Thursday, April 30, 2009

All the campaigns are pathetic

CFAX is doing a poll online at the moment, which party would you vote for. They have been running this since 9am this morning.

It is now 4:25pm and only 759 people have voted. The Liberals have a small lead over the NDP, given that this is Victoria, this should be the other way around.

Is there really no war rooms out there for the Liberals, NDP or Greens that can muster up supporters to stuff an online poll? No smart backroom person lets any chance for an online poll pass without trying to organize their side.

What this says to me is that none of the political parties have a lot of volunteers one the ground. I have sensed that anecdotally and this poll is only more example of how weak the campaigns are.

If I were running a campaign in this election, I would make sure that I had 500 volunteers. If you can not get the candidate and the campaign manager to push every contact they have to work on a campaign, you have a problem.

The 500 number is not that high at all, last election I personally mobilized about 300 friends and relatives to work on the Yes to BC STV campaign. If you can not find the volunteers, that is a strong indication that there is something fundamentally wrong with your campaign.

I am in more and more awe at how much better retaile political campaigning is done in the US, there is a lot we could learn from them for on the ground campaigns.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

STV is just going to bring in a coalition government of NDP and the Greens.

These two parties thrive on mass ignorance and ad hominem - and deal at the emotional optics level as opposed to the pocketbook level.

STV or PR may not be a good idea when you have ideological parties jockying for position.

Mr Squid said...

If you buy me a drink or two I may try to make a case that the reason for the voter apathy in the current BC election is the fixed election schedule. Elections now occur like clockwork, whether there is a reason for one or not. In the past governments called elections when they were either up in the polls (which often backfired) or when they had a burning issue that they felt confident that they could win an election on. Those issues tended to polarize voters and generate interest in the election. In the american-style system of fixed-date elections this incentive to get involved is not always going to be there, which may be a significant reason behind the voter apathy that is wracking the province.

Another possible problem is that it is Spring. The weather is getting nicer. The fish are biting. The weekend warriors are racing each other up and down the Grouse Grind. The election may simply not be a high priority at this time of year.

Anonymous said...

Back to the unscientific De Dutch "hamburger poll" with todays results compared to your April 26 posting results:

Campbell Burger - 46% (+4%)
James Burger - 20% (-7%)
Sterk Burger - 12% (-1%)
Other Burger - 22% (+4%)