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The NDP's leader is coming to Saskatoon to speak about homelessness. I haven't heard Jack Layton speak in person before and it may be an interesting talk, even if we rarely agree on policy. He'll be here May 21st, details can be found at Upcoming. Okay, three Fast Company posts in a row. They also profile the branding of Barack Obama. Not a lot new here but it does explain why Obama does so well among the digital class. The problem is that there isn't any grocery stores in the area. The closest grocery store is the limited selection of food at Giant Tiger (really inexpensive but limited selection), 33rd Street Safeway, or the Safeway/Superstore in Confederation Mall. As for competing with other mall owners, they obviously don't see the benefit of a centralized service complex which would hold the following services. There would be some other organizations housed here. This seems to be an decision based on ideology rather than anything. The idea that the government should not be providing services it feels that private enterprise can and should. Of course this ideology doesn't work in reverse as seen my Royal University Foundation looking for private money to bring Saskatoon's main emergency room, ICU, and other facilities up to date. Is it a good project? On the government's side, the Westside Clinic is already operational and I assume isn't going anywhere and they house SWITCH. While I agree with the idea of an affordable food co-op but from it's inception, I have questioned if they are going to be affordable (which may be secondary to availability). Some friends have been involved and the questions on affordable pricing remain unanswered. It isn't a flaw with the business plan but a volume and distribution question. Also some would argue proximity to St. Paul's Hospital. So there are some questions of whether or not the government should be funding a project like this. On the Station 20 West side is availability. In my job one of my biggest challenges right now is providing health care and in particular, mental health care to the men who call the shelter home. In terms of health care, emergency room health care is not a good solution for the system (cost) or to the patient (lack of regular checkups). While it can be hard to get accessible health services for all of us, it is a lot harder to find a doctor if one doesn't have car. All of us in the house drive across town to see our doctor which would be a couple hour trip if we had to use a bus or incur a $40 bill if we used a taxi. That is a HUGE obstacle to those that I serve at work. Speaking of availability, that is the main advantage of the co-operative grocery store. As I just said, I am not really convinced that it is sustainable. At night the Shopper's Drug Mart on 22nd street often has one clerk and two uniformed security guards to stop robbery and to stop shop lifting. One can't tell me that it is making any money at all under those conditions. There is also another reason why Safeway, Loblaw, and Super Valu has all pulled out of the city centre. Despite that, affordable food is hard to come by. Wendy and I shop at Safeway (primarily at 33rd Street where we live and Wendy picks up stuff at the Centre at Circle and 8th where she works), Co-op, and Costco. We save a lot of money by being able to pick and choose. For the poorest in Saskatoon, there are not grocery stores in close proximity and if you would like to join me at the 7-11 on 22nd Street on days when government checks are sent out, it looks like a riot hit it by midnight (There is evidence that Scott Reid was somewhat correct when he made his quip about beer and popcorn). People are spending an incredible amount of their checks on food from a 7-11. Is it a great decision? Of course not. There are people with a very, very, limited food budget spending it in a horrible location (price wise and healthwise - don't get me wrong, I love a good 7-11 burger but it isn't a lifestyle I would recommend). The alternative is having to get a cab to go to a grocery store which is another huge budgetary issue. The people that most often who need to take a cab to a grocery store are often those that can't afford to. It is the reason why I was asked to drive people home from the warehouse when the Salvation Army handed out Christmas hampers. If we hadn't, the burden to get a FREE hamper may have too much for people to receive one. If you drive through Riversdale, Caswell Hill, and Mayfair, you see a bunch of homes that used to be corner stores and small grocery stores. Jane Jacobs wrote extensively on what happened to them but we abandoned them for the big box stores. While it made life better for some, it hurts those that can't make it to the mega malls. It is one of the reasons why I take Mark as much as possible to the Roxy Theatre and not the Galaxy. I don't want to lose something that means so much to the community. Of course this isn't a fight about movie theatres, it is about providing a place for healthy food, medical services, affordable dental care (even if it is done by students... shudder...), and more mental health providers in a place that desperately needs them. It is only $8 million dollars out of $9.1 billion dollar budget (wow, do we know how to spend money in Saskatchewan, where is Janice MacKinnon when we need her). It is also about investing in a part of the city that has seen so little investment over the last 40 years. Yes Meewasin and the Farmer's Market is nice but Riversdale has been ignored for much of the last several decades despite being represented by a New Democratic Premier since 1991. Investing in that part of the city also sends the huge message that we believe that we are not willing to leave behind some of the provinces poorest. I'll leave the last word to the editorial writers of the Saskatoon Star Phoenix. Gantefoer believed the grant was cut because there was little chance the proponents of the project could raise the "$12 million to $14 million" needed to come from