Citizen Brand

TwoHands update

Brady and Alicia are about two years into their online business selling fair trade goods at TwoHandsWorldshop.com.  It's growing quite nicely because they are doing some very cool things to market themselves.

Last Saturday, more than a hundred folks braved some cool, rainy weather to attend the Lawrence version of a worldwide coffee break.  The event at Watson Park in Lawrence was sponsored by TwoHands and served up some great fair trade coffee to the attendees.

On May 19th, TwoHands will cosponsor a special showing of the film "Black Gold."   The film has received rave reviews in telling the story of how one man fights for a fair price for his coffee.  It should make us think more carefully about our morning cup of joe and where the beans for it started.

Finally, TwoHands will be present for the big Wakarusa Festival from June 5-8 at Clinton Lake outside Lawrence.  Brady and Alicia will have fair trade products on sale throughout the festival which is fast becoming one of the big music festivals in the nation.

Great stuff!

Jayhawk Journalists

I attended a great reception Wednesday night with the Kansas City area alumni of the University of Kansas Journalism School.  I was the official host since I secured the venue, but that is all I had to do as host.  The J-
school staff did the rest.

It was a great and diverse group of people of all ages who all had one very important thing in common - we are all "Jayhawk Journalists."  There were newspaper and magazine people in the room; television reporters and anchors; some of my fellow marketing and public relations pros as well as Dean Ann Brill and many of the J-School faculty.  Each of the faculty members took a little time to update us on their areas and what students are doing today.  A lot of great work being done across all areas of the school.

I also picked up a couple of new blogs to read and pass them on to you here.  Whitney Mathews is a 2006 grad from KU and is the web producer at Fox 4 News here in Kansas City.  She has a very active and fun blog at MyFoxKC.  Also, my good friend and associate dean at the J-School, David Guth, has ventured into the blogosphere with Snapping Turtle.  What David may lack in frequency, he will more than make up for in content.  I am looking forward to being a guest lecturer in David's fall class on elections.  A great year to talk politics for sure.

If you have read any good blogs lately and think I should be looking at them, please pass them on.

Global warming is good for business

From Reuters, a brief review of a new book from Harvard Business Press which tells today's business leaders they had better remove their heads from the sand when it comes to global warming:

BOSTON (Reuters) - Chief executives can no longer brush off concerns about climate change but need to start figuring out how global warming -- and regulations intended to curtail it -- will affect their businesses.

So asserts "Climate Change: What's Your Business Strategy?" (Harvard Business Press, $18), a new book due out May 1.

"You can remain completely agnostic about the science of climate change but still recognize its importance as a business issue," write authors Andrew Hoffman and John Woody.

Their slim 97-page volume doesn't delve into the science of climate change, which suggests that, by burning fossil fuels and releasing greenhouse gases including carbon dioxide, humans are warming the earth, potentially setting the stage for enormous changes in weather patterns.

Rather, they presume that human responses to climate change -- primarily in the form of regulations that raise the cost of emissions -- will affect how businesses operate.

Smart CEOs will respond by developing a way to measure their company's "carbon footprint" -- the emissions caused by heating buildings and transporting goods, for instance -- finding ways to reduce it and then taking a role in lobbying to influence what new environmental regulations look like.

"I'm talking to those who think, well, the science isn't there and I'm going to continue to stall -- big mistake," said Hoffman, a professor of sustainable enterprise at the University of Michigan, in a telephone interview.

'THIS IS A BUSINESS ISSUE'

"Let's take all the environmental language out of it, let's take all the moral language out of it, the 'Do the right thing' language out of it, and simply say, brass tacks, if you're a business, this is a business issue," Hoffman said.

Climate change will also create opportunities, in the form of new demand for green products, which is attracting new investment, the authors note.

"In green building and alternative energy, there is money to be made," Hoffman said. "That's where (investors) are going and if you're not thinking about this, you're missing out on these capital flows."

The authors cite U.S. industrial heavyweights General Electric Co and DuPont Co as companies that took on climate change directly and found opportunities to both cut their costs and develop projects that appeal to businesses and people concerned about sustainability.

Those companies stand out in part because U.S. CEOs generally trail their European Union counterparts in engagement on this issue, Hoffman said.

"The EU has been under a carbon regime and so they're much more used to addressing this," Hoffman said. "But there's a cultural issue too ... There is, I think, within the general public within Europe a greater sense of the scientific evidence around climate change and the need to respond than there is in the United States."

