace of ideas" where the products are policies, positions, and issues all competing for dominance. On the surface, this may seem like the stuff of dreams for "free market" conservatives, but it turns out it's a nightmare. You see, what we find is that in this marketplace, Democrats actually have the better product and Americans prefer the policies of Democrats by a wide margin to those of the GOP. In the realm of ideas, just as in any marketplace, the superior or preferred product usually wins out, but not always. An inferior product can dominate in the market when it has superior marketing, and this is precisely what we have seen come to pass in U.S. politics over the past two decades.

In 1982, 45% of Americans identified themselves as Democrats; by 2003, that number was down to 31%. During the same period, the Republican Party made gains in party allegiance from about 26% up to 30%. What is more, nearly twice as many Americans now identify themselves as conservatives than as liberals. At first blush, these statistics would seem to point to an electorate that is moving ideologically to the right. However, public opinion polls consistently show that the majority of Americans are more closely aligned with the Democratic Party on the issues than they are with the Republican Party.

Returning to the notion of a marketplace, let's consider these public opinion polls as indicators of consumer preferences. What we find is that a whopping 86% of Americans believe that there need to be stricter laws and regulations to protect the environment; 77% think it is more important to maintain government services such as Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid than to cut taxes; 72% of Americans favor stricter laws related to the control of handguns; 63% of Americans favor affirmative action programs designed to help blacks, women and other minorities get better jobs and education; 62% don't think Roe v. Wade should be overturned by the Supreme Court; and 62% would prefer a universal health insurance program run by the government and financed by taxpayers.

On virtually every issue, public opinion polls show that consumer preferences are for the policies of the Democrats, and not for those of the GOP. Republicans offer inferior, less desirable policy solutions, while Democrats offer superior policies that are preferred by the majority of Americans.

When an inferior product wins out in the marketplace with superior marketing it is called getting "betamaxed." Remember Betamax? In the 1970s, before there was VHS, there was the Sony Betamax, but, as the story goes, VHS beat Betamax through its superior marketing even though Betamax was the superior video recording technology. If we consider policies as the products in the marketplace of ideas and public opinion polls as indicators of consumer preference, then we can only come to one conclusion: the Democrats have been betamaxed by the Republicans. Conservatives offer inferior policies, but dominate through superior marketing.

You really have to give it to them -- the Republicans are truly marketing geniuses. Let's consider some of the core components of marketing that the GOP has managed to dominate over the years. There's branding and negative branding. We have strategic communications, which in the policy world includes what's called "naming and framing," or how you sell your policies, as well as public relations and promotion. And finally, there is placement, or the distribution channels used to reach the consumer.