I don’t talk about my poltical views as much as I used to here on my blog. There are a few reasons for that, more than likely dealing with burnout after the 2004 election and the fact that I know that my co-workers read this (hi folks!) now. So it feels… a little weird.

But still, I can’t keep quiet when I see something so infuriating take place.

Our two-party political conversation is little more than marketing pitches for two different corporations. Corporations whose goal is not to gain money, but to gain influence and an opportunity to be written into history via public service.

When an organization is selling us something it is confronted with a certain marketing reality – “benefits sell, features tell”. That was drilled into me a long time ago as a telemarketer for Sears, later as a trainer and supervisor.

It is no different here.

So what were the benefits each convention were selling us?

Both conventions closed with inspiring calls to service, wrapped in the clothing of “change”. But before those last few minutes, there where three to four days of pitches to the party faithful and the rest of the country that informed us that they were the party we could relate to, that cared about us the most, and that the other choice wasn’t a choice at all.

It’s kinda like Mac versus Windows. Both offer us the same features in the end. They even run on the same hardware these days. But the benefits they sell us thru soft features like interface, branding, and look and feel divide users into two warring camps. Don’t ever tell someone in the Apple faithful that a PC can do just about the same things, or vice versa. People will fight for their chosen brand and avoid the reality that they have bought into a brand in the first place.

This time, in this election, there really are different ‘features’ each will offer us. But those issues aren’t being discussed in the public sphere loudly since they rouse so much passion – for example – women’s right to choose. Which one of these parties would deny everyone else.

When that convention goer says that “freedom of choice” is different than being “pro-choice” – that is a triumph of marketing.

And notice how one convention avoided talking about policy whatsoever? Understandable since it plans doosies like pushing along the elimination of company provided health plans.

Instead, both parties sold benefits, soft features, like the inspiring call to the future and bridging of the red-blue divide that is Obama/Biden and and the call to reinforce country and family that is McCain/Palin.

One party offered uplifting oratory and generalizations.

The other offered ‘us versus them’ with does of sarcasm. And within that, a hella-load of lies.

So many lies I almost got as angry as I did watching the Republican Convention of 1992.

So many lies it reminded me of a NYTimes article where a Bush aide that belittled the “reality-based community” (no that is not a quote from the Onion!).

A McCain staffer said “This election is not about issues,”.. “This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates.”.

They mean it folks. The marketing and the packaging bare that out. They are marketing directly to a large population of Americans who are angry and afraid of the future since so many of the cornerstones that were relied on have been knocked away.

So it comes down to which party will America choose? The one that uses divisive marketing to divide us into warring camps, to cast blame, or the other which reminds us that we worship a mighty God in the blue states as well as the red, that there’s not a liberal America and a conservative America, there is the United States of America – that we’re in this together.

We shall see.