No- can't wait a whole life time for the rest of the world to change- the simplest thing is for America to work out what it wants without the rest of your lot, and then ask if you'd like to join our way forward  

Sounds like you are projecting, not observing. Those of us who voted for President Bush were amazed at your fear of someone who could make decisions and stick to them.

You confuse moral values with faith. They are quite different. I feel I have moral values, but I am not religious. Kerry may have had faith, but he showed no visible moral values.

I think you will find that relying in the BBC for inspiration is an empty exercise. Mainstream media is so morally bankrupt that you would do far better actually looking at what is going on, instead of repeating their bias and half-truths.

Do you have a source for this statement? "a vast majority of Americans the world meets abroad voted Democrat..".

If you really understand branding, you should know that a brand is a promise, and it is as valid as the consumer believes in the promise. What kind of brand image is the Democratic Party putting forth now? Take a long look. James Carville did and he had a lot to say about it. You are not doing your brand any favors.  

Chris, again I don't believe in these divisions in America. I don't dispute that you have personally observed this from your time Stateside. But from the fewer Americans whom I know, things aren't quite in such clear black and white. It is perhaps the fault of some pollsters in simplifying the rationale for voting for Bush, and of the mass media for repeating it for convenient sound-bites.
   Of my friends I have liberals who voted for Bush; though I haven't many conservatives who voted for Kerry. Admittedly, that is based on a tiny sample, but I like to think that the media have sensationalized the split beyond reality.
   Mr St Lawrence does have a point when he raises the issue about the Democratic Party's brand. Several of my close friends in Arkansas—strongly pro-Democratic—felt that the wrong contender was chosen in the primaries, feeling that either Governor Dean or Senator Edwards were better and more in line with their view of the Party. That might be a minority view if the primaries are to be believed; and Sen. Kerry's selection certainly did not affect their voting choices, but their post-mortem analysis was that the Party did not stay true to its brand who had some Bush parallels in his plans for America.
   By no means am I saying that the Republicans got it right. I was rather offended that I could not visit georgewbush.com to analyse the GOP's arguments to contrast them with the domestic liberal media, because for almost all of 2004—not just the last month, as some sources reported—the site was closed to those of us in New Zealand. I have an email from the US Embassy confirming that they, too, could not view the site, and from several friends in different parts of the country with different ISPs. I could only get in via anonymous proxy.
   So there is one place where I do agree with you: the closure of the site to New Zealand—where I know eligible voters who voted both Republican and Democrat, and where among my friends it was not split extremely in favour of the latter—communicates to me a message of fear rather than one of freedom. That in itself confuses the Republican brand: freedom or fear?
   The warnings, certainly, need to be heeded; by no means is the United States perfect. Nor is any other nation. I still maintain that working with America is better than a Europe that might stand up to her; for the European brand remains clouded, struggling between a choice of permitting immigration as the EU's population ages dramatically and birth rates fall, and maintaining the autonomy of its member states within the union.
   My politics are reasonably centrist, but in that I see the dangers of a power vacuum. We might not return to the end of the first millennium where there were city-states that warred with one another, for the west is more connected via technology; but what of the nations that are knowledge-management-poor?
   The solution this century may be to use our knowledge to narrow that gap between rich and poor as your father most eloquently warned us of; and thus the Beyond Branding world becomes relevant again. Now, if only we could get enough people reading our book—and see where things might lead for a second edition.
   Nicholas, would you be willing to lead us on such an exercise once more?  

"The solution this century may be to use our knowledge to narrow that gap between rich and poor"

Why? I could not care less about the 'gap' between rich and poor because me getting richer does not make someone else poorer. The 'fixed wealth fallacy' is just about the most intellectually pernicious mind-virus ever invented. Wealth needs to be created not redistributed, and you cannot redistribute wealth without destroying a big chunk of it.  

Some good controversy above

let's start with the brand is a promise brigade

Actually the world's biggest brands compound godwill or badwill around all whom they impact. Goodwill is led by brands ssytemised so that promise and trust turn in virtuous circles, gravitating around unique context, a transparent core that stimulates progress; badwill is systemised where billions are spent budgeting promises that the system has not a clue or an intent to keep

there is probably an additional problem that the nation state needs to go beyond its own conceit; it is no longer the main economic decision-maker, at least not unless it appreciates people beyond its borders as well as those within; yet economics is fixed with many preteneces; do it to nations, do it transactionally, dont measure how futures compound with trust and realities ...

I never said that lifting up the poor involves making the rich poorer; debates on going above zero sum are the ones that interest me and thos I network with most; does USA have one exampole of current leadership playing above zero sum?; would love to see that, praise it even?