Campaigns matter—and that's why this Vancouver mayoral election was so damn close

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      Some people are wondering how the NPA nearly won the Vancouver mayoral election in a city that elected eight NDP MLAs just last year.

      The conventional wisdom is that the centre-right NPA has deep roots in the city, a strong party brand, tons of money, and a great capacity to get out the vote.

      A lot has also been said about the lengthy ballot.

      It's been suggested that this enabled NPA slate voters to more easily choose their candidates by seeking out the party's letters beside the names.

      In addition, NPA mayoral candidate Ken Sim's opponents were all running as independents or with far lesser-known parties.

      While all of this is true, I still feel that Kennedy Stewart's campaign almost blew the election.

      Neither he nor Sim could even attract 50,000 votes, whereas Gregor Robertson never received fewer than 67,000 votes in any of his three mayoral victories. Robertson peaked at more than 83,000 votes in the 2014 campaign.

      Here are some of the shortcomings of the various mayoral campaigns:

      1. Stewart skipped several debates, including the ones at the Latin Plaza and in Shaughnessy. This reduced his opportunities to interact with voters, ceding this turf to his opponents, including independents.

      2. None of the campaigns seemed to conduct a great deal of "opposition research". Or if it actually was done, it was not communicated to the media in any big way. Voters were repeatedly warned about the "NPA" but there wasn't a lot to chew on about Sim himself or the NPA councillors' voting records. This may have been rooted in not wanting to amplify the NPA mayoral candidate's name recognition. Similarly, little was said by Stewart's opponents about his voting record in Parliament. There was also no exploration of Sylvester's activities in the nonprofit sector prior to her becoming the executive director of SFU Public Square. As a result, each candidate enjoyed a free ride. The fourth-place finisher, Wai Young, was occasionally enmeshed in controversy and sometimes seemed to relish this. The fifth-place finisher, Hector Bremner, on the other hand, was ground up—and that had an impact on his final vote count.

      3. Most of the campaigns sent out advisories about news conferences and waited for the media to show up. This strategy overlooks the fact that media outlets are far less resourced than they were 20 years ago. They were dealing with a half-dozen campaigns in a crowded election in Vancouver and coping with all the suburban races at the same time. Sometimes you have to go to the media rather than wait for reporters to come to you. Stewart's campaign didn't bother making him available early in the campaign when the Straight requested interviews. He never once picked up the phone and called the Straight to react to policies or messages put out by other campaigns. Sim also never once thought to pick up the phone and call the Straight. Sim even turned down an opportunity to speak to the Straight when he was spotted at an anti-tax rally. If you want media attention nowadays, it's wise to hold news conferences on the plaza of the CBC building, outside the offices of the Vancouver Sun and Province, or you visit the Courier or the Straight. Take the opportunities when they're presented.

      4. The leading mayoral candidates didn't take full advantage of distributing commentaries for free. This contrasted with council candidates for Greens, OneCity, the NPA, COPE, ProVancouver, Coalition Vancouver, and several independents. They all demonstrated initiative by contacting me to place op-ed pieces on this website. These could then be passed around on social media. The only mayoral candidates to do this were Wai Young, David Chen, and Sean Cassidy. Environmental groups like the David Suzuki Foundation know how to get their message out for free. So do Integrity B.C., the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, and the Independent Businesses and Contractors Association of B.C. They could all teach municipal political parties a few lessons about DIY media relations in 2018.

      5. None of the campaigns exerted enough effort into making a variety of decent, high-resolution photos available on the candidates' websites for bloggers, media outlets, et cetera. Stewart wasn't the only one who failed to do this. Sim and Sylvester also didn't distribute enough photos either, which meant the same stock shots kept appearing again and again in a multitude of media outlets and civic blogs. The only other option was to use low-quality Twitter photos of candidates surrounded by supporters. This gets boring for voters. Fresh photos will encourage readers to take notice. There's a reason the B.C. government has a never-ending stream of Flickr photos and Justin Trudeau's staff are constantly restocking the PMO website with images. The provincial NDP campaign did a really good job in this regard with John Horgan. The B.C. Liberals (who had tons of money) hired one of the best media photographers in the province to take photos of Christy Clark during the 2017 campaign. It almost enabled her to keep her job as premier.

      6. Twitter is the preferred social-media tool of most journalists. It's not Facebook. This is why Yes Vancouver would direct-message journalists over Twitter, which was a surefire way to get noticed. I never received a single direct message from the Stewart, Sim, or Sylvester campaigns pointing me to their tweets and other campaign messages. They were still relying on Facebook and email, even though some journalists are bombarded with hundreds of emails a day.

      7. Stewart and Sim were each guilty of issuing a fairly narrow platform without a lot of razzle dazzle. BORING. I feel they should have put more baubles in the window for voters. That's what the Greens did to their great advantage. Stewart focused largely on housing and adding more government transparency. Former NDP leaders Carole James and Adrian Dix made the same mistakes in 2009 and 2013, respectively. In 2017, NDP Leader John Horgan learned from those errors and offered a wider variety of policies to voters, which is probably why he won. 

      8. I wondered if the Stewart campaign ever conducted a SWOT analysis to identify its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. One of the threats was the risk of the media focusing on its connection to organized labour. One of the weaknesses was Stewart's less-than-dynamic public speaking skills. His strengths include his exceedingly pleasant personality, his intelligence, and his ability to sound knowledgeable about public policies. The opportunities came in exposing some of his opponents' shortcomings and obtaining "earned" (i.e. free) media. I saw little evidence that the weakness was addressed in any serious way. The candidate's strengths weren't maximized by taking proactive steps to get his message out in the media. This left room for Sylvester to move into this space. The opportunities were squandered. And when the threat arose, the response was to declare that the comments were libellous. That's not a great way to win friends over the course of a campaign. Anyone who conducts a SWOT analysis is less likely to panic when trouble arises.

      9. During much of the campaign, Sim did a decent job of addressing one of his weaknesses, which was the perception that he was the preferred candidate of the billionaires. He dressed casually. He conducted interviews on the East Side. He played up his roots. But two days before the election, Sim showed up at a book-signing for billionaire Chip Wilson on West 4th Avenue. It was captured on camera by COPE. Big mistake. A pre-election SWOT analysis would have identified the risk that would come from him being photographed with Wilson so close to voting day—and Sim would have stayed miles away from that event.

      10. The NPA campaign had the most money, so it shouldn't be a big surprise that it was able to create lots of videos humanizing its mayoral candidate. But OneCity wasn't nearly as well-resourced, yet it managed to put out a clever, attention-getting video, too. The Bremner campaign had a solid stream of strong videos, even though that didn't generate a lot of support at the ballot box. Stewart only released one video quite late in the campaign, which wasn't particularly memorable.

      It wasn't all poorly done. The Stewart campaign had many of the strengths that one normally associates with the NDP. There was a strong get-out-the-vote campaign and an outstanding sign presence around town on election day. Tons of phone calls went out to potential supporters.

      This helped get the candidate across the finish line with enough breathing room to avoid a judicial recount.

      In addition, the Stewart campaign marshalled an impressive list of third-party endorsers late in the campaign, including many high-profile women. This blunted Sylvester's late charge and possibly helped him win the election.

      So there are some things that it did very well. But if all the pieces were in place—including a more finely tuned targeted message at tenants—I believe he could have received 55,000 or more votes in this campaign.

      This would have added to his lustre as the mayor-elect because he would then be perceived as having won by more than a whisker.

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