MICKEY KAUS: “It’s always been hard for me to understand what the ‘branding’ discussion adds to a carmaker like GM except to provide grist for ridicule by automotive journalists. Build good cars and the ‘branding’ will come, no? . . . Often ‘branding’ meant something like willfully pretending that a negative association (e.g. the Pontiac Aztek’s styling) was really a positive association.” I think that applies to politics, too. . . .