On Tuesday, Detroit becomes irrelevant despite Michigan taking center stage

Let’s face it -- Tuesday’s Michigan Primary is all about the GOP. Those living in Detroit will most likely not vote. In fact, Detroit’s Bureau of Elections predicts just 10-12 percent of Detroiters will vote – And Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum know it. In fact, the entire GOP Presidential candidate’s know it. That is why, other than separate appearances at the Detroit Economic Club, Romney, Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul all stayed out of Detroit, instead focusing on raising money and building support in Detroit’s suburbs and out-state areas.

In an election, victory is built on dollars and votes, so who can blame them for doing what they have to do build support – They are not going to find it in Detroit. However, although money and the votes rest outside of Detroit, it is Detroit and its history that should take center stage.

Detroit serves as a beacon for the soul of the American Spirit. Romney, Santorum, Gingrich and Paul should each spend more time in the Motor City. Even though Detroiters will most likely not vote in the GOP Primary, their individual stories represent what is both right and wrong with America today. So each should’ve sat down at American Coney Island or Lafayette Coney, in Eastern Market or at Slow’s BBQ to talk to Detroiters about the issues plaguing their lives, as I guarantee it is the same issues affecting those in Milwaukee and Mesa, Portland and Providence Town and communities in between.

In fact, the candidate’s journey to Detroit should’ve started at Ford’s Rouge Factory Tour. There, they would’ve learned about an entrepreneur who spent his evenings after work trying to perfect the automobile. Once that was done, the entrepreneur, Henry Ford, revolutionized how cars and other products were manufactured by creating the modern day assembly line.

Ford did more than just improve the automobile and the process by which he made it. He doubled the wages of his employees and found a way to make a quality car cost effective. By doing so, he improved the lives of millions of ordinary people, by creating the middle class. A group of people that could now afford to not only pay for their first home, but also drive the very car they helped build.

When the Great Depression rocked America, Henry Ford kept the lines moving and kept the employed working. When President Franklin Roosevelt declared war on the Japanese, Ford and the other auto companies stopped car/truck production almost immediately, to fund and support the war industry by creating the Arsenal of Democracy. Finally, during the 1970’s Ford and the other auto companies did not just give up, they found a way to reinvent themselves and made cars more fuel efficient.

Love us or hate us, Detroit are America, and represents what is wrong and what is write with it.  Detroit is the soul of America. Detroit is a city that remains flexible and resilient. In fact, no matter what challenges Detroit faces, we face them together. Take that away and you take away the American Spirit. On Tuesday, Detroit must not become irrelevant it must become the central focus of the campaign, even after the election is over.

RAISING CAIN IN MICHIGAN & THE ART OF POLITICAL BRANDING

Running for office is extremely different than running an office. Yet a campaign is our chance to learn about the candidates seeking the office of President, Congress, Governor, Mayor or other positions. It is also a chance for the candidates to test the waters to see if the public is ready for a person like them to lead. In the United States, unlike other nations, the campaign season gets longer and longer, much like the holiday season starting the day after Halloween.  So candidates have a year or more to sell an idea and try to persuade and influence the voting public, that their ideas make more sense than the other candidates.  Debates like the one held tonight in suburban Detroit is a rare opportunity to corral the (GOP) candidates  and watch how they deal with the difficult task of face their worse critics – Their opponent.

But in the heat of a debate, candidates often are going after each other to stand out from the rest of the pact. In doing so, their message and that of the GOP gets lost. While they all say they can do better than the status quo there is no real message as to what the candidates stand for.

On the other hand, President Barack Obama was successful as a candidate, in part because he created a brand.  He was the only candidate that we can identify a logo with and we knew what he stood for, whether we agreed with him or not.  He had a message and a plan and a way in delivering it to the masses where everyone understood it.

A brand is how or what we identify people or a company with. It is the message that separates the product from the others. In communicating a brand, it is important that you communicate something that others can understand and identify with. For example, people respond to emotional appeal, not issues, but personality and an appealing story. In creating a brand, it is important that you give people a reason to support you.

Over the past few weeks, Herman Cain’s brand has been tarnished and he has been trying, unsuccessfully to minimize the story although as tonight’s debate showed, the audience or public want to focus on what the person believes in or supports, rather what they did, even in the wake of the Penn State allegations.

Nonetheless, the only way to cut through the communication clutter is to create a brand and the top GOP candidates are having a difficult time standing out from each other. Like Obama, they need their own logo, their story that can capture our attention, their message. The message cannot be just “anti-Obama” or “anti-Democrat.” It needs to be more substantive.

Once you have the messages are clear and tested, the candidates can then create a unique story to use throughout the campaign and at the next debate. Throughout the campaign, the “brand” should be monitored and evaluated.  For example,

• Are people identifying with you brand?
• Are the messages resonating?
• Are we consistent on our website, in our social media, at events and in how we communicate to supporters, the public and to the media?
• What is the online chatter or people saying off-line.

Today campaigning is all about gaining one's trust, building our credibility and generating public awareness as to what a candidate stands for and their agenda for moving a country forward.  I am not sure if that was accomplished tonight. Some candidates however, did stand out over others. They just need to build upon that momentum that Michelle Bachman desperately failed at after Iowa. But for all the GOP candidates, they have time. We still have about 10 months to go before the GOP Convention in Florida in August, 2012.  For the President, it is time that he re-evaluate and re-adjust his plan, and be ready to face the Republicans early next year.