Taking climate change seriously -- and taking steps to reduce a company's emissions and other environmental impacts -- also gives it a better chance of having influence on future national and international regulations on emissions.

"Regulation is coming. If you want a seat at the table to influence what that regulation should be, you've got to get on this now," Hoffman said. "It may even be too late."

A Kansan in Shanghai

My colleague, Jeff Risley, is representing Barkley this week at an IPREX meeting in Shanghai, China.  IPREX is the 60 member global network of public relations firms that Barkley has been a part of for more than a decade.  Like the foreign correspondents of old, Jeff is writing dispatches from the other side of the Pacific at his blog, Risley Ranch.  Link here and here to see his first reports.

I had the great opportunity to visit China in 1984.  It seems amazing that in the last 24 years, the most populous nation on the face of the earth remains at times mysterious and still cloaked in secrecy.  The veil is being lifted rather forcibly of late as the Beijing Olympics loom less than 100 days away.  Will these Games prove to be the leverage the rest of the world needs to help China understand what is required of a nation who is a growing economic force in the world.

Jeff will return from China with his own views.  I look forward to sharing stories of what we both saw 24 years apart.  It will be interesting to see what has changed and what has not changed.

Salute to the Kansas Jayhawks

All hail the champs!  Please allow Citizen Brand to take a moment to revel in my alma mater's success on the hardwoods this past weekend.

The Kansas Jayhawks won their third NCAA national championship in men's basketball with victories over North Carolina and Memphis.  It had been 20 years since my 'Hawks brought home the hardware and it was a sweet feeling indeed.  For those of you who may have been in a fog on Monday night - those of us who love being in the "Phog" will always remember where we were when "The Shot" swished through the net of San Antonio's Alamodome.

In 110 years of Jayhawk basketball, there has perhaps been no shot of greater importance or timing than the three pointer that guard Mario Chalmers made with 2.1 seconds left in the game.  It capped off a furious rally by the 'Hawks who found themselves nine points down with 2:12 on the clock.  They had led most of the evening until Memphis took control in the mid to late second half.  But this 2008 group of 'Hawks have demonstrated all year an ability to reach down and find whatever is needed to get the job done.

Mario hit the three forcing an overtime.  Memphis went into shock.  The Jayhawks scored the first six points of the extra stanza and the rest is history.  KU wins its third NCAA title tying it with Duke and leaving it just one title behind North Carolina.  It took Coach Bill Self just five seasons to win his first national championship at Kansas.  It won't be his last.  And it won't be his last at Kansas.  Despite a media frenzy building out of Stillwater, Oklahoma from T. Boone Pickens' PR machine, I do not believe Self will leave Kansas for his alma mater, Oklahoma State.  Kansas has a few rich alums too.  Expect this media driven story to end soon and OSU will have to find a new head coach elsewhere.

I am unabashed in my love for the University of Kansas.  It's a great university with a proud tradition of academic and athletic excellence.  The 2008 men's basketball team added a new chapter to this continuing story.  Their record of 37-3 is the most wins ever by a Jayhawk squad and they are national champions.  Rock Chalk, Jayhawk!

Kansas Jayhawks Best of Best

I will have more later but for now I will let the Associated Press tell the story of one of the best national championship basketball games ever played.  My Jayhawks have won their third national title since 1939 when the first NCAA champion was crowned.  It was an incredible ride these Jayhawks took us on this year.  37 wins and three losses; a shared Big 12 regular season title; a third consecutive Big 12 conference tournament title.  And after a 20 year wait, now a national championship.  Here is the AP story:

Chalmers' big shot leads Kansas to first national title since 1988

Associated Press
Updated: April 8, 2008, 12:33 AM ET

SAN ANTONIO -- With each year, Mario Chalmers has become a better shooter from beyond the 3-point arc.

He saved his best for a night that college basketball fans will long remember.

Chalmers' 3-pointer with 2 seconds to play sent the national final into overtime, where Kansas pulled it out 75-68 over Memphis.

It's the Jayhawks' third NCAA title, and their first since 1988.

Chalmers, the Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four, finished with 18 points on 5-of-13 shooting from the floor, including 2-of-6 from beyond the arc. he made all six of his free throws and had three assists.

