JOHN ELLIS

So far, so good for candidate Bush

By John Ellis, Globe Staff, June 17, 1999

Last Saturday in Iowa, Texas Governor George W. Bush (who is my first cousin) announced that he would be a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. Yesterday in Tennessee, Vice President Gore announced his presidential candidacy. Bush's launch was widely regarded as successful. Gore's weeklong launch has met with somewhat less enthusiastic reviews.

You can measure the success or failure of Albert Gore's presidential campaign by applying a simple test. If he's talking about economic growth or doing battle with "Republican right-wingers" in Congress, he's having a good day. If he's talking about anything else, he's having a bad day.

Gore is a derivative product of President Clinton. There are only two things that voters like about Clinton (aside from his dogged determination). They assign him credit for six years of economic prosperity, and they appreciate that he has kept the loonier elements of the Republican Party in check. Everything else they'd just as soon forget.

Since Gore cannot "distance" himself from the president (in part because the Clintons seem incapable of relinquishing the spotlight), the overriding objective of Gore's campaign must be to keep voters focused on what they've liked about the Clinton years. That requires Gore to stay "on message" with maniacal intensity.

Gore's campaign has been going sideways for nearly a year in large measure because of the vice president's tendency to drift "off message." He reiterates his disapproval of the president's "relationship" with Monica Lewinsky on ABC's "20/20." He imagines himself as Ryan O'Neal in "Love Story." He fathers the Internet as a child. People scratch their heads and wonder: "What's up with that?"

To be fair, it's hard to think straight when your boss's misconduct merits impeachment. But now that that storm has passed, Gore has the opportunity to define the context within which this presidential campaign will be understood. How a campaign is understood determines, to a large degree, the outcome.

What's unsettling about Gore's campaign so far is how quickly it gets distracted. Candidate Gore should never talk about people, places, and things that are not part of the winning context. He should never talk about George W. Bush, Bill Bradley, or Monica Lewinsky. The Gore campaign's inability to discipline itself in this regard is what gives so many Democratic professionals such pause about the vice president's prospects as a presidential candidate.

You can measure the success of George W. Bush's presidential campaign by applying an equally simple test. Every day that Bush burnishes the Bush brand or adds new and attractive attributes to it, he's having a good day. Every day that Bush spends time doing something else, he's not moving the ball. By this measure, Bush's initial forays into Iowa and New Hampshire were successful.

The key to Bush's campaign will be his ability to "manage and enhance the brand." He has already won the endorsements primary (he has more than any of his GOP competitors will ever have). He has already won the money primary (he has raised more than the others will ever raise). And he has already won the "perception" primary (most everyone thinks he'll be the nominee, and he probably will be).

For all practical purposes, Bush is now engaged in a general election campaign. The primary phase (from a communications standpoint) is simply the first wave of a three-part national advertising and marketing effort. And it's all about brand management.

Bush is a formidable force by himself (anyone twice elected statewide with 54 percent and 69 percent of the vote in Texas is by definition formidable), but his national strength is drawn largely from people's fondness for his father. In consumer product terms, President Bush is Pepsi and Governor Bush is Pepsi One.

Defining what the new product stands for in the context of the old product, is the communications challenge Bush faces. Sunday's visit to Kennebunkport was smart politics because it magnified and accentuated the power of the brand. Standing side by side, father and son communicated both continuity and regeneration. Even President Bush's mangled syntax seemed endearing.

It's a very powerful brand that can do that. Governor Bush's task will be to expand its reach, so that it includes not just his father and him but his brother Jeb (the governor of Florida) and eventually (if he is to be successful) the leadership of the Republican Party as well.

This requires sophisticated campaign management. On paper, the Gore campaign is much easier to run. The message is simpler. The record is known to all. Any fool could write the script. And the iron law of politics says that when personal income rises, the party in power remains in power.

But somehow you get the feeling that Gore would trade places with Bush in a second. In an age when voters are increasingly disinterested in politics, the power of a strong brand may trump the power of incumbency. This is Bush's great advantage. Week one of the 2000 presidential campaign showed the power of that advantage.