private interests. By next day he was admitting he was in error, and the necessary private funds were a minuscule portion of that amount. Even more incredibly, McMorris suggested the money had to be pulled from a project that would make it easier for inner-city residents to access timely health care because the funds were needed to buy a fire alarm for St. Paul's Hospital and to ward off a mould attack. The decision, he assured us, had nothing to do with politics. At least Wall's weak excuse was credible, if only because it illustrated an ideological basis to the ill-considered decision. The premier suggested the grant was killed because his government saw the inclusion of a co-operatively run grocery store within Station 20 as a threat to private industry. But to cancel the entire project rather than deal directly with the situation is to throw the baby out with the bathwater. When the NDP absurdly castigated Wall for giving his 14-year-old daughter driving lessons on a publicly owned rural gravel road, it demonstrated just how far out of touch with rural Saskatchewan that party has become. But Wall's clear lack of understanding about the dire needs of core neighbourhoods and the history of Saskatoon demonstrates just how out of touch he remains with urban Saskatchewan. Considering the role the province's largest city is playing in the economic revival of Saskatchewan, such ignorance could have dire consequences. The proponents of Station 20 want a grocery store not because they want to compete with private industry but because many people in core neighbourhoods don't have the wherewithal to keep hiring cabs to go shopping. The last of the downtown grocery stores left more than a decade ago. To ignore such realities for the sake of political partisanship and ideological reasons is an inauspicious beginning for a government that Saskatchewan people hoped could lead them to a prosperous future. If you have strong feelings about this, contact your MLA and let them know. Labels: economics, politics, poverty, Saskatchewan, Saskatoon An article in the San Francisco Inquirer suggests that as the city and activists feud over what to do with the homeless, they are frozen out of the services that can help. via "I could care less about their vigorous representation of the homeless," Henderson said. "At the end of the day, we all want to get them help." Isn't that true? Yet there seems to be such a disconnect over what's happening on the street and the perception, it is a wonder anything gets done. Local attorney Jim Haas wonders if it might be worthwhile for local law firms, many of whom provide pro bono attorneys for homeless causes, to meet with representatives from the district attorney's office to discuss what is being accomplished. No one doubts the motives or intentions of pro bono efforts. But what is the best use of the time of idealistic, well-educated attorneys? To get public-drunkenness citations dismissed? Or to help the down-and-out homeless work their way through the complicated system to get monthly Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payments? Or to guide homeless veterans through the process to get their benefits and medical plans? From Lawrence Eagleburger On the Christian hard right, I live in Charlottesville now and I can't tell you I'm surrounded by it. I must tell you we fought it there, fought hard against it. There's no question that in the Republican Party it is a serious problem ... Among the hard-right conservatives in the Republican Party John McCain was, shall we say, less than enthusiastically received ... What you see is what you get. You are not going to see him moving to assuage the concerns of these conservatives. The issues that have concerned the far right I don't see and I don't expect to see any changes. I know there will be some people in his entourage who will want to advocate for those changes, and again, I don't believe he will shift on those fundamental issues. For example, on abortion, he's clear, he's opposed. On one of the issues that upsets the far right, stem cell research, he is prepared to accept some of that, and that's something that upsets the far right. I could go on with these issues. Labels: politics I am not trying to bait anyone here but this has to be the perfect storm for the Republicans. Is there a better scenario more favorable to Republicans than the one playing out? While I think Barack Obama will win the Democratic primary, Clinton(s) is showing the Republican how to beat him or at least draw some blood. and testing out the strategy that McCain will be able to use in the general election. The longer Clinton stays in the race the more blood she draws, she drains Obama’s money and time from focusing on John McCain who is hitting Barack Obama daily. The only thing that could stop McCain if this continues could be if Chrysler files a copyright infringement suit. Labels: politics The changes needed in this country are straightforward enough, but there are always partisan reasons to take an easy way out. There are always special interests that will fight against any challenge to the status quo. And there are always those who will worry more about their next election than the health of our country. These forces that prevent meaningful progress are powerful, and they exist in both parties. I believe that the candidate who recognizes that the party is over — and begins enlisting all of us to clean up the mess — will be the winner this November, and will lead our country to a great and boundless future. I am not really a political blogger but in the spirit of being ranked, here is a great story about Barack Obama and his apology to local reporter. Update: Some more thoughts related to the post are here. 2. The partisan divide: Politicians have been promising to bridge the divisions in Washington ever since Aaron Burr shot Alexander Hamilton. It's a lot harder than it looks. Labels: politics I should have finished up this review of The War Room a long time ago but life has been really busy. For those of