The Jayhawks have endured countless disappointments in the NCAA tournament, and they looked like they were headed for another until Chalmers took a pass, and launched the tying shot from the top of the key.

During his career, he has gone from a 37.5 percent shooter from beyond the arc as a freshman to 40.4 percent as a sophomore and 47.6 as a junior.

After his big 3-pointer Chalmers' teammates mobbed him as he returned to the bench for a timeout. At the other end, the Tigers walked off the floor with their heads bowed.

The game was still tied, but it felt as if Chalmers had won it.

Chalmers also did some good work on the defensive end. Among the nation's steal leaders all season, Chalmers had four. That was the most among the Jayhawks on a night they totalted 11 steals and took the high-scoring Tigers out of their comfort zone on offense.

At times, Chalmers seemed to be everywhere -- pestering the Tigers on defense and then slicing into the lane at the other end of the floor, only to find an open teammate.

When it ended, he was in the best place of all -- on a podium at center court, hoisting a national championship trophy with his teammates.

Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press

Give it up for the Postal Service

The United States Postal Service gets a lot of grief and is the object of jokes every so often, but we all should stand and applaud for their "Mail Back" program.  Currently in ten cities across America, if you have an iPod; cell phone; digicams; gameboys etc. that no longer work, you can pick up a special envelope at the local Post Office and send it in to be either recycled or disposed of properly.

Here is more in a post from a University of Kansas student on a classroom blog.  Also a hat tip to Triple Pundit.  The company on the receiving end of the busted electronics is Clover Technology Group.  The folks at Clover are paying the postage in addition to recycling all the defunct devices.  This is a program that deserves our support so it can go national thus making it easy for anyone to recycle electronics.

The statistics regarding electronic waste are staggering.  Hundreds of millions of computers, cell phones, ink cartridges and even televisions are being cast aside for newer improved models.  This is one area where we can all do our part.

The Red Phone

As we head to the next showdown in the best political race in a generation, Rich Harwood has a nice take on the ad campaigns of Obama and Clinton evoking the fear tactics of the Walter Mondale's Red Phone or Reagan's Bear in the Woods ads of years gone by.  I will reprint it below or you can link to it here .  Rich is a smart guy who makes you think beyond the answers of the moment and focus on what can be in the moments of tomorrow.

It’s jolting and ominous. Indeed, the dueling Clinton-Obama “red phone” ads are a throw-back to previous eras, a time of the cold war, a bear in the woods, daisies and detonation. The red phone is an icon of fear, often used when other arguments fail. But that’s just it: the red phone is about the past. I want to look to the future, one rooted in our present-day reality.

This campaign has given us Senator Obama, who has captured many people’s imagination; Senator Clinton, who has demonstrated just how tough she is; and Senator McCain, an American hero. But my concern here is not about media buys, “get out the vote” operations, or how to excite people and motivate them to vote. I have no problem with tough-minded ads.

My concern is that I want candidates who call us to look to the future by genuinely reflecting and understanding the present. We’re squarely barreling into the 21st Century, whether we like it or not and things have changed dramatically from the 1990s, or even from 2004. For instance:

•    In just the past few years the auto industry has undergone a total makeover, well beyond changes in the 1980s and 90s. With tens of thousands of workers recently laid off or bought out, the auto industry of the future is not the one of our childhood.

•    The Internet has altered how we get information and news and with whom we connect, changing what and who we know, and how communities function. 

•    While younger Americans are re-entering politics, the huge baby boomer generation is retiring and seeking meaningful things to do; yet no one is clearly proposing how to tap into this energy, other than to say, “Vote for me!”

•    National security issues have fundamentally changed in the last eight years, with terrorism, the further emergence of China, an increasingly testy Russia, just to mention top-of-the-head issues.

With fundamental shifts taking place in this country and around the world, old discussions about the same old issues won’t work. Nor will simply updating various policy proposals, arguing endlessly about who voted for NAFTA and what they think today, or talking about speeches vs. solutions. 

I remember sitting in a restaurant in New Hampshire in 1995 with a group of citizens I was interviewing for a project with the Pew Center for Civic Journalism. The project was built around listening to Americans talk about their concerns and hopes. People talked movingly and with deep frustration about how their factory jobs had gone overseas.  They were clear that something was changing in America, but weren’t exactly sure what, and they were holding on for dear life to the past.  Of course, that’s not uncommon, we all do that.

