Monday, October 3, 2011

Surprise?

From today's Globe:

But Mr. Hudak’s campaign manager, Mark Spiro, specializes in voter mobilization – probably more so than anyone else in the country. Having honed this craft with Stephen Harper’s Conservatives, he is trying to ensure a repeat of the federal phenomenon in which the Tories fare better on election day than the polls (or the pundits) predict.

As with most modern get-out-the-vote strategies, Mr. Spiro’s is enormously complex. But at its root is finding ways that don’t involve the mainstream media to connect with a disengaged electorate.

Meanwhile, rather than relying too heavily on traditional events like campaign rallies, the Tories are trying to find other ways to engage supporters in battleground ridings. One of their preferred methods in this election has been “telephone town halls,” in which Mr. Hudak can be connected with thousands of people at once.

In some cases, other high-profile Tories are brought in to help with this task. Last weekend, Jewish voters were invited to participate in a telephone town hall with federal Immigration Minister Jason Kenney. (How they managed to frame this as a discussion about the provincial election is unclear.)

The name of the game is supplementing traditional door-to-door and telephone efforts to identify would-be PC voters, who can then be cajoled into coming out on election day. While any party’s progress reports have to be taken with a grain of salt, senior Tories seem genuinely confident in how that effort is going. And given the number of ridings that could be settled by a few hundred votes, that could make all the difference – especially in the “905 belt” around Toronto, where it’s especially difficult to engage voters.

See, this is how Conservatives surprise people on e-day with better than expected results. And with the best available polls showing a literal deadlock, this is what makes the difference.

Listen well, Liberals: If you cannot outfight us on the ground, you lose. It makes no difference how many PC's you get to be your tools a la Sinclar Stevens on twitter IF you cannot get the bodies out. The party assures me that they will be getting their bodies out and until proven otherwise, I will believe them. Will you? Or is it all about how many people you can force into rallies in the GTA?

And with the best available polls showing a literal deadlock, are you willing to call our bluff and rule out a voting arrangement with the NDP? Do you really have the stones to go this alone? I don't think you do. You'll have to show me differently. Because your federal cousins sure didn't.
Enough talk. Put it on the line.

7 comments:

  1. The verdict will be in on Thursday, as I'm sure you realize. Let's not jump to conclusions until then, hmmm?

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  2. The bigger problem is there should have been a runaway by now, McGuinty has been such a disaster. I have literally seen my standard of living erode in the past eight years to the point I am seriously considering selling my house and pulling up stakes for Alberta, yet have found no compelling reason to vote PC.

    We want something to vote for besides "I'm not the other guy", or, "Our platform is the same, except printed on Blue paper".

    If Hudack loses, or even just squeaks in, there should be some serious housecleaning in the PC party, or movement ot one of the new parties which really does represent Classical Liberal thought (Freedom, Libertarian, Reform Ontario; take your pick).

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  3. Spiro has been the problem. His startegy has sucked.

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  4. Thucycides: No. YOU want something to vote for. And nothing's stopping you from voting for any of those parties in this election. I'm certainly not going to.

    The judgement upon the central campaign will be rendered on Thursday.

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  5. Ahem, the results have confirmed our evaluation that Mark Spiro is a LOSER.

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