Obama: the Pepsi Candidate
The Democratic presidential nominee and the soft drink have strong affinities.
It is oddly fitting that the convention that will give Barack Obama
the Democratic nomination for president will take place in Denver's
Pepsi Center. During the primaries, some bloggers
argued that Obama's insurgent campaign made him Pepsi to Hillary's
establishment Coke. An eagle-eyed observer (who happens to work for
Pepsi's P.R. firm) noticed that during the primary debates, Obama could be seen refreshing himself with Aquafina water—a Pepsi brand—while Hillary Clinton drank Coke's Dasani. In addition, Wonkette and others have noted that the round "Obama '08" logo is similar to the red and blue yin-yang-like symbol that Pepsi-Cola has used since 1991.
Of course, the connection between Obama and Pepsi is largely
accidental. In early 2006, when Denver began lobbying the Democratic
National Committee to host the convention, very few would have predicted
that Obama would be the nominee. And PepsiCo Inc., the
$40-billion-a-year food conglomerate headquartered in Purchase, N.Y.,
does not manage Denver's Pepsi Center; it bought the arena's naming
rights for 20 years in 1999.
But while the connection may be arbitrary, the Obama-Pepsi affinity
is strong. Last month, when Obama assembled a team of financial
heavyweights for a summit to discuss economic issues, one of the most
prominent corporate leaders in attendance was Indra Nooyi, the Pepsi CEO
whose Indian heritage makes her, like Obama, one of the few nonwhites
to reach the highest levels of power in her profession. Although Nooyi
hasn't endorsed Obama—few CEOs make explicit endorsements—it's hard to
imagine that she doesn't support him; she and her husband gave $27,000
to John Kerry's campaign in 2004. (A spokeswoman says that no comparable
appearance with John McCain has been scheduled, though she's not aware
of any Nooyi donation to Obama.) According to the database
operated by the Center for Responsive Politics, Pepsi employees have
given $39,700 to Obama's campaign, compared with a meager $6,000 from
Coca-Cola employees.
Perhaps more significant, the prevailing theme of Obama's campaign
meshes well with Pepsi's corporate messaging. Pepsi's marketing has for
decades tried to exude youthful energy, from the early '60s attempts to
adopt baby boomers as the "Pepsi generation" to the '90s fantasy
commercials depicting Pepsi as a veritable soda fountain of youth,
transforming nursing-home residents into skateboarders. Pepsi's
advertising slogan not too long ago was "The Choice of a New
Generation," which could almost be Obama's. Certainly his strategy in
the general election, as it did in the primaries, will rely on youth
support that is almost as fanatical and fantastic as the fictional
version in Pepsi's ads.
Actually, Pepsi's appeal to the young has a corporate rationale and
goes back to the beginning of its modern history. (After a bankruptcy,
the company was reborn in the 1930s.) In order to build market share
against the incumbent Coca-Cola and smaller rivals, Pepsi offered 12
ounces of cola for a nickel—6-ounce bottles were the standard at the
time—and held fast to the 5-cent price for several years even as rising
sugar prices during and after World War II compelled others to go to 6
cents and more. (This was the origin of Pepsi's renowned jingle:
"Pepsi-Cola hits the spot/ Twelve full ounces, that's a lot.") As a
result, Pepsi's customer base skewed very young.
by Ben Shapiro17
Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ), who has been campaigning for the media’s new favorite Republican, is now making his journey toward the dark side complete with a misguided assault on a new ad from the National Rifle Association. The NRA ad points out that President Obama is more than happy for his children to have security guards, but thinks that proposals regarding more security in schools for other children is out of the question. Christie said today:
To talk about the president’s children, or any public officer’s children, who have not by their own choice, but by requirement, to have protection, and to use that somehow to try to make a political point is reprehensible …. To somehow feel, as it said in the commercial, “Well, the president has armed bodyguards for his children but thinks it’s not good enough for your children,” the president doesn’t have a choice …. It’s awful to bring public figures’ children into the political debate. They don’t choose to be there. For any of us who are public figures, you see that kind of ad and you cringe.
Of course, nothing Christie said undermined the main point, which is that public figures’ children earn massive security details – and rightly so, since they deserve protection. Other children deserve protection, too, and for Obama to mock that notion is hypocritical.