But there’s little doubt today that the world has gone through a major transformation and that we are not returning to the 1980s, or even the 1990s. What’s more, no president alone can shape the future, or craft a new, complete and cogent narrative for the nation. Such changes emerge only over time. And yet, a candidate for the presidency and future president can help us “turn” toward the future, so that we can begin to see it and address it. You see, the fundamental choice before us is not simply a matter of debating one policy or another, but a choice about our orientation concerning the next leg of our common journey.

When I was 23 years old, several presidents ago, I was a young aide to senior staff for the Mondale for President Campaign. That campaign also produced a red phone television ad, one used against Senator Gary Hart (D-CO). Just a few short years later, in 1987, I made the decision to start what has become The Harwood Institute for Public Innovation, in part because I felt that politics had become more about striking fear into people’s hearts, than tapping into their aspirations and solving problems.

In many respects, politics is on the upswing this year. The positive changes have been a long-time in the making, a manifestation, I believe, of Americans’ long-held aspirations for a better politics and public life. Which leads me back to the red phone: this year’s race, I believe, is the first in recent times to be squarely about the new century, about an era already upon us, one which represents a fundamentally different trajectory for our nation. If, as I believe, our trajectory is fundamentally different from era’s past, then I want a campaign which talks about that different path and how we can take it.

"God's Gonna Cut Em Down"

I was looking for something to kick off the weekend right and Ernie Schenck came to my rescue.  Check out this Tony Kaye version of Johnny Cash's  "God's Gonna Cut Em Down."  When I hear Ernie say he is astounded by something, I take notice.  Wow is right.

Enjoy.

You can't make this stuff up

We will be talking about the 2008 presidential election for decades to come.  And it won't be because of voters in Chicago accused of voting more than once (Kennedy v. Nixon in 1960) or hanging chads and Supreme Court votes (Bush v. Gore in 2000).  No, this time we will be thinking back on an election that has had candidates that voters actually were supporting and issues that were actually being discussed.  And here it is the day after Super Duper Tsunami Tuesday and we still don't know exactly who will be on the ballot in November.  Isn't it great?

A Hollywood screenwriter looking for work right now instead of a picket line could not write some of the story lines that are unfolding right before our very eyes.  Rush Limbaugh, the conservatives' favorite comedic radio host is doing everything he can to submarine the apparent Republican front running John McCain.  Mike Huckabee, who has no money compared to everyone else, manages to win a few states on Tuesday catapulting himself into top challenger status in the GOP race.  Meanwhile, Mitt Romney would have to spend $1.33 billion dollars to win enough delegates to take the nomination away from either McCain or Huckabee.  That is based on what he has spent thus far to win the paltry number of delegates he has scraped off the floor since the snows of Iowa.

Then there is the Democratic race.  This time last year, Hillary Clinton was all but anointed as the nominee.  Turn the page to February, 2008 and she finds herself running neck and neck with Barack Obama.  The first legitimate chance for either a woman or an African-American to be elected President of the United States and they wake up each morning realizing they are battling each other for the right to live at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.  And today, she revealed she had to loan her own campaign $5 million to keep it going.  Obama is out-raising her in donations by a big margin.

And the talk is already beginning of a deadlocked convention and smoke filled back rooms deciding the Democratic nominee.  Wait a minute, there won't be any smoke filled rooms inside any building in Denver for the convention.  Those meetings will have to occur outside.

This is what I mean.  You cannot make this stuff up.  We are witness to a remarkable story in 2008.  Don't blink.  You might miss something.

Fair Trade Love

Time to take a commercial break from our continuing election coverage here at Citizen Brand for a word from our sponsor.....

Looking for that unique gift for that special Valentine?  Look no further than Two Hands Worldshop for that fair trade gift for the one you love. 

Now back to our regular programming......

Yes We Can

The result of a little inspiration and access to a recording studio.....

Click here.

As the song in the 60"s said...."There's something happening here....."

Horse Race Journalism

As the famous line goes - "We have seen the enemy and it is us."  We want to believe that we are paying attention to presidential candidates and their stands on issues so we can make informed and competent decisions in the voting booth.  But we can't help ourselves.  We get sucked into the "horse race."  Who is ahead in the Zogby Poll today; the New York Times poll tomorrow; and, the Nickelodeon/ESPN/O Magazine Poll due out tomorrow.....

