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Page 4A East Oregonian Saturday, November 3, 2018 CHRISTOPHER RUSH Publisher KATHRYN B. BROWN Owner DANIEL WATTENBURGER Managing Editor WYATT HAUPT JR. News Editor Founded October 16, 1875 OUR VIEW Big potato truck recipe for success L ast June 9, as participants in the Rose Festival Parade lined up in downtown Portland, a truck drew most of the attention. It wasn’t just any truck; it was the Big Idaho Potato Truck, a 72-foot-long semitrailer with a 4-ton fiberglass potato on its flatbed. Welcome to world of marketing. The truck and its big, whopping potato stem from a famous postcard of a giant potato on a truck with the caption, “We grow ’em big here in Idaho.” As it turns out, there’s no better way to attract attention than to show up with the Big Idaho Potato Truck staffed by the Tater Team — Jessica, Kaylee and Ron the driver. In the case of the Rose Parade, upward of 1.2 million people saw the truck, which certainly sparked conversations about, of all things, Idaho potatoes. And that’s the point. Raising public awareness of a crop isn’t easy. Once you get beyond the basics — “Potatoes are good for you,” “Potatoes taste good,” “Potatoes are versatile” — you have to do something to keep up the conversation. That’s where marketing comes in. The Big Idaho Potato Truck is just one part of the toolkit the Idaho Potato Commission has developed to get the Idaho Potato brand in front of the public. The commission sponsors a college football bowl game, buys national advertising, does promotions and uses dozens of other tools to promote the state’s potatoes. Processors are even adopting the Idaho brand as part of their advertising and labeling. While some may call it into question as an added expense, marketing, done right, makes money. The biggest brands in the nation use it. Banks, consumer goods manufacturers, car makers, retailers all use marketing as their game plan to raise the public’s awareness of their products and services, and to set themselves apart from the crowd. And it’s hard to argue with success. During the last 15 years the farm-gate revenue from Idaho potatoes is up more than 80 percent. Not bad. Considering the alternative — selling a straight commodity — marketing has done a Idaho Potato Commission The Big Idaho Potato Truck makes promotional tours around the U.S. It’s part of a national marketing campaign to set Idaho potatoes apart from others. good job for Idaho potato growers. “There is more brand recognition for Idaho potatoes than for almost anything in the country,” Potato Growers of Idaho Executive Director Keith Esplin told Capital Press reporter Brad Carlson. “If they would quit that, in a few years potatoes would be a generic product.” The Idaho Potato Commission and its president and CEO, Frank Muir, brought the marketing campaign to life. Starting 15 years ago, they recognized the need to make Idaho potatoes stand out from other crops and cause consumers to seek out Idaho potatoes. “Were these potatoes grown in Idaho? That is what we want people to ask,” Muir said. Other crops and agricultural products also market themselves — think Tillamook cheese, Washington apples, Walla Walla onions, Hermiston watermelons, California milk, among many others. Those farmers understand that there’s more to it than growing a high-quality crop or producing a high-quality product. Marketing and advertising attract, inform and motivate customers. That’s where the Idaho Potato Commission — and many others in agriculture — excel. OTHER VIEWS The retrenchment election O OTHER VIEWS Hate seeking a home Los Angeles Times T he social network Gab.com styled itself as a defender of right- leaning and provocative speech that mainstream social networks couldn’t stomach. In that role, it blithely gave Robert Bowers, the man accused of shooting up a Pittsburgh synagogue during Oct. 27 morning services, a place to complain openly about “the overwhelming Jew problem” and the threat it poses to white Americans. Bowers was hardly a fish out of water on Gab, although his posts may have been more virulently hate-filled than most offerings on the site. Yet as offensive as his screeds were, none of them violated Gab’s permissive guidelines, which drew the line only against clearly illegal acts. And Gab could post Bowers’ words with relative impunity, thanks to the 1st Amendment and the protections that federal law offers to sites that publish users’ offerings without editing them. But now Gab finds itself cut off from the internet, at least for the time being. The companies that hosted Gab’s site, steered internet users to its domain and processed payments from subscribers and donors have told Gab that it violated their terms of service by publishing content they considered threatening. It’s hard to be an outlet for uncensored speech when no one will let you set up shop. This page has vigorously defended free Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the East Oregonian editorial board. Other columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the opinions of the authors and not necessarily that of the East Oregonian. speech against efforts by the government or its agencies to stifle it. Gab’s dilemma raises a different issue because it’s been bounced off the internet by private businesses, not government bureaucrats. Gab founder Andrew Torba casts this development in sinister terms, writing, “We are the most censored, smeared, and no-platformed startup in history, which means we are a threat to the media and to the Silicon Valley Oligarchy.” But companies doing business with Gab have a right to make their decisions individually about whom to do business with, just as the Los Angeles Times has the right to decide which advertisements to run and which op-eds to publish. Gab argues that Silicon Valley is doing too much to censor the internet, when in fact companies like Facebook and Twitter