By Denis Campbell
Fat Lady? Back to those wings and no humming! This opera is not over.
Those in the Conservative party already measuring drapes at Number 10 need to remember this will be a contested election vs. a Tory coronation. The display on the steps of the Welsh Senedd the morning after Conservative wins in the EU Parliamentary election in Wales seemed to indicate a general smugness about the outcome in next May or June’s contest. The latest MORI poll though shows a cooling of the “hang ‘em all” fever and a narrowing of the gap between Conservatives and Labour. While not yet indicative of a ‘hung’ Parliament (necessitating the awkward courtship of Nick Clegg and The Liberal Democrats into a coalition government by both sides), it does makes the general election look very interesting.
Gordon Brown knows that as despised as his Labour Government currently is, the Tories, because of their own past history and an unconvinced electorate of David Cameron’s leadership bona fides, have not yet clinched the election. Too, the Liberal Democrats have not as yet offered a credible alternative so it could be a case for Labour of hang on and hope voters choose the devil they know.
A 6% margin approaches the survey’s margin of error and with 7-months to go before a campaign, now is the time for every candidate to look at the new reality of UK politics. While all parties say because they embrace blogs, social media, Twitter and creating slicker websites with videos… they all THINK they are adopting Obama-style “change” campaigns.
The problem is there is still an over-reliance on the opinions of the broadsheets and getting on BBC Question Time with precious little else being done to leave behind the stale “tried and true old-school” campaigning, despite the staggering level of apathy felt by many in the electorate.
David Plouffe, Obama campaign chairman said in his new book The Audacity to Win (available to order here and a must-have book for anyone running a political campaign): “to win, we would have to obtain the Holy Grail of politics – a fundamentally altered electorate.” He went on further to make a business analogy:
“Say you are trying to expand your percent of market share against an established brand name product your competitors have been buying their product for decades and are unlikely to sample something new.
How do you outsell without converting their customer?
You have to recruit new buyers.”
And then he did just that leading an energised team to defeat the vaunted Clinton and McCain family-ties legacies.
To do otherwise is a prescription for defeat and the textbook definition of insanity: “continuing to do what you’ve always done and expecting a different outcome.” As my good friend Jack Trout said “it’s time to don the black pajamas and head out into the jungle.” This statement was one he made in response to 1960s US Pentagon claim that “the Viet Cong guerrillas did not know how to fight a conventional war.”
Rather it was American forces who could not deal with an enemy failing to use airplanes, tanks and artillery, rather guerrilla war tactics.
UK politics has devolved into name calling, but that is all still under the guise of a traditional battle. My entire career has been built on donning black pajamas and finding ways to attract new customers vs. stealing from and fighting against someone else in direct hand-to-hand combat, you both take losses without the element of surprise. Or, as another mentor once said, “when elephants fight, the ants get killed.”
The new campaign idea is to convert by finding new early adapters and building on them and their enthusiasm. Same is true in politics. You recruit new buyers (voters) by going to where they are not vs. trying to lure them in via traditional door-to-door flyers and meetings. There you are talking to members of the choir or lining the bottom of birdie’s cage.
While there were “difficulties” with the colonies in 1775, maintaining regimentally crisp, disciplined columns and firing only when ordered is a strategy for failure in 2010. Every campaign needs to bring new voters into the fold and excite them as Team Obama did in 2008.
If you want a hip, Obama-change election in the UK? Even MJ before his death knew how important it was to look and change the man (or woman) in the mirror or else you give the electorate the chance to really say, “they don’t really care about us!” Whoo!
