The following is an excerpt from OpinionJournal.com’s “Best of the Web” written by the editor, James Taranto.
Answers to Questions Nobody Is Asking
“Why Vancouver’s Ban On Doorknobs Makes Complete Sense”–headline, BusinessInsider.com, Nov. 19
Bottom Stories of the Day
“Maryland Struggling With Technological Problems With Online Insurance Exchange”–headline, Washington Post, Nov. 20
When Life Gives You Lemons, Rebrand Them as ‘Lemonade’
“We’re going to have to, obviously, remarket and rebrand,” President Obama said of ObamaCare during an interview with Gerald Seib of The Wall Street Journal at the Journal’s CEO Council Meeting yesterday.
Seems to us the problem is more with the product than with the marketing or the branding, but Politico reports the rebranding effort is already under way:
President Barack Obama and loyal Democrats once embraced the term Obamacare to sell the American people on health care reform.
Not anymore.
With the president’s approval ratings at record lows, a broken website and Obama under fire for his pledge that people could keep their plans, the “Affordable Care Act” has returned.
The president didn’t say “Obamacare” once during his nearly hourlong news conference last week, while he referred to the “Affordable Care Act” a dozen times. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi went so far as to correct David Gregory on “Meet the Press” Sunday on the proper terminology. And White House talking points distributed to Democrats and obtained by Politico repeatedly refer to the Affordable Care Act in suggested sound bites, not Obamacare.
It’s unclear whether this is an effort to rebrand ObamaCare by dissociating it with the unpopular president or an effort to shore up the president’s popularity by dissociating him with the unpopular law. Either one, though, would be quite a feat.
Meanwhile, we have a thought: Why not remarket it to women by rebranding it “HillaryCare”?
For more “Best of the Web” click here and look for the “Best of the Web Today” link in the middle column below “Today’s Columnists.” (Note: the posts above are from the Nov. 20 BOTW Archives.)