have the opposite problem — they are unable to keep up with the hate, violence and deception spewed by some of their users. Gab will most likely find other suppliers of the bandwidth and services it needs, and even if it doesn’t, its users will find other outlets to carry their views. Cyberspace has no real boundaries, after all. But no company should be forced to do business with Gab if the content that Gab embraces violates its terms of service and threatens its brand. If a business doesn’t want to be associated with anti- Semitic screeds, unabashed racism or other forms of hate speech, it has the right to steer clear. ne of the pleasures and an unpopular president, and the normal thing to do would have been challenges of this job is you to try to get House races to turn do a lot of traveling. I’ve on local issues. But Trump makes been in 23 states over the last three everything about himself, and so months. The general impression has nationalized all the races. I get is that I’m not covering a Congressional elections are midterm election campaign. I’m now mostly just mini-versions covering two separate electorates. David of presidential elections. The The biggest difference is Brooks quality of any individual candidate atmospheric. In urban and suburban Comment matters a lot less, and there’s much America, Donald Trump’s outrage less variation in how different du jour is on everybody’s lips: Did candidates are conducting their campaigns. you see what he tweeted now? Did you In Missouri, for example, the see his racist ad? Where will the Mueller Republicans are running Josh Hawley investigation go? for Senate. Hawley could have run an In rural America, by contrast, all interesting campaign that would have that stuff is like a thunderstorm in Inner crossed a lot of boundaries. He went to Mongolia. It’s something happening very Stanford and Yale Law School. He wrote far away with no particular relevance here, a fine book on Theodore Roosevelt, and and so no one’s paying much attention. several excellent essays for the journal In urban America people talk about National Affairs, including an erudite one Trump constantly. In rural America people on epicurean liberalism. But he’s embraced generally avoid the subject. Even if 80 Trump and run as a pretty standard percent of the locals support Trump, you Trumpkin Republican. never know how somebody will react if Nationalized politics forces local you mention his name — they might call candidates to act mostly like Trump or you a racist — so it’s not a safe topic of Pelosi stand-ins and less like themselves. conversation. The one word that the two electorates The other big impression I get is that have in common is “unraveling.” Both grand canyons now separate different groups have a sense that America is sectors of American society and these unraveling. If you ask them what “issues” canyons are harder and harder to cross. matter most, they’ll say health care or On the one hand, as Amy Walter of immigration. But that’s not the right Cook Political Report has pointed out, question to ask, because it doesn’t get at the very little has changed over the past two sense of existential anger and angst that is years. In 2016, 54 percent of white voters really driving things. supported Trump, and the exact same Of course, the two electorates tell percentage of those voters support him entirely different unraveling stories. In rural today. In 2016, 38 percent of college- America, the sources of unraveling are the educated white voters supported Trump immigrants (symbolized by the caravan) and 38 percent support him today. and the radicalized mobs of educated A lot has been said, but few minds have elites (symbolized by the media). In rural been changed. On the other hand, everybody’s political America basic values like hard work, clear gender roles and the social fabric are positions are more dug in. College- educated suburban woman really don’t like dissolving before people’s eyes. Democratic ideology is increasingly Republicans. White men without college degrees really don’t like Democrats. Urban dominated by the educated upper-middle class. As polls show, those Democrats America is really blue. Rural America is are losing faith in capitalism itself, in the really red. The race in 2016 entrenched American dream itself. White liberals those positions on the presidential level. describe racism as a bigger problem The 2018 race entrenches them all the way precluding black advancement than do down the ticket. African-Americans. I’m with Ron Brownstein of CNN and As Emma Green noted in The Atlantic, former Republican Rep. Tom Davis: This for many, progressivism isn’t just a set is not a wave election; it’s a realignment of political beliefs; it’s a set of liturgies, election. The results Tuesday will not rituals and moral doctrines for the secular be shaped by some crest of momentum unchurched. Politics is no longer mainly behind the Democrats. They are going about disagreeing on issues. It’s about to be shaped by the fact that people are being in entirely separate conversations. hardening into their categories, and those ■ categories tend to produce a Democratic David Brooks is a columnist for the New House and a Republican Senate. York Times. The Republicans were saddled with The East Oregonian welcomes original letters of 400 words or less on public issues and public policies for publication in the newspaper and on our website. The newspaper reserves the right to withhold letters that address concerns about individual services and products or letters that infringe on the rights of private citizens. Letters must be signed by the author and include the city of residence and a daytime phone number. The phone number will not be published. Unsigned letters will not be published. Send letters to managing editor Daniel Wattenburger, 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801 or email editor@eastoregonian.com.