As Super Duper Tuesday approaches, the latest national polling shows Barack Obama surging and closing the gap on Hillary Clinton.  It shows John McCain building a lead over Mitt Romney and it seems clear that Mike Huckabee is submarining Romney by splitting the "conservative" vote.

Polls are instructive.  They do give us a sense of where things stand at that moment in time.  But then we need a new poll right away to keep the buzz going....is Obama still surging?  Is McCain really starting to pull away from Romney or will the next poll tell us something different.

And so it goes.  The media serves as the drug dealer on the corner feeding the horse race frenzy.  Read this piece by Jay Rosen over at Pressthink to go a little deeper on this subject.  As you will see in Jay's piece, the media hasn't faired so well in their horse race predictions this year which has further contributed to this once or twice in a century electoral experience.  Of course the media's lack of success has also caused us no shortage of roller coaster rides as they attempt to fix their errors.  Jay points to one ray of sunshine in this exchange between Tom Brokaw and Chris Matthews on the night of the New Hampshire Primary:

"“BROKAW: You know what I think we’re going to have to do?

“MATTHEWS: Yes sir?

“BROKAW: Wait for the voters to make their judgment.

“MATTHEWS: Well what do we do then in the days before the ballot? We must stay home, I guess.”

Matthews was being the realist: Without who’s-going-to-win, “we” might as well stay home. Brokaw (now long retired as the face of the NBC brand) gave him an apt warning in response: “The people out there are going to begin to make judgments about us if we don’t begin to temper that temptation to constantly try to get ahead of what the voters are deciding.” But he was speaking as if the media had a mind and could shift course."

A novel concept indeed.....let the voters vote and then report on how they voted.

Bush-Clinton Fatigue

Hillary Clinton had a big applause line in the Hollywood Showdown starring her and Barack Obama at the Kodak Theater on Thursday night.  She was asked how she could possibly represent change when the same two families (hers and the Bushes) have been in The White House since 1980.  Her response, while clever, points out why Republicans are praying every night that she is the Democratic nominee.

I paraphrase a bit, but in essence she said it took a Clinton to clean up the first Bush presidency and it would take another Clinton to clean up the second Bush presidency.  It was met with the biggest applause of the night from the glitterati of Hollywood in the audience.  Heck, CNN even went to commercial over the applause as if they had just handed out the Oscar for Best Actress!

Can you imagine what we would think if two families in the United Kingdom, or France, or Germany, or Japan had basically shared executive power for 28 years straight?  Interesting to think about it from that perspective isn't it?

Super Duper Tuesday is coming and it may be the day that the November ballot for President begins to take final form.  There is tremendous interest in this election as there should be.  We all have different motivations for making decisions when we vote.  I have to believe that whether it is conscious or unconscious, there is an underlying feeling in many voters that 28 years of the Bushes and the Clintons is enough.  We will see on Tuesday if I'm right.

An important postscript - it was amazing to see a woman and an African-American sitting side by side knowing that one of them can be elected President of the United States later this year.

 

Not just any old endorsement

Today's New York Times had a special column on its Op-Ed page. Caroline Kennedy endorsed Barack Obama for President. Her piece speaks for itself.

"A President Like My Father

OVER the years, I’ve been deeply moved by the people who’ve told me they wished they could feel inspired and hopeful about America the way people did when my father was president. This sense is even more profound today. That is why I am supporting a presidential candidate in the Democratic primaries, Barack Obama.

My reasons are patriotic, political and personal, and the three are intertwined. All my life, people have told me that my father changed their lives, that they got involved in public service or politics because he asked them to. And the generation he inspired has passed that spirit on to its children. I meet young people who were born long after John F. Kennedy was president, yet who ask me how to live out his ideals.

Sometimes it takes a while to recognize that someone has a special ability to get us to believe in ourselves, to tie that belief to our highest ideals and imagine that together we can do great things. In those rare moments, when such a person comes along, we need to put aside our plans and reach for what we know is possible.

We have that kind of opportunity with Senator Obama. It isn’t that the other candidates are not experienced or knowledgeable. But this year, that may not be enough. We need a change in the leadership of this country — just as we did in 1960.

Most of us would prefer to base our voting decision on policy differences. However, the candidates’ goals are similar. They have all laid out detailed plans on everything from strengthening our middle class to investing in early childhood education. So qualities of leadership, character and judgment play a larger role than usual.

