Big Sky Cairn

One assumes that Jim Hunt is running for Congress because he fancies himself a leader, right? So why has he spent the first month of his campaign following in the established footprints before him.

How can I illustrate my point? How about with an illustration.

What you are seeing here is the color palette - from websites and presumably printed materials - of your US House of Representatives candidates with incumbent Republican Rehberg on the left and 7th Choice Democrat Hunt on the right. See anything… I don’t know… similar?

It’s worth noting that Rehberg has been blue and yellow since 2000 (he a Cats fan or what?). I guess it’s been working pretty good for him, so Hunt decided to copy him on - get this - a platform of change.

Small thing right? Probably, but consider this. Colors are a pretty fundamental element of branding, which is one of the most fundamentally vital things that a campaign does. Quick - who’s shipping your box in a brown truck? What about a red and yellow one? Blue, orange and white? See what I’m saying?

So right out the gate, Hunt has ceded a major part of his brand to Rehberg. He’s starting the game with a deficit, and he’s throwing interceptions. Thanks to something as simple copying his opponent’s color scheme, Hunt won’t be able to gain as much ground with yard signs, billboards or full-color newspaper ads since in the fraction of a second he has to capture his audience he won’t differentiate himself from the popular incumbent.

Not that it will matter - he wasn’t going to win this year anyway.

Fun fact: Democrats seem to be copying Denny a lot lately. Schweitzer and Tester both ran with the blue and yellow for their signs.

On another note, if memory serves correctly, Hunt’s sunburst is a knock-off of a similar design Schweitzer used in 2004.