Five Myths about the Leaders’ Debates

Posted by jpammett under All, Election 2011, Election 2011 Campaign strategy, Election 2011 Faculty links, Election 2011 Media commentary

1. MYTH It is a pivotal moment in the campaign.

REALITY. There are no pivotal moments in most campaigns.

2.  MYTH It is the time in the campaign when people start paying attention.

REALITY   People who watch the debates are more likely to be people who are interested in politics in the first place.

3.    MYTH  Leaders in the debates are vulnerable to making a big mistake.

REALITY  All the leaders usually do pretty well in the debates, because they are so well prepared, and the questions are so predictable.

4,  MYTH  Leaders in the debates are trying to get voters to switch over to them.

REALITY  The debates are all about reinforcement, where the idea is not to deter people from voting for their party or candidate if they are otherwise inclined to do so.

5. MYTH  Debates have a big impact on the election result.

REALITY  The debates have very little impact on the election result.

Wedge politics and base rebuilding

Posted by cwaddell under All, Election 2011, Election 2011 Campaign strategy, Election 2011 Faculty links

Christopher Waddell

The flurry over the Auditor General’s report about spending on last year’s G8/G20 summit provided a moment of excitement for those who think tonight’s leaders debates should be all about issues like this. Those would be the same people who think the last Parliament was a roaring success.

The risk in making the G8/G20 a major debate point is that it will be for the general public, yet another example of inward mudslinging to which there is no connection made to the lives of Canadians or their hopes and fears for the future.

An election that is supposed to be a chance for Canadians to determine collectively where they want to go as a country and how it will affect their lives as individuals instead becomes yet more parliamentary irrelevance. It’s not that how government spends is unimportant but in the public eyes it is difficult to differentiate between parties, when in power they all behave the same.

What it does reveal though is a more substantial issue. The political parties have abandoned two groups who collectively have traditionally been a major chunk of the support for both the Liberals and Conservatives – people who combine fiscal and social conservatism and those who are fiscally conservative and socially liberal.

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The potential impact of the debates

Posted by aturcotte under All, Election 2011, Election 2011 Campaign strategy, Election 2011 Faculty links

André Turcotte

As I was driving my kids to school this morning, I heard radio talk show hosts musing that the upcoming Leaders’ Debates “may be the most important ones we have witnessed in a long time.” For an election campaign largely devoid of excitement so far, the prospect of oratorical fireworks is both needed and appealing. But what do we know about the impact of Leaders’ Debates on electoral outcome?

In general, scholarship on the topic suggests that the impact of debates is minimal. While some leaders have experienced a surge in support after a good performance – Mulroney in 1984, Turner in 1988, Charest in 1997 – it is generally suggested that the positive impact is short-lived and dissipates by the time voters head to the polls. This is the main reason Leaders’ Debates are scheduled well-ahead of Election Day. However, we can identify some interesting dynamics when we evaluate this event through the prism of partisanship.

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Budget credibility

Posted by cwaddell under All, Election 2011, Election 2011 Campaign strategy, Election 2011 Faculty links

Christopher Waddell

While everyone remembers that the Chretien government balanced the federal budget and produced a surplus in the mid-1990s, there’s another aspect of what Paul Martin did as Finance minister that gets much less attention. He also returned credibility to the federal budget process.

Fixed budget dates in early February, a $3-billion annual contingency fund that could be used only for unexpected debt servicing costs or would go to debt reduction at year-end and even under-promising and over-delivering (until that tactic became too obvious) all played a part in restoring the credibility of the federal Finance department, the minister and the budget-making process.

It was needed following a Conservative government under Brian Mulroney that regularly promised the deficit would be eliminated two or three years into the future, yet annually delivered $30-billion shortfalls and could rarely say no to spending on unexpected and unbudgeted political demands.

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How to spend billions in the twinkling of an eye

Posted by ealboim under All, Election 2011, Election 2011 Campaign strategy, Election 2011 Faculty links

Elly Alboim

Staggering is the only word for the windfall Canada’s provinces received this morning. It totals in the billions of dollars. It also says volumes about the way politics are conducted in Canada.

Under a ten year deal signed by Paul Martin, Ottawa’s health transfers to the provinces have been growing by 6% annually –it’s called the 6% escalator for obvious reasons. The deal is due to end in 2014 and everyone had been anticipating a set of very difficult federal-provincial negotiations. Well apparently, thanks to the federal election campaign, those talks have ended before they started.

This morning, Michael Ignatieff issued a open letter on health policy and committed the Liberals to continuing the 6% escalator. He did that just five days after issuing his platform which did not have this commitment in it. In fact, it said among other things that “while provinces and territories are struggling with escalating costs, it’s far from clear that more money is the only solution.”

