Let me use the last official weekly "Red, White & Blog" before Election Day to make an appeal for everyone to vote -- and to use it as a referendum of which kind of America you want to live in. If you like the one we are becoming, vote for the status quo. If you oppose it, vote for change.

Less than two weeks before the midterm elections, Republicans have dramatically changed their messaging from a manufactured immigration crisis to one that recent polling indicates resonates most with voters of all party affiliations: healthcare. The turnabout may be pragmatic, but may backfire from voters who see it as hypocritical, given that the first significant legislative agenda of the current administration was a failed attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act, including its protection of pre-existing medical conditions. That didn't stop the President from tweeting today that, "Republicans will totally protect people with Pre-Existing Conditions. Democrats will not! Vote Republican."

I've covered political media and marketing for nearly 40 years, but I feel like I've written more about the consequences for brands in the past year-and-a-half than I have during the preceding decades. In the current politically-charged culture, there is more risk-and-reward for brands than ever before, and nothing underscores it better than the recent pro/con debate surrounding Nike's Colin Kaepernick-inspired "Just Do It" campaign. While it worked for Nike, what's the guidepost for other consumer brands? Now, thanks to 4C Insights, there's a simple decision tree.

On the heels of Taylor Swift coming out in favor of Democratic candidates -- and boosting voter registration among her fans -- a new survey found a marked disparity along party lines. Democratic voters deem celebrity endorsement effective in this year's midterms at about twice the rate of Republican voters.

A new small, but influential segment of the American population has been detected. They consider no news sources to be "trustworthy" - it's also the one that voted disproportionately to elect the current President of the United States.