The Idea Blog

Peggy Noonan’s column in The Wall Street Journal today is a wonderful defense of the positioning statement, the distinctive summary of what matters, whether we’re talking about a brand or an administration. I’m actively working on two branding projects of this type now. “What does this brand mean? How is it different from others? Why does it matter?”

She recounts a story about President Kennedy and Clare Boothe Luce, in which she told the still new President that “a great man is one sentence.” “His leadership can be so well summed up in a single sentence that you don’t have to hear his name to know who’s being talked about.”

Noonan says this about the Obamans: “They want the sentence even when they don’t know the sentence exists, even when they think it’s a paragraph. The Obama people want, ‘He was the president who gave all Americans health care,’ and, ‘He lessened income inequality,’ and, ‘He took over a failed company,’ and other things. They want a jumble of sentences and do a jumble of things. But an administration about everything is an administration about nothing.”

Noonan goes on to suggest that “the sentence” could be, should be this: “‘He brought America back from economic collapse and kept us strong and secure in the age of terror.’ That’s all anybody wants. It’s all that’s needed.”

And, yes, it would be a powerful statement, not to mention a successful administration and a wonderful place in history if this group could achieve those things. But I want more. At this moment in time – in the world’s, the country’s and in my own history – I believe we need something more. We need to set things right, and, unfortunately, it’s a lot of things that need resetting.

We need to set right the economy, that’s certain. We need the upper hand in the war on terrorism and hold it around the throats of those who barbarically practice it. But what Obama seems to get is that there are all kinds of other things that contribute to the near collapse of our economy and our fight against barbarism. Health care is near 20% of our GDP … and rising. And inefficient. And yet 45% of Americans lack health insurance. The environment is being poisoned by gas guzzling autos and other dirty fuels, and oil is the primary funding source for extremism in the Middle East. GM is inextricably tied to jobs and production and output … and our economy. Financial institutions need to be strong in order to lend, and credit is the backbone of economic growth.

As one who has spent a career talking about branding and positioning and that one thing that says what you are, I agree with the concept of “one sentence.” It is at once reflective and aspirational. It is both subtle and obvious. And the one sentence for this president and this time may – by necessity – be the most ambitious since FDR, certainly, maybe forever.

In every important category of American life, law and culture, he reset the conversation, the expectations and the destinies of the American people.

Now that’s a brand I want to buy.