As a marketing and business consultant for more than 30 years, I tend to look at candidates the way I look at products. The public buys a candidate with the same cognitive tools they use to make a decision for major purchases like buying a home or new car for example.
Social neuroscience explains how we make important decisions. It probably won’t surprise you to learn that our emotions and social biases dominate as determining factors in almost all our decisions, with our conscious rationale being supplied later on. The vast microprocessor that makes up the unconscious delivers the verdict and we backfill with the reasons consciously.
When I saw Barack Obama standing on the steps of the Springfield Illinois courthouse to announce his candidacy, my experience in marketing and branding kicked in and I thought, this guy is going to be hard to beat. I quickly got on board the Obama train, I was sold. Hillary seemed stale and not very exciting. Competence doesn’t stir the emotions. Obama knew how to reach our limbic brains.
The 2020 field of candidates for the Democratic nomination will probably have some folks well known to Democratic voters. A robust and diverse field of candidates that is likely to include Deval Patrick, Corey Booker, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, Kristen Gillibrand and other senators and governors who haven’t hinted at a run yet. (no one has announced, this is a guess)
Some of candidates will know going in that they don’t have much of a chance but see a presidential run as an opportunity to enhance their brand.
Out of the above list, only one candidate stands out to me for the 2020 election season if I am to put on my branding manager hat.
That person is Kamala Harris.
She checks all the boxes better than any other candidate on this list. I have watched a number of her interviews and I see some of the same political skills that I saw in Obama. She is credible, likeable, telegenic and different. She has an added virtue that Obama was missing; a tough, no nonsense manner that he didn’t include in his candidate package.
Coming out of the Bush years, where the hyperbolic testiness of Cheney and Rumsfeld wore us out, we were ready for a calmer more affable leader like Obama. Voters in 2020 will likely be looking for someone who can stand up to Trump. If you have watched her in Senate hearings you probably know that this is not someone you want to mess with. As a former prosecutor, she understands and speaks the law in a manner that is precise and matter of fact.
I would love to see her on the debate stage with Trump, or any Republican candidate. I’d plop down money for HBO pay per view for that show. There isn’t another potential candidate I can say this about. Someone may emerge, but right now, she’s the brand I am intrigued by most.