Senator Obama has demonstrated these qualities throughout his more than two decades of public service, not just in the United States Senate but in Illinois, where he helped turn around struggling communities, taught constitutional law and was an elected state official for eight years. And Senator Obama is showing the same qualities today. He has built a movement that is changing the face of politics in this country, and he has demonstrated a special gift for inspiring young people — known for a willingness to volunteer, but an aversion to politics — to become engaged in the political process.

I have spent the past five years working in the New York City public schools and have three teenage children of my own. There is a generation coming of age that is hopeful, hard-working, innovative and imaginative. But too many of them are also hopeless, defeated and disengaged. As parents, we have a responsibility to help our children to believe in themselves and in their power to shape their future. Senator Obama is inspiring my children, my parents’ grandchildren, with that sense of possibility.

Senator Obama is running a dignified and honest campaign. He has spoken eloquently about the role of faith in his life, and opened a window into his character in two compelling books. And when it comes to judgment, Barack Obama made the right call on the most important issue of our time by opposing the war in Iraq from the beginning.

I want a president who understands that his responsibility is to articulate a vision and encourage others to achieve it; who holds himself, and those around him, to the highest ethical standards; who appeals to the hopes of those who still believe in the American Dream, and those around the world who still believe in the American ideal; and who can lift our spirits, and make us believe again that our country needs every one of us to get involved.

I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them. But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that president — not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans."

Caroline Kennedy is the author of “A Patriot’s Handbook: Songs, Poems, Stories and Speeches Celebrating the Land We Love.”

A Super Bowl idea....take II

The writers strike has impacted Citizen Brand.  It's rerun night.  I was thinking back to two years ago and the Super Bowl.  It was on February 7, 2006 that I suggested in this space that perhaps there might be an advertiser out there who would consider spending their money a bit differently on the Super Bowl.  Here is my rerun:

Really smart advertisers in the future might consider this scenario:  Budget enough money to buy four 30 second spots - say $10 million - but only buy one spot and donate the rest to a worthy cause.  Then take your one 30 second spot and promote that cause.  The company could start a campaign a week or ten days before the game promoting it through every avenue available to them and continue it right through the game and beyond.

Then imagine what a Super Bowl five years down the road might look like if it started a trend and think of all the good that could come of that approach.  And imagine what the public would think of the companies who took this approach.  And how it would make all the employees of those companies feel.

Who wants to start?

There is one difference.  The cost of a Super Bowl spot this year is $2.7 million.  Seems like an even better idea given the cost is going up.  I repeat - Who wants to start?  Anyone?

March of Dimes

Today, one of America's great nonprofits starts a new and exciting chapter in its 70 year history.

Our client, the March of Dimes is launching its re-brand today.  All of us at Barkley are incredibly proud to be partners with them in this effort.  You can read about it all right here.

We want you to be able to experience the re-brand today and share it with your friends, families, post it on your blogs, etc.

There are so many new things going on with the March of Dimes and here is how you can experience the changes for yourself.

Visit marchofdimesbaby.com to experience our newly created campaign site – a fascinating site geared toward what “mom” or soon to be “mom” is wondering about.

Visit marchforbabies.org to experience the name change and re-brand of WalkAmerica to March for Babies.

Visit the March of Dimes YouTube site to watch the television PSAs, Shoes, Soccer and Dumbbell and forward to all of your friends.

See page 89 of O Magazine for our first print PSA placement for March for Babies..the first time MOD has been included in O.

Google March of Dimes and see all the great media placements that are starting to come in about the re-brand and March of Dimes offering new resources for pregnancy and baby health!

The March of Dimes solved polio; has sponsored Nobel Prize winning research; and is out there fighting everyday for stronger, healthier babies.  Every parent to be or parent in the world should turn to the March of Dimes to find out what they need to do to best ensure a healthy pregnancy and healthy baby.  And every grandparent, uncle, aunt, sister, brother, neighbor or friend of those parents to be and parents should check out the March of Dimes too.  It is a deserving and worthwhile cause.

The nerve of those voters

All of us here at Citizen Brand - that would be me I guess - have to be willing to admit when we may have gotten ahead of ourselves.  But wait, I don't think we did.  Barack Obama still looks like the real thing from this vantage point.  So what exactly happened in New Hampshire the other night?

