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Today's Supreme Court ruling that political campaign donations by corporations and unions amount to free speech protected under the First Amendment will not only cause a sea change in the way politics gets done -- for the worst, most likely -- but it will also cause a massive shift in political advertising, again most likely for the worst. With corporate and union dollars now able to flow freely into politics through the media, we will likely begin to find political advertising becoming part of our everyday lives. If you live in California, you've probably been hearing Meg Whitman laying out her agenda for the state if she were governor, delivered through radio ads that are on such high-frequency rotation that it feels like we're being carpet-bombed by MEG-52s. Imagine what it will be like now that the shackles are off, and the inmates have not only escaped from the asylum, but have been given purses full of gold to spend on blaring their messages louder and longer tha...

Under-promise. Over-deliver. Or, since this is politics, over-promising is to be expected, but then one has to at least over-deliver in some fashion. On the one-year anniversary of his historic inauguration, President Obama is being taken to task for not having delivered on promises of change, not having fixed the train wreck of an economy, nor presenting true healthcare reform to the nation. This is disappointing to those who supported him, but of course the rational among us look at what he has accomplished, especially given the destruction he inherited from the W-bomb. But, as marketing professionals certainly know, consumers (and voters) are anything but rational. So, what went wrong? President Obama's campaign was brilliantly branded. The narrative was stunningly compelling. Why, the guy was even named Marketer of the Year by AdAge, handily besting both Apple and Nike, much as he bested John McCain. Glenn Greenwald, writing in the NY Times today , noted tha...