We recently took note of the “unbranding” movement, in which Firm A might seem to damage Firm B by sending Firm B’s product to an undesirable endorser. The example of the day was Snooki and her Gucci purse. There would seem to be no limit to the unbranding opportunities in the modern world. How about, say, politics? The Times headline says it all – “Republican Runs Street People on Green Ticket” — but Marc Lacey‘s article is well worth a read. The gist:
Mr. Pearcy and other drifters and homeless people were recruited onto the Green Party ballot by a Republican political operative [Steve May] who freely admits that their candidacies may siphon some support from the Democrats. Arizona’s Democratic Party has filed a formal complaint with local, state and federal prosecutors in an effort to have the candidates removed from the ballot, and the Green Party has urged its supporters to steer clear of the rogue candidates. …
The Democratic Party is fuming over Mr. May‘s tactics and those of at least two other Republicans who helped recruit candidates to the Green Party, which does not have the resources to put candidates on ballots around the state and thus creates the opportunity for write-in contenders like the Mill Rats to easily win primaries and get their names on the ballot for November. Complaints about spurious candidates have cropped up often before, though never involving an entire roster of candidates drawn from a group of street people.
In the movie version, of course, the Green Party candidate – a drifter who sometimes works as a tarot card reader – would somehow win the local election, quickly jump onto the national political stage and become president, teaching us all a lesson in humility and leadership.
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This isn’t unbranding, as the Republicans doing it want people to vote for the homeless candidates, not use them as a reason to reject the Green party.
Filling out the Green candidates with homeless people has to work on the assumption that many liberals who ordinarily vote Democrat would vote Green if there was a Green candidate in the general election. The homeless Green candidate slides through the primary unopposed — as the NYT article notes (Arizona does not have open primaries) — then becomes a seemingly viable alternative to the Democrat candidate in the general election, splitting the liberal vote.
Sending competitor’s handbags to Snooki sounds more like anti-branding than unbranding.
So this hasn’t been happening since elections first came on the scene?
There is, however, potential for “unbranding”. If Tony Hayward were to become the Republican candidate for Governor, with the obvious manifesto, it might persuade Republicans to discover their inner Green sympathies….
don’t they have a league of women voters or somesuch in Arizona to provide info on the candidates? don’t liberals have the wherewithal to search out a candidate’s background info on the internet?
Yes, we should have some clear way of knowing whether candidates are legit or not.
2008 was not that long ago, and we had thart foreign-born, socialist pot-smoker on the ballot even though he certainly would not have been able to satisfy a decent credentialing.
Will Roger Calero run yet again in 2012, and be able to get on the ballot, despite having presented no birth certificate that indicates eligibility?
Um, isn’t the purpose of ANY political candidacy to siphon off votes from the opposition?
Oh those wacky republicans! Boys will be boys, next thing you know they will run ads through a front organization showing claiming the MBLA or an islamist terrorist group supporting the democrat – ha ha, maybe next they will burn down the capitol and blame it on the opposition – oh well, buyer beware! Or maybe they can make the ballot so confusing lots of people will vote for the wrong canidate! wouldn’t that be funny? – I think they learned this stuff in school – fascism 101