And naturally, Christie said nothing about the president trotting out seven-year-olds to attempt to imply that Republicans are heartless monsters who prize gun ownership over the lives of children.
But Christie has found his sweet spot with the media. It’s a spot formerly occupied by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA), both of whom parlayed that spot into a presidential nomination. Christie no doubt has similar ambitions. But the conservative base will not be fooled again by a media-seeking demagogue more interested in cameras than in effective policy.
Ben Shapiro is Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News and author of the book “Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences America”
(Continued from Page 2) Obama: the Pepsi Candidate
The Democratic presidential nominee and the soft drink have strong affinities.
It also skewed black, which is the source of Pepsi's unusually close
relationship with the African-American community. Beginning in 1940,
Pepsi was almost alone in the corporate world in hiring African-American
salesmen and in specifically targeting the African-American consumer,
about whom there was very little reliable data. This was a risky
strategy, as any company seen as overtly trying to appeal to blacks
could well have found itself boycotted by Southern whites.
And indeed, Pepsi's strategy created friction internally. According to Stephanie Capparell's 2007 book, The Real Pepsi Challenge,
even Pepsi President Walter Mack—who was responsible for hiring the
African-American sales team—seemed conflicted about it. At a 1949
company event at New York's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, he told the crowd:
"[W]e're going to have to develop a way whereby [Pepsi] will no longer
be known as a nigger drink," causing at least one African-American
salesman to walk out of the meeting. Nevertheless, the company continued
to foster a strong relationship with African-Americans in its marketing
and in its employment practices.
Pepsi's political and marketing agenda these days is much more
complex. In recent years, Pepsico and others in the food and beverage
industry have tried to persuade Congress to pass a "uniformity for food"
law, whose main effect would be to nullify tough California labeling
regulations, which forced Pepsi to stop printing soda labels in Mexico
that contain lead. Pepsi also pays close attention to anti-obesity
regulations—in addition to "sugar water," as Steve Jobs memorably
described it to John Sculley, then president of Pepsi, it also sells
potato chips and Cheetos—and keeps tabs on local prohibitions against
bottled water. And one of the company's most high-profile executives is
General Counsel Larry D. Thompson, who was deputy attorney general in
the Bush administration and is co-chair of the lawyers' steering group
for McCain.
As for Obama, for all of Pepsi's positive associations with youth and
African-Americans, there are nonetheless disadvantages to being a Pepsi
candidate. The soda is a perpetual runner-up, like Avis or Burger King.
Moreover, Pepsi does not lose out to Coke because its product is
inferior. For decades, participants in blind taste tests—the "Pepsi
Challenge"—have preferred Pepsi's sweeter, citrusy, slightly
less-carbonated flavor. Yet consumers consistently choose Coke in larger
numbers, an anomaly usually attributed to Coke's marketing and
packaging. But another theory, argued by Malcolm Gladwell in Blink, is that Pepsi's sweetness appeals more in a sip than over the course of a whole can.
For a candidate who earlier this year lost several primaries in
states where opinion polls showed him ahead, that is a worrisome
analogy. And perhaps that's why, on the day Obama is scheduled to make
his acceptance speech, he's moved the proceedings out of the Pepsi
Center and into Invesco's Mile High Stadium. Accepting the nomination in
a football stadium named after a wealth management firm ... now that's
the choice of a new generation.
No, this is not an episode of the Twilight Zone, nor an escaped mental patient ranting on camera before being taken away in a straight jacket. This is the sitting mayor of America’s 2nd largest city, and a predicted Democrat Presidential candidate for 2016.
But that doesn’t make it any less crazy.
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa yesterday urged this much at a National Press Club appearance by supporters of illegal alien amnesty:
What are other examples of “non-serious crimes”, according to the good mayor and his like-minded amnesty advocates? Try identity theft, Social Security fraud, tax fraud, tax evasion, “up to three” DUIs, car theft (as the Mayor of Boston asserted), shoplifting, ‘simple’ assault, “up to 3″ misdeameanors of any kind…and on and on. NONE of these crimes – again, by people who broke the law to even be here, are considered “serious” enough to deport an illegal alien by amnesty pimps.
