Hillary Clinton. Worst. Brand Manager. Evar.

They don't say PA is Pittburgh, Philadelphia with Alabama/Kentucky in between for no reason.

There's a basket of cultural and demographic holdovers that translate quite well through many regions, as we've all been noticing. Hell, my state, VA, is worlds apart when you compare Valley and Ridge with the Piedmont/Tidewater zones. Huckabee kicked McCain's ass in the Shenandoah Valley, Hillary clocked Obama. Two factors are plain as day and quite clearly stated when you talk to people on the ground: Color, Faith, and to a degree, Age. Some are more blunt, some more evasive, but the code is clear. Difference = Danger, no matter how you define cultural and socio-economic angst (Bitter? Angry? Frustrated? Mildly Perturbed? Pissed off?)

That said, the chasms are not insurmountable, but you do need two things: 1. a message that relates to Human Universals filtered through the prism of American Exceptionalism. And 2., the common sense to not cannibalize your own Corporate brand to sell a few more tubes of New Improved toothpaste as line extensions. Hillary is the worst of Brand Managers, the "new broom" that disses and dismisses all efforts at previously building affinity and brand character in order to realise her own narrow professional ambition. She wrote a book. The title now will be adjusted in the history books: It takes a village to destroy a village to save it.

HRC fans will sneer, but they shouldn't. There is little difference in the short term destructive narciscism and failure-fear of a Gen Westmoreland circa VietNam and the Abu Ghraib mission-creep desperate search for "information," and the grasping scorched earth denegration of the progressive brand and ideals that Clinton is engaging in. Fighting dirty is what Leaders do when they've not been diligent and observant of their markets changing under them; not noticing their particular management style becoming outre. So, they play catchup in the only way that makes them seem, in their minds at least, more effective and worthy: they chop internal challengers and contenders off at the knees to appear taller themselves. It's obvious to some, not so much to others too vested in the system and the "guild" to see. It is the final act of desperation in some of the corps that I've worked with and have been asked to help resurrect once the smoke clears--if there's anything left worth resuscitating. Maybe you've experienced it too.

George Bush has wrecked "conservatism" with plenty of help from his brethren. HRC is in process of a similar thing, completing what Bill began, the neutering of a muscular and proud liberalism (FDR, LBJ, JFK) in search of a few incremental vaporous gains in market share. Quite the bookends for Historians to debate.