Survival of the slickest

A group of candidates running for provincial office is on stage in the Students' Union Building, taking part in a Kraft Dinner cook-off. A panel of students judges the outrageous concoctions cooked up by the politicians. "I don't know what happens after this," says one onlooker. "I think the winner becomes our MLA."

A campaign worker, who knows his candidate's time could be better spent elsewhere, questions the event's value. "This is the worst event I've ever been to," he mutters.

So why were the candidates up there, putting themselves in a somewhat embarrassing situation? Because television stations were covering the event, and in a campaign election, name recognition and brand loyalty are important. In fact, it could be argued that election campaigns are not as much about political debate as they are about getting you, the voter, out of your house and into a polling station at a certain time on a certain date.

That, perhaps above all else, is the key to winning an election. Some observers suggest marketing tactics and back-room campaign workers are more influential than candidates or party policies.

"That's half fair and half not," says Mike Percy, dean of the University of Alberta's School of Business. Percy ran two successful election campaigns and served as a Liberal MLA in Edmonton-Whitemud from 1993 until his resignation in 1997. He says two, parallel campaigns are in fact run during an election. One is the very public campaign in which party leaders and riding candidates address issues and talk policy. Percy describes the other campaign as a ground war fought riding by riding between volunteers and candidates.

"It's trench warfare at the voter's door. It's fought door to door, street to street by candidates and their supporters," Percy said.

When those candidates or campaign workers come to your door, explains political science professor Jim Lightbody, they aren't necessarily trying to sway your vote. They are conducting a reconnaissance mission to find out who is and isn't on their side.

"Elections are not hard," said Lightbody, "You just identify supporters and you make sure they vote."

Armed with a list of voters, volunteers hit the streets and take note of supporters. Other workers spend time looking up the telephone numbers of those voters-even if it means going to a reverse telephone directory. On election day, candidates have an inside scrutineer who knows which voters have cast their ballots. The scrutineer passes the list of who has voted to campaign workers, says Lightbody, and voters who have not been to the polling station are contacted at, say, 4 p.m., 6 p.m. and again at 7 p.m., before the polls close at 8 p.m.

The volunteers-and it may help to think of them as sort of political border collies nipping at the heels of supporters-aren't necessarily campaigning for their candidate: they contact supporters "to simply encourage them to participate in the democratic process," Lightbody says sarcastically.

"If you're working for the Liberals, you call the Liberal supporters who haven't voted yet and ask them if they need a ride. You don't waste your time phoning someone who's going to vote for the New Democrats."

The way Lightbody describes an election, people give more weight to a party and its leader than a local candidate. In fact, Lightbody argues that local candidates don't make much difference at all. In Edmonton-Riverview, the Progressive Conservatives have chosen popular city councilor Wendy Kinsella as their candidate; the Liberals have selected well-known author and policy analyst Kevin Taft. The seat belongs to the Liberals, Lightbody predicts.

"I'd say Wendy is a strong candidate for the Conservatives. But a good candidate of her stripe, assuming she runs a good campaign, can make a difference of about five per cent of the vote.and a dufus as a candidate can drive it down by about five per cent. But at the end of the day, people are voting for Ralph or Nancy."

Lightbody calls Premier Ralph Klein and Liberal Opposition leader Nancy Macbeth 'Ralph' and 'Nancy' because that's the way both leaders are being marketed: as regular, down-to-earth folk who just want to help. Those political marketing campaigns have all the markings of commercial plans used to sell hand soap, says Adam Finn, the U of A's RK Bannister Professor of Business and a professor of marketing.

Public opinion polls are, in fact, market research, Finn says.

"The first step of marketing is to use research to understand your customer, which is why polling is so important: you get to understand their concerns, and how aware they are of personalities and what they associate the different personalities with," said Finn. "You need to know which people are most likely to vote and what brand loyalties, or party loyalties, they have. You need to come up with a marketing campaign."

Other similarities include direct-mail, as well as good PR and issues management. "You try to sell your CEO to the talk shows," says Finn.

Can it be true that democracy has been reduced to survival of the slickest? Don't individual candidates or the judgement of voters count for anything? One Liberal campaign strategist says the best-organized candidate isn't guaranteed to win.

"Look at a riding like Highwood, south of Calgary: the Conservatives could, literally, run a golden retriever there and win, no matter how well organized we are, because voting Conservative is just so ingrained there."

In ridings where polls show a difference of, say, 15 per cent in support, a local candidate makes all the difference. But in those close races, organization will take a candidate across the finish line, the campaign worker says.

"If it's that close, then the better-organized candidate will win, unless the nation or provincial campaign breaks down. That was the problem during the federal election with the Alliance-they weren't well organized because the prime minister moved the election date up and the Alliance was caught off guard in Ontario, just as the Liberals were here.

"But it's hard to boil it down to factors X, Y or Z. It could be the difference is between an urban leader and a rural leader, or a leader who doesn't forget which direction the Niagara River flows."

For Percy, who visited every doorstep in the Edmonton-Whitemud riding as a candidate, pounding the pavement and meeting those thousands of people did make a difference. He says a candidate can, in fact, sway votes away from an opposing party. And while political campaigns have the trappings of consumer marketing plans, there is one important difference: people don't change brands of soap, or motor oil, or change from Coke to Pepsi en mass. But when a political leader slips up, fortunes change in an instant.

"It is a very fluid world that can change very rapidly with missteps," says Percy. "It is difficult to sway voters with policy because it is all hypothetical. It is difficult to drop a policy bombshell and have an effect in the polls. But a misstep can have a tremendous downward effect."

His advice is to make your choice an informed one. "Read, read, read, and talk to the candidates," he advises. "It's a question of assessing where the party stands and if the candidate understand the policies and how they relate to the voter and the needs of the constituency and the province."