For SHAME, Bernie would not approve!

[rbnyc]

238. yes...

...but I wonder...

Part of my job is marketing, so I do see things from a marketing perspective sometimes. So when you talk about when people "assume moral faults, character flaws..." what you say is really reasonable. And yes, we are agreeing, let's talk about the issues and the behaviors and the policies and avoid counterproductive extrapolation. But assigning more characteristics to something than those characteristics which are indisputably observable is what people do with brands. Marketers try to influence that process in a way that favors the brand, and candidates are very much like brands. So is there value in exploring these extrapolated assigned traits from a kind of marketing perspective?

A brand gets damaged in 3 ways. It's a flawed product. The marketing messages are wrong. It is being attacked by other brands.

What is damaging Hilary's brand? It's probably all three of these things, but in what proportions? Every product is flawed, but is she fatally flawed? She seems to be delivering so many of the right messages; can she deliver them more effectively? She is being attacked. By whom and why? And in making these assessments, what do you have to gain or lose in assigning different values to each?

These are honest questions and a hardcore tangent so I will not be offended if you disregard.