Note to CMO: The Obama-rometer, Momentum and Killing Giants

Dear CMO:

You know I won't stoop to politics here, but an instructive series of case studies in momentum are playing out right now on the political stage that any marketer would find interesting. Barack Obama, all but given up for dead, is hot again. Her Inevitableness still looks mechanical and shrill, but now looks ashen as well.

How did all of this happen exactly? And what lessons appear to the careful observer?Any time you hear the word, "inevitable," you can bet there's trouble. In the vocabulary we're building around Killing Giants, this is an Aikido moment: presenting the clear front runner as status quo -- which, in politics, is bad.

Let's look back at the original post and review what Aikido tells us about Hilary:

Familiarity breeds contempt. You’re a populist in an age of fluff. The iDont campaign (Sandisk's campaign aimed at the iPod) was well-aimed by a smart company with an excellent agency, but they missed the mark and received a bit of deserved backlash because the campaign went negative. So say the blogs. You don’t have to go negative.

Sound like a parallel with the Clinton campaign? Familiarity has bred contempt. Obama sees himself as a populist representing "hope" against a mechanical, ambitous cipher. And, to make things worse, the Clinton campaign went negative, playing into his hand.

If you were John Edwards, just for fun, how would you Kill the Giant?

Regards.

PS: Don't worry, we'll talk GOP another day...