When President Obama delivers his State of the Union speech at the Capitol tonight, he’ll do so at a time of continuing (if erratic) recovery in the U.S. economy, improving global perception, relative calm in Afghanistan, and quiescence in politics in the wake of the Tucson shootings.

Which means he’s got a perfect occasion to focus on polishing his own brand. The White House today released a video, above, featuring "behind-the-scenes footage and interviews from the making of President Barack Obama's 2011 State of the Union Address. Senior Advisor to the President David Axelrod and Director of Speechwriting Jon Favreau give a rare inside look at the process behind the President's address."

Obama, of course, defines himself more than any president in memory by his speeches, so the stakes for tonight’s address would be high anyway.Continue reading...

Jimmy Fallon promotes John F. Kennedy's oft-quoted phrase, "Ask not what you can do for your country..." as a rephrased tagline and call to public service, "Ask What You Can Do." The campaign, for the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, marks today's 50th anniversary of his inauguration.

The library also just launched a website archive, marking the first time a presidential library has digitized all of its documents and put them online. Today's Google Doodle also honors Kennedy's swearing-in to the White House in 1961, while Life magazine released never-seen photos from the inauguration ceremony. NBC News, meanwhile, released an iPad app in November timed to Kennedy's 50-year presidential anniversary.

Move over, Naomi Klein: There’s a new effort afoot to obliterate brands.

But unlike the “No Logo” initiative targeting corporate brands that the liberal activist and writer launched a few years ago (or the apparel brand), this new campaign — called “No Labels” — is an attempt to obviate the need for political brands.

It boasts an anthem by Akon. It also has about as much chance as Klein’s anti-branding efforts to actually succeed.Continue reading...

The conservative Tea Party network won some big ones on Election Day and lost some big ones. Put new U.S. senators Marco Rubio of Florida and Rand Paul of Kentucky in the former column, and failed senatorial candidates Christine O’Donnell of Delaware and Sharron Angle of Nevada in the latter.

But there’s no doubting that the energy, money and voter enthusiasm generated by the grass-roots Tea Party movement animated many of the results at the ballot box yesterday and produced significant victories for Republicans in its first foray into electoral politics. When President Obama talked about the “humbling” results in his press conference this afternoon, Tea Partiers believably want to credit themselves.

So now what? Where does the Tea Party try to go from here? And will it succeed?Continue reading...

Does the current polarized political climate in the U.S. even extend to favored brands? A new survey of brand preferences by political affiliation suggests the answer is, well, yes and no.

Google is the favorite brand of Democrats,  an analysis of YouGov’s BrandIndex survey results found, while Fox News topped the brand list of Republicans. Maybe Democrats feel at home with Google’s inherent techie elitism masquerading as populism; and clearly Republicans appreciate a brand that treats their opposition like a foreign occupier.

Interesting questions abound. JetBlue is the third-ranked airline brand among Democrats, for example, but doesn’t show up in the Republican top 10. Could be JetBlue’s strong presence in liberal coastal cities mean that its cabins are filled with Democrats, flying blithely over heartland Republicans (who can’t see the JetBlue logo from their conservative small towns).

And why is Aflac ranked among Republicans’ top five insurers in the YouGov survey, while Democrats favor Progressive? Is it because Progressive’s strong online quoting and marketing platform make it naturally appealing to young-skewing Democrats, while Aflac – known a disability insurer for small businesses and the self-employed– caters to the entrepreneurial streak of Republicans?

There’s more. Target is the fourth-ranked retailer among Democrats – but is nowhere near the top five for Republicans, even after the chain incurred the ire of ultra-liberal political action committee MoveOn.org for contributing $150,000 to a group backing an anti-gay-marriage Republican candidate.Continue reading...

A new ad campaign from the Rock the Vote organization is reaching out to the nation's youth in anticipation of the midterm elections on November 2. The message from Rock the Vote to these young practitioners of democracy is "Vote Fearlessly!" Presumably, the campaign is targeting all those youth who didn't die as a result of not voting a few years ago.

It's an easy campaign to cynically mock, as all things politically earnest are. For Rock the Vote, that cynicism is just another part of the challenge. Continue reading...

We’ve reached a new low in the "all’s fair in love and war" battle for U.S. midterm election votes as illustrated and amplified in the above video: The Prolife Tea Party Vote: Vote Yes on Amendment 62, the "personhood" amendment to grant rights to "every human being from the beginning of the biological development of that human being." Think this is bad? Oh, it gets worse.Continue reading...

TLC has released a couple of sneak peeks at Sarah Palin's foray into reality TV, which kicks off on Nov. 24. Above, she extols the joys of family and Alaska nature over politics; after the jump, a meeting of the mama bears.Continue reading...