Obama's campaign slogan "Forward' - just horrible

So Obama has officially launched his 2012 campaign and his slogan is going to be "Forward"

While on the surface this slogan may seem OK, when you stop and think about it, it's just not. It might have an OK ring to it at first, but it's not something which over the period of months will generate motivation for Obama.

Here's the problem with the slogan:

• Forward is not a vision. Yes, it implies that you aren't going backward, but that's a non-game changer because no one is going to run on going backwards. You may position your opponent as offering backward strategies, but they are going to position such strategies as forward looking. So the whole concept of 'moving forward' is pure vanilla.
  
  In addition, it's a clear indicator that Obama is not going to be running on his record. He's going to run on Bush's eight years in office and frame all the problems that exist today as the result of the Bush years and the republicans. And while he's correct that Bush may go down as the worst president of all time, Obama isn't going to rally support by saying "Hey guys, at least I'm not as bad as Bush was. Let's keep going forward with me."
   
• Forward doesn't really tie in to any super-themes. When you hear forward you think of what? That's right, nothing. The best reference I can conjure up might be "Forward into the breach". Even though the saying is actually "Once more unto the breach" - a line out of Shakespear's Henry V.
• Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
  Or close the wall up with our English dead.
  In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
  As modest stillness and humility:
  But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
  Then imitate the action of the tiger;
• Forward at best is a concept used for situations of weariness. It's a concept that resonates in situations like war, a marathon, someone with a terminal illness... situations where 'hope' is under assault and there is nothing left but to keep putting one foot in front of the other, to keep 'moving forward' even though your motivation is shot. Forward in this sense is a 'faith-based message'... faith being the motivation to keep going when there seems to be no hope.
  
  While this makes sense given the current situation - 10 years of war, over 10 years of the economy slowly disintegrating, 4 years now of full-blown recession, etc. -  what 'the people' want to hear is that the marathon is almost over, not that they must keep 'moving forward' in their current state.
  
  Citizens are not 'soldiers' who 'buck up' and carry on. The citizenry right now is a mix of people who are either weary, angry, or disillusioned. Forward is not a concept that will resonate with them. Year one it might have. Year four through eight? Not a chance. People want solutions to the current problems, not simply to be told that the future entails 'moving forward' in the same fashion as the past four-to-twelve years.
• Forward is hypocritical when your own policies are backward. 
  
  The biggest problem with the theme 'forward' being used by the Obama campaign is that it is a hypocritical message. What has Obama done to move America forward?
   
• He implemented the NDAA (moving freedom backwards - this is worse than Bush implementing the Patriot Act)
• He let SOPA almost pass on his watch (moving Internet freedom backwards)
• He's amassed trillions in debt (moving America's financial security backwards)
• Lobbying and Big Money in Washington are more powerful than ever before (moving the people's faith in Washington backwards)
• To Big To Fail is worse than before as the big banks are now bigger than they were in 2008 (putting America in even more danger than 2008 should a collapse occur)
  
  Anyway, you get the point. Obama has had four years to actually undo the direction the country was going in, to change the direction the Bush administration was going in, to actually make policies based on the middle class and not the big money special interests.... and he hasn't. His first four years have not been about 'moving forward' but rather, protecting the special interests while the middle class suffers (with the one exception being on healthcare, which he did move forward, albeit not nearly as far forward as people though he would). 

So all in all, Forward I think is a horrible slogan for Obama to be using. If the situation were different - if unemployment was down at six per cent, if the wars were over, if energy prices were not doubling, etc. - then Forward would make sense as a theme. 'Hey things are getting better, let's keep moving Forward'.

What Obama should have done was double down on Hope and Change. He would have had to modify that theme, of course, but that could be done easily. I'm not going to put any time in to this, but some initial themes he could have worked with might have been:

• Turning the Corner
• This plays to the notion that his first term was cleaning up Bush's mess. And while things aren't perfect, they are about to get better. The suffering is almost done once we turn the corner. 
• This is a natural evolution on the Hope and Change theme and it allows him to deflect from his poor performance to date by emphasizing that things have not gotten worse under his leadership (ergo, stick with him a little longer just until we turn the corner).
• It's Our Time / It's Now Up To US
• Once again, plays on the theme that the mess Bush made was so big, Obama's entire first term (and the country) was handcuffed by it. But the mess Bush created is now cleaned up for the most part and it's time for America to start deciding and really committing to the future it wants. 
• In essence, the theme puts forth the notion that Obama has given America a 'restart / fresh start' and that it's time to chart a path forward for America - by the people, for the people. 
• The Future Starts Now
• A bit cheesy, but this theme might work really well. It acknowledges that Obama did not deliver on his campaign promises, but at least he freed America from the mess Bush created. In this way he can frame his entire first term as getting America to the point where it can start thinking about what it wants its future to be again. 
• In addition, it re-energizes what the next four years 'could' hold. It actually delivers on 'Hope and Change' in that four years ago people were afraid the world was ending. Four years later, the world hasn't ended so now is the time to stop being afraid and start building the future we want (to begin the changes that people were hoping for).

So there you go, three themes that took me five seconds to think of that I think work far better than Forward. They aren't particularly sexy, but they resonate and they protect past Hope and Change messaging themes the campaign used.

Now, if Obama were using any of those themes, I'd still be critical of him simply because he's done a fairly bad job as President (in my opinion). I'd still have criticisms of the themes, because almost any theme he chooses is going to have holes in it due to lack of resonance with his job performance. 

That said though, they give him a better chance of re-engaging the public's hope in him. 

In the end, slogans may not be what this election comes down to though. Obama's best hope at re-election may be that Romney fails to offer a credible alternative. 

2012 may just be the year where American's have to choose between bad and worse.