WEBCommentary Guest

Author: Gerald V. Todd
Date:  May 17, 2014

Topic category:  Policy/Think Tanks

The Tea Party is Dead?


In April, 2010, Fox News website featured an article by a marketing genius who believes the Tea Party movement will not survive because it lacks a marketing plan and a cohesive central command. From Fox: “John Tantillo is a marketing and branding expert and president of “The Marketing Department of America” who markets his own services as “The Marketing Doctor.” He is a frequent contributor to the Fox Forum and the author of a new book "People Buy Brands, Not Companies."

Tantillo doesn’t seem to understand the combined principles of subsidiarity and solidarity – personal responsibility and “e pluribus unum.” A “cohesive central command” only yields a Karl Rove type operation – good as far as it goes, but not good enough for e pluribus unum.

Soviet-style central planners like the intelligent but intuitively dull and sad White House and federal bureaucrats will never get it. They just can't grasp that there's more to marketing than cute 2,000 page bills full of rules and regulations leading to tens of thousands of pages. It’s a perpetual power lust despots have always had.

When I picked up a can of Chinese produced peaches in Bakersfield, part of the “Breadbasket of the World,” I took an engineering viewpoint - What did it take in human skills, materials, water, production equipment, plant facilities, agronomics, personnel and transportation to put that can on my grocer's shelf?

The Tea Parties are more aware of the diverse gifts, talents, desires and assets it requires putting a product on the shelf, even a can of peaches! How many are victims of EPA overreach? It's far too complicated for a “progressive” totalitarian mindset to grasp.

While a real human challenge, race and ethnicity are not complete definitions of diversity. Just like the can of peaches, it takes a myriad of God-given gifts and talents, plus a grand sense of stewardship of the Earth. These include subduing her raw materials into usable crops, equipment and components that put men and women to work in widely diverse ways to match their widely diverse God-given gifts and talents – especially if they have the opportunity to share in the rewards of personal stewardship. That is what most folks call free enterprise, anathema to White House operatives, jihadist’s and all too many “progressive” legislators.

As Tantillo says in his book title: “People buy brands, not companies.” The Tea Party brand is all about the “company” – the Constitutional Republic the Founders gave us – if we can keep it. Like well prepared food, all races and ethnic groups are welcome to enjoy the brand. If they do, we’ll all be able to pursue happiness as they buy into “the company.” Now let’s see if there’s enough intelligence in our Two-Party system to buy the “brand.”

Updated from an article written on April 24, 2010

Gerald V. Todd


Biography - Gerald V. Todd

Jerry is a retired engineer with strong experience in environmental innovation which he still applies today with 2 clean water and energy saving technologies. His life avocation in writing and study of philosophical and biblical themes as they apply to the body politic's spiritual warfare. He survived stage 4 Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in 2006; now in excellent health. A graduate of the University of Illinois (1958, Industrial Engineering), Jerry had post graduate studies at both the University of San Francisco and the University of Santa Clara in California between 1961 and 1963 (Logic, Marketing). As co Founder and seminar presenter he was awarded a Ph.D. in Philosophy at Valley Christian University operating under California private-post secondary statutes for mid career student, VCU was the pioneer external degree school for mid career students. Its course structures were picked up by several well known Christian colleges. Hosted local broadcast radio and TV shows, "Religion on the Line" and "The News Firm" (jointly with wife, Joanne), respectively. Jerry has published several books that are available at Amazon. Jerry is available to speak as a visiting lecturer at the high school, college or community organization level. Jerry is married 55 years to Joanne Dean Todd – 3 children, 8 grandchildren.


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