Monday, September 26, 2011

Sort of political Monday

An open letter bloggers and twitters supporting the Ontario Liberals
Some random thoughts on diverse subjects

Polls
The thing is, media-sponsored polls are useless and media-sponsored polls that come out during an election campaign are especially so. In every election in my memory, the media sponsored polls that came out during the campaign showed a tightening race. In most (but not all) elections in my memory, the leading party ended up getting very close to what the more reliable non-media pollsters had been saying they would get before the campaign began.

An interesting example of this is the recent federal election. There was all sorts of motion in the polls but the Conservatives got pretty much exactly what the campaigns for several months before the beginning of the campaign indicated.

That is not a prediction but a warning. Don't look at the polls and tell yourself you are closing the gap because you probably aren't doing as well as those polls would lead you to believe.

Name calling, accusations of corruption  and sneering
Stop doing this. I appreciate that it makes you feel good but it's dumb, dumb, dumb.

The Liberals are not a majority party. They (like every other party on the Ontario landscape) win with a plurality of votes when they do win. That plurality, when you get it, is made up of hard core supporters and swing votes from the undecided. Sneering and name calling and accusations of corruption alienates undecided voters. The only people it impresses are people who would vote for you anyway.

I know why you are doing it. You're terrified, and not surprisingly, that the public will suddenly make a massive shift to the NDP like they did on the federal level. That's a legitimate fear but if sneering and name calling and accusations of corruption worked you guys would have won the federal election because you did tons of it.

Don't stand on principle
I appreciate that many of you have deeply held moral and political principles  and that your support for the Liberal party derives from those principles. The public, however, does not and never will see the Liberals as a principled party.

Never.

I'm sorry but the entire history of the party is working against you here.

Competence
This is your winning issue. The public likes the Liberals when you deliver reassuring stability. are good managers. Scandals don't hurt you guys like they hurt the other parties because everyone sees you guys as dispensers of largesse. We vote for you when we believe you'll keep things in control.

That is your big problem this election, the public believes that the Liberals are content to keep paying off your core constituencies while Ontario slides into its dotage. That's the impression you need to change.

No comments:

Post a Comment