In fact in one stunning case, the 9th Circuit Federal Court of Appeals ruled that KIDNAPPING was not “serious enough” to warrant deportation in the case of one illegal alien!
But we are supposed to believe that keeping these “non-serious criminal” illegal aliens will keep us “safer”? Is this really the insanity that the GOP establishment and useful idiots like Sen. Marco Rubio are going to sign on to?
Not if we stop them.
Here is America’s dumbest mayor’s full comments on video…
If YOU stand Arizona and against illegal immigration and want to see the border secured, the rule of law upheld and amnesty for illegals stopped, then put your name where your heart is, and join the 160,000 who have signed the petition
L.A. Mayor: Keep ‘Non-Serious Criminal’ Aliens in U.S. to Make Us ‘Safer’
No, this is not an episode of the Twilight Zone, nor an escaped mental patient ranting on camera before being taken away in a straight jacket. This is the sitting mayor of America’s 2nd largest city, and a predicted Democrat Presidential candidate for 2016.
But that doesn’t make it any less crazy.
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa yesterday urged this much at a National Press Club appearance by supporters of illegal alien amnesty:
“It is time to put an end to the practice of deporting non-serious criminals,” said Villaraigosa. “Our neighborhoods will be safer and our families will be more secure.Uh, ok. So you may now be asking yourself: isn’t crossing the border itself a pretty serious crime? And you would be right. And re-crossing the border, which the average illegal alien has done 2 times – is a Federal felony punishable by up to 5 years in jail. But to Villaraigosa, these are not “serious” crimes.
What are other examples of “non-serious crimes”, according to the good mayor and his like-minded amnesty advocates? Try identity theft, Social Security fraud, tax fraud, tax evasion, “up to three” DUIs, car theft (as the Mayor of Boston asserted), shoplifting, ‘simple’ assault, “up to 3″ misdeameanors of any kind…and on and on. NONE of these crimes – again, by people who broke the law to even be here, are considered “serious” enough to deport an illegal alien by amnesty pimps.
In fact in one stunning case, the 9th Circuit Federal Court of Appeals ruled that KIDNAPPING was not “serious enough” to warrant deportation in the case of one illegal alien!
But we are supposed to believe that keeping these “non-serious criminal” illegal aliens will keep us “safer”? Is this really the insanity that the GOP establishment and useful idiots like Sen. Marco Rubio are going to sign on to?
Not if we stop them.
Here is America’s dumbest mayor’s full comments on video…
If YOU stand Arizona and against illegal immigration and want to see the border secured, the rule of law upheld and amnesty for illegals stopped, then put your name where your heart is, and join the 160,000 who have signed the petition
Christie: NRA Ad on Security for Obama Children ‘Reprehensible’
by Ben Shapiro17
Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ), who has been campaigning for the media’s new favorite Republican, is now making his journey toward the dark side complete with a misguided assault on a new ad from the National Rifle Association. The NRA ad points out that President Obama is more than happy for his children to have security guards, but thinks that proposals regarding more security in schools for other children is out of the question. Christie said today:
To talk about the president’s children, or any public officer’s children, who have not by their own choice, but by requirement, to have protection, and to use that somehow to try to make a political point is reprehensible …. To somehow feel, as it said in the commercial, “Well, the president has armed bodyguards for his children but thinks it’s not good enough for your children,” the president doesn’t have a choice …. It’s awful to bring public figures’ children into the political debate. They don’t choose to be there. For any of us who are public figures, you see that kind of ad and you cringe.
Of course, nothing Christie said undermined the main point, which is that public figures’ children earn massive security details – and rightly so, since they deserve protection. Other children deserve protection, too, and for Obama to mock that notion is hypocritical.
And naturally, Christie said nothing about the president trotting out seven-year-olds to attempt to imply that Republicans are heartless monsters who prize gun ownership over the lives of children.
But Christie has found his sweet spot with the media. It’s a spot formerly occupied by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA), both of whom parlayed that spot into a presidential nomination. Christie no doubt has similar ambitions. But the conservative base will not be fooled again by a media-seeking demagogue more interested in cameras than in effective policy.
Ben Shapiro is Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News and author of the book “Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences America”
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