This strikes me as right. When peddling a message, speaking is almost the least important aspect of communication. Especially when your brand is as damaged as Domino's has been and the GOP is. Republicans continue to be unloved, except compared to Democrats. But being the other guy is an insufficient mechanism for building your brand. Domino's was unloved compared to other pizza places that didn't deliver, but they delivered and convenience trumped taste. Until the playing field leveled. With 30 minute delivery a reality for most pizzerias, Domino's niche of delivering barely edible entrees to your doorstep disappeared. But for year's Domino's pressed on delivering inadequate meals to fewer and fewer customers.

They easily could have avoided the problem by pulling back on their ad budget, focusing on understanding what customers actually wanted and adjusting their offerings to fit. Listening to the complaints before attempting to fix the perceived problems seems commonsensical. It's not. Too many firms focus on creating buzz or building message that they don't bother discovering if the message has a chance to be received. And it isn't just pizza that doesn't get delivered.

Take the now failed Jay Leno experiment. NBC - to cut costs - filled their 10pm weeknight slot with an early version of their late night talk shows. The ratings were poor. Affiliates were unhappy. But because production costs were low, the revenue, while reduced, was acceptable to the brain trust making decisions at NBC. It took a near revolt from the affiliates whose evening newscasts were seeing diminished ratings before NBC acknowledged the obvious, few wanted to buy the product they were selling. And while the HuffPo's Dan Abramson is joking a little when tells NBC he can hadle them slapping him in the face, the truth of his argument is undeniable. NBC built their prime time strategy around a product without listening to their audience to determine whether it was wanted. Investing in a product without understanding the market is not only foolish, it's wasteful as well.

Companies that are too big to fail might be able to survive such mistakes by relying on government largess. Domino's knew there was no pizza bailout coming to save them. They evaluated their product offering, listened to what people wanted and retooled their operation. NBC's niche also vanished. With cable and now internet delivery of entertainment more choices in the marketplace demands a greater fealty to what viewers want. NBC failed that simple task.

So too for the better part of the last decade have the Republican party. Despite holding majorities in both house of Congress and the Presidency for most of the last decade, spending grew, government grabbed more power and rather than listen to the constitution and the will of the people, Bush and company rubber stamped measures that infuriated their base and the potential voters who might have supported a policy plan that reflected their views. If the GOP listens to the people in whom power remains vested, they can restore their brand, but if instead they accept bribes from lobbyists to influence policy, they will remain in the minority perpetually. Listening works.

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His Czarness was kind enough to compliment your humble correspondent with another link to this opinion-mongering operation. In reprinting my missive, he alerted me to this remarkable contest being run by TJIC, who's long-term secession from the US has gone remarkably well. One suspects the authorities have yet to take his secession seriously, because he continues to generous recompense them with tribute foreign aid, but I digress. The Czar thinks the mockery is both a great idea and misplaced. But I find myself looking over my shoulder as I disagree with the czar and cast my lot with TJIC. Our Congress has famously failed to hold our respect, by behaving like petty thieves divvying up a score. That score is not some waylaid plunder but the national coffers, whose resupply comes from our paychecks (and TJIC's tribute foreign aid). In that instance the courtesy of courtesy seems misplaced. Would you maintain your deferential demeanor if you found a scoundrel's hand in your pocket, looking to liberate your wallet? Perhaps the Czar is thinking back to his younger days when young lads would thank him while requesting the favor another.

Yes, I suspect that was once a typical night at Castle Gormogon.

Our Republic survives not because we defer to our public servants, but because they are public servants. Being aggrandized by power, they no longer react chastening. Instead they continue to spout their focus-group-tested gruel. So when Dylan Ratigan barks at Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz he's not only being uncivil, he's hearkening back to our fundamental notions of politicians. At the Republic's founding tarring and feathering was not something the populace shied from.

The reference I made to Morlocks and Eloi was deliberately tongue in cheek. Our representatives do regard us as an underclass, because they refuse to extend the laws they craft to cover them. Taxes, as they say, are for the little people. With events such as this:

or this:

or this (watch for it):

or this:

or this:

 

We must ask ourselves, what do they do to earn our respect? The answer is not nearly enough. If they seek our respect, they should resume respecting us, by speaking plainly to us, by passing legislation consistent not only with the values of the populace, but also with our Constitution and its negative liberties. Our Republic was founded to limit government. Our government has fought that mandate ever since.  We allow it success in that war at our own peril.

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