What happened was nothing more than what had been predicted to happen for a few weeks - Hillary Clinton would win New Hampshire and so likely would John McCain.  And that is exactly what happened when the voters spoke.  It is what happened between Iowa and New Hampshire among the media; the pollsters; the pundits; and the consultants that needs to be questioned. 

Think about it.  Two of the least ethnically diverse and not exactly wildly liberal states in the nation have said an African American or a woman should be President of the United States.  Forget the horse race the media foists on us every four years and focus on what has happened in the first two official contests of the 2008 Presidential election.  On the other side of the aisle, Republican voters have given the nod to a true evangelical and the straight talking, shoot from the hip, Vietnam POW.  Obama, Clinton, Huckabee and McCain are not the kind of candidates we are used to seeing in the race for the White House.

Lost in the shuffle right now are the two guys who we have been conditioned to seeing in the race - John Edwards and Mitt Romney.  Two white guys with good hair and good talking points.  Either one of these guys might make a good president.  But after seven years of the gang that can't shoot straight with us, the USA is ready for a big change.  And the differences on display for us with the Obama, Clinton, Huckabee and McCain variety hour have a little something for everyone.

Thus we have seen a different winner in every contest thus far.  (Wyoming GOP went for Romney by the way.)  Which brings us back to those pesky voters.  In 2008, I believe the more the media and the pollsters try to tell us what they think is going to happen, the less likely it is to happen.  If New Hampshire taught us anything, it may have taught us to wait for the votes to be counted and then see who the winners will be.

Voters are on to the exit pollsters.  After waiting 45 minutes to cast a secret ballot, the last thing any right thinking person should do is tell a complete stranger how they voted and why.  Let 2008 be the death of the exit polls.  Good riddance.

On to Nevada, South Carolina and 20 or so other states by February 5.  This is fun.  And it is important.

Change trumps "experience"

Iowa has spoken.

19 years of Bush, Clinton and Bush have made Americans weary.  More importantly, it has made Americans ready for an honest change.  Iowans took a long and serious look at the dozen or so candidates over the past year and delivered a message to the rest of us tonight.  We need something much different than what we have had for the past two decades.  Iowa delivered a clear message that Democratic Senator Barack Obama of Illinois is the person who can deliver the change we need.

Iowa Republicans delivered a message of their own.  Upstart Mike Huckabee, former Governor of Arkansas, won their straw vote turning back a $9 million dollar ad campaign by Mitt Romney, another former Governor, and put a split into the Republicans that they will need more than a few primaries to sort out.  Even Huckabee's Iowa victory says something about the mood for something different than the status quo of the Bush-Clinton stranglehold on the White House since 1988.

Iowa is only the beginning.  But if we listen closely to the message from the heartland tonight, there is a vision of an America that the days of division and fear need to end.  It is a vision where citizens say to their leaders that you solve the long standing problems we have or we as citizens will start to find people who will.  It is a nation of people who now decide where they will get their information and not wait for someone to spoon feed them only the news someone else thinks is important. 

Now, the question is, will we do more than listen?  Will we bring this desire for change to reality?  I think we will and I think Americans are ready.  If you missed Senator Obama's victory speech in Iowa, take time to listen and judge for yourself whether he is exactly what America needs at this point in our history.

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Iowa Kicks Us Off

That quiet we hear right now is truly the calm before the storm.  As I write this, the good people of Iowa are a few short hours away from beginning to shape the presidential election of 2008.  This is the first election since 1952 - Eisenhower vs. Stevenson - where no incumbent president or vice president is going to be on the ballot.  Since 1980, either a Bush or a Clinton have been in one of the top two spots - obviously that could continue this year.  And the diversity of candidates and ideas appears to be as broad as it has ever been in a presidential race.  This is an important election.

Change seems to be in the air.  Iowa will help to either validate that or quash it depending on the outcomes.  There is a long way to go after Iowa, but the quirky caucus system used by that state has served as a good indicator of who the nominees of both parties will be come November.  And as the final push begins to get people out to the caucus sites, the nation's attention turns to the heartland of the nation to see what the Iowans have to tell us.

Record numbers are predicted which is a great indicator of the interest we all have in this important election.  Regardless of your political affiliation, a big majority of this country is ready for new leadership that is more hopeful, more positive and ready to solve real problems.

So let's see what Iowa has to say this time.  Should be an interesting evening.