Reply #4: This distinction between movements and marketing is BS

[ContinentalOp]

All politics are marketing. Candidates who refuse to acknowledge that or don't even realize it are rightfully doomed to irrelevance. Using his definitions, I don't think there has ever been a successful presidential race in modern times that was based on a "movement."

That's also why the criticisms of Obama's "plagiarism" are ridiculous. If you want to see progressive ideas make their way up to the national political stage, the only way to accomplish that is to take the best ideas from grassroots movements and package them together with a marketable candidate. This is the highly successful approach that Republicans have taken for the past 30 years. If you're going to wait for a candidate to come along who is electable, highly experienced and has lots of brilliant original ideas then you are going to be waiting for an awfully long time.