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The “news” of election campaigns

Posted by ealboim under All, Election 2011, Election 2011 Campaign strategy, Election 2011 Faculty links, Election 2011 Media commentary

Elly Alboim

In 1989, some of the best and the brightest of Canada’s political establishment – politicians, political operatives, pollsters, journalists and academics – gathered at Queen’s University to talk about the election that had just ended.

For two days, in front of television cameras, they discussed what had gone wrong in the experience they had just shared . This was after what has since become idealized as the best and most substantive election campaign in recent Canadian history – the free trade election. Further, it was the first election after the introduction of the GST – the largest change in Canadian tax policy in decades – and conducted in the middle of the disintegrating Meech Lake ratification process.

It is hard to imagine a more complex and important campaign policy agenda. And still, there was a collective feeling of a 56 day (yes, campaigns were eight weeks long then) failure to conduct and report on the campaign and its choices in a way that properly served the public interest.
At the heart of the discussion and the multiple sense of grievance, was a set of dilemmas and questions that persist, and once again was dominant in week two of the current election campaign.

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The looming debates

Posted by ealboim under Election 2011, Election 2011 Campaign strategy, Election 2011 Faculty links, Election 2011 Media commentary

Elly Alboim

Now that the debates are a week away, debate teams within the camps are getting ready for the final push on preparations. The leaders will probably end serious campaigning by Saturday and head into intensive rehearsal.

From a vantage point of having covered quite a few national and provincial leaders’ debates, having been on three debate preparation teams and having done real time public opinion research of debates along with friend and colleague David Herle, here are some observations over time.

The audiences

There are two very different audiences for televised debates during an election campaign.

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No news for the NDP

Posted by cwaddell under Election 2011, Election 2011 Faculty links, Election 2011 Media commentary, Media Commentary

Christopher Waddell

Week two and are we seeing the first glimpses of the NDP’s nightmare? The party complained in the last two elections that it and leader Jack Layton were being ignored in much of the campaign media coverage. Prior to this campaign there were rumours that some media organizations in a bid to cut costs would only travel with the NDP part of the time.

Last week CBC, CTV and Global nightly national newscasts all featured stories on the NDP campaign almost every night but this week has started out very differently.

Only CBC led with the election – Global led with Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 problems and CTV focused on the sentencing in adult court of the two young offender murderers of an 18 year old girl in BC.

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Launching Week Two

Posted by ealboim under All, Election 2011, Election 2011 Campaign strategy, Election 2011 Faculty links, Election 2011 Media commentary

Elly Alboim

The Liberal platform launch was unusual. It was part game show and part infomercial, putting Mr. Ignatieff at centre stage directing traffic, taking questions and delivering substance in bits and pieces. It was somewhat surprising because normally a platform launch is the occasion for something more sober and austere that emphasizes the agenda for government as its centerpiece.

But the current Liberal task is more complex than that.

Mr. Ignatieff’s constellation of leadership attributes has been weak and he must be seen to be an alternative prime minister before the Liberal party can be taken seriously as an alternative government. Today’s launch seemed to be driven by that underlying thesis. It was another – and much more important venue – to showcase his performance skills. As journalists have been reporting, he was very fluid, and comfortable. He handled questions apparently without specific preparation and did so off the cuff. More importantly, he structured his answers to questions very well using value propositions, anecdotes and accessible language. His summary attacking Mr. Harper’s governing style and its implications for “democracy” was a harbinger of the character debate that will underpin the Liberal narrative for the next four weeks.

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Every picture tells a story

Posted by cwaddell under Election 2011, Election 2011 Campaign strategy, Election 2011 Faculty links, Election 2011 Media commentary

Christopher Waddell

The best television shows viewers the story rather than telling it to them.

That’s why it is difficult to understand the Conservatives’ initial media strategy. Leaving aside the concerns of journalists about the number of questions they get to ask Mr Harper (the public really doesn’t care about reporters’ working conditions), the visual impression left from yesterday’s visit by Mr Harper to a container port reinforces all that his opponents are saying about him every day as they campaign.

Yesterday’s images shouted aloofness and isolation – standing all alone in an empty container port marshaling yard behind a podium with containers in the background appearing to be lecturing a polite crowd sitting a respectful distance away. The TV wide shots give it all away, magnifying that distance in what seems a visual metaphor for the campaign’s early days. It’s the pictures that matter much more than the words and those shots were featured prominently in last night’s television stories about the Conservative campaign.

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