Democrats pay a price for a failure of the “3 C’s”

By Tom Quiner

People buy from people they like and trust.

That’s been my experience in the marketing business the past four decades.

I think it applies to politics to a large extent.

Barack Obama won in 2008 because voters liked and trusted him.

He won reelection in 2012 because voters liked and trusted Republicans less than Mr. Obama.

By 2014, the reality of the Obama con game was no longer able to be ignored, and the Democratic Party suffered a stunning repudiation by the voters.

Author and Wall Street Journal pundit, Peggy Noonan, characterized the Dems’ defeat as a failure of the “3 C’s:”

Competence: The administration has shown little

Wall Street Journal columnist, Peggy Noonan

talent for or focused interest in running the federal government well, and has managed the executive agencies very poorly.

Coherence: The administration has been unable to explain persuasively the reasoning behind its current priorities (global warming? really?) or its decisions in areas from foreign policy to Ebola in a way that has allowed the public to follow their thinking.

Credibility: If you want your doctor you can keep your doctor, red lines, it’s highly unlikely Ebola will come here, there’s not a smidgen of corruption in the IRS, etc. It’s a terrible thing when a president loses his credibility.

Absolute failure in any one of the 3 C’s will bring trouble, and when you fail in all three you get very big, even historic trouble.

Or to return to my marketing explanation: when voters don’t like or trust you (because of the failure of the 3 C’s as mentioned above); you’re in deep doodoo (which I call the 3 D’s).