you who can remember what book I was reviewing, I was about to get to a subject dear to my heart in The War Room and that is creativity. For those of you who are unaware of what creativity can do to a campaign, here is one of the most famous stunts in Canadian politics and it featured Warren Kinsella and Tim Powers on Canada A.M. during the 2000 election. In the 2000 campaign, Kinsella made the entire nation laugh when he pulled out a purple stuffed dinosaur, Barney, while being interviewed live on Canada AM in an attack on Canadian Alliance leader Stockwell Day’s religious beliefs in creationism and said into the camera, “I just want to remind Mr. Day that The Flintstones was not a documentary,” as he pulled the dinosaur out of his gym bag. The high-profile stunt worked. Jonathan Kay of the National Post at the time, “The Alliance’s slide into oblivion hit the point of no return when the toe of Warren Kinsella’s shoe made contact with Stockwell Day’s rump.” Conservative Tim Powers, who was sitting beside Kinsella at the time on live television and was supposed to be defending Mr. Day, was caught off guard and unexpectedly laughed on air. I don't know if 2000 was the tipping point but since then I haven't seen a lot of creative stunts in too many elections, here or south of the border. Sure people are using chicken suits around debate time but that is almost cliche. I think for much of it, it is because campaigns are so risk adverse. For every stunt like Kinsella's which defines a campaign and leads to victory, there are a bunch of stunts which lead to embarrassment and possible defeat. That and from the outside, for all of the big paychecks, there are a lot of campaigns without much talent running them. No offense to the Kerry campaign in 2004, but how long did it take to respond to the Swift Boat Attacks? While the Dean grassroots campaign was innovative in 2003, there wasn't a lot of improvements in 2007 in the John Edwards campaign which had Joe Trippi in a key role. I can understand Hillary Clinton playing it safe but third place runner John Edwards? In the end I wonder if the right combination of timing, opportunity, and talent is so rare that being creative on the campaign trail is a once in a decade event. I hope that the next round of campaigns prove me wrong but my expectations are not high. Labels: book reviews, politics Now normally an ex-Prime Minister having a blog (with a nice theme) would be kind of interesting but when I read it, it seems below what I expect from an ex-Prime Minister. I don't know if I agree with Warren Kinsella that he is guilty of anything but it sure makes me wonder more about it. Of course what I really want to see is Jean Chretien start using Twitter. I don't know how many household's the Obama campaign can get this ad into but this may be the best ad I have seen this primary season. Her op-ed piece in the New York Times can be found here. Labels: politics The New York Times today is all over Hillary Clinton's campaign for the Democratic nomination. They mostly involve Bill's involvement and what that means. Here are the highlights. From Bob Hebert Bill Clinton, in his over-the-top advocacy of his wife’s candidacy, has at times sounded like a man who’s gone off his medication. And some of the Clinton surrogates have been flat-out reprehensible. Andrew Young, for instance. This week, while making the remarkable accusation that the Obama camp was responsible for raising the race issue, Mr. Clinton mentioned Andrew Young as someone who would bear that out. It was an extremely unfortunate reference. Here’s what Mr. Young, who is black and a former ambassador to the United Nations, had to say last month in an interview posted online: “Bill is every bit as black as Barack. He’s probably gone with more black women than Barack.” He then went on to make disgusting comments about the way that Bill and Hillary Clinton defended themselves years ago against the fallout from the former president’s womanizing. That’s coming from the Clinton camp! And then there was Bob Kerrey, the former senator and another Clinton supporter, who slimed up the campaign with the following comments: “It’s probably not something that appeals to him, but I like the fact that his name is Barack Hussein Obama, and that his father was a Muslim and that his paternal grandmother is a Muslim. There’s a billion people on the planet that are Muslims, and I think that experience is a big deal.” Pressing the point, Mr. Kerrey told CNN’s John King: “I’ve watched the blogs try to say that you can’t trust him because he spent a little bit of time in a secular madrassa. I feel quite the opposite.” Get it? Let’s start with the fact that Mr. Obama never attended a madrassa, and that there is no such thing as a secular madrassa. A madrassa is a religious school. Beyond that, the idea is to not-so-slyly feed the current frenzy, on the Internet and elsewhere, that Senator Obama is a Muslim, and thus potentially (in the eyes of many voters) an enemy of the United States. Mr. Obama is not a Muslim. He’s a Christian. And if he were a Muslim, it would not be a legitimate reason for attacking his candidacy. Frank Rich just thinks it will lead to a John McCain victory Not all Republicans are smart enough, however, to recognize the value of John McCain should Mrs. Clinton emerge as the nominee. He’s a bazooka aimed at most every rationale she’s offered for her candidacy. In a McCain vs. Billary race, the Democrats will sacrifice the most highly desired commodity by the entire electorate, change; the party will be mired in déjà 1990s all over again. Mrs. Clinton’s spiel about being “tested” by her “35 years of experience” won’t fly either. The moment she attempts it, Mr. McCain will run an ad about how he was being tested when those 35 years began, in 1973. It was that spring when he emerged from five-plus years of incarceration at the Hanoi Hilton while Billary was still bivouacked at Yale Law School. And can Mrs. Clinton presume to sell herself as best equipped to be commander in chief “on Day One” when opposing an actual commander and war hero? I don’t think so. Senator Hillary Clinton has based her campaign on experience — 35 years of it by her count. That must include her eight years in the White House. Some may debate whether those years count as executive experience. But there can be no doubt that her husband had the presidential experience, fully. He has shown during his wife’s campaign that he is a person of initiative and energy. Does anyone expect him not to use his experience in an energetic way if he re-enters the White House as the first spouse? Mrs. Clinton claims that her time in that role was an active one. He can hardly be expected to show less involvement when he returns to the scene of his time in power as the resident expert. He is not the kind to be a potted plant in the White House. Which raises an important matter. Do we really want a plural presidency? Speaking of past Presidents, Caroline Kennedy endorses Barack Obama in the NY Times today as well. Senator Obama is running a dignified and honest campaign. He has spoken eloquently about the role of faith in his life, and opened a window into his character in two compelling books. And when it comes to judgment, Barack Obama made the right call on the most important issue of our time by opposing the war in Iraq from the beginning. I want a president who understands that his responsibility is to articulate a vision and encourage others to achieve it; who holds himself, and those around him, to the highest ethical standards; who appeals to the hopes of those who still believe in the American Dream, and those around the world who still believe in the American ideal; and who can lift our spirits, and make us believe again that our country needs every one of us to get involved. I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them. But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that president — not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans. Labels: politics While I can't find it on YouTube, I think the best of all time may be Prime Minister Jean Chretien's "Power Lunch" with Rick Mercer at Harveys in the lead up to the budget. While Clinton did make that one funny video of himself eight years ago, which was well received, I haven't seen anyone else do a good job of making fun of themselves in Washington. While the optics of bag loads of cash being delivered to 24 Sussex Drive is pretty horrible, is it wrong for a party to willingly decide to supplement the salary of it's party leader? This would be more interesting to me if there was evidence that people were donating to the PC Canada Fund knew it was being redirected to the Prime Minister and his wife AND those people had business dealings with the government. Now I think that would be interesting. I don't know what information Norman Spector has but I can't see anything new coming out that hasn't been written about before. From the Toronto Star Spector, chief of staff to Mulroney in the early 1990s, wrote about the payments in a forward to Toronto lawyer and author William Kaplan's book about Mulroney's relationship with Schreiber. He describes Mulroney's networking with wealthy and powerful people. He writes also of Mila Mulroney's "expensive lifestyle." "Mulroney was not a rich man. Party funds were being drawn, and one of our staff was assigned to pore through personal expenses to determine if some might be reimbursed. Every month I cashed a cheque at a local bank and remitted the funds to Mila," Spector wrote. A spokesperson for Mulroney downplayed Spector's talk of the cash deliveries. "There's nothing new in these allegations," Joseph Lavoie said yesterday. The committee also expects to hear from François Martin, Mulroney's former chef, who has told of transporting thick envelopes of cash for the family. In Stevie Cameron's 1994 On the Take, Martin tells of visiting Mulroney aide Fred Doucet in the Prime Minister's Office to pick up thick envelopes of cash and deliver them to Mila Mulroney. "Cash came in like it was falling from the sky," he said in the book. While the allegations may date back years, they provide fresh fodder for opposition MPs who are already seeking answers about the cash payments Mulroney received from Schreiber after he left office. Of course if MP's read a little more history, this would be old news. Okay, back to the War Room. Lesson Four is why and how you need to get your money out with paid media. It's an interesting chapter if you are a fan of political history and offers the background into how political advertising evolved over time. Kinsella talks about Daisy, perhaps my favorite part of Kicking Ass in Canadian Politics. Of course the important lesson from Daisy is not that you need to convince your opponent that he or she will lead us to nuclear war but rather that advertising can reinforce an idea that is already in voters mind about your opponent. If you have never seen Daisy, it is embedded there to the right. This started me thinking about two recent negative campaigns across the country. The first one is the Conservative Party's Not a Leader campaign directed at Stephane Dion. Several pundits have said that this has hurt Stephane Dion and has allowed him to be framed by the Conservatives. While I saw the commercials and thought they were well done, I didn't think that they were that accurate. In the Chretien cabinets I thought Dion was quite effective. The timing was brilliant in that he had just won a hard fought leadership campaign and the party was divided. Capitalizing on the internal dissension which is a normal part of politics, the Conservatives used the opportunity to attack and used the words of his own leadership rival and Dion's words against him. The Liberals either facing a shortage of cash or didn't have an operating war room to strike back quickly didn't follow James Carville's rule and didn't hit back and now many think that the charges laid by those ads has stuck. They did run their own ad several weeks later but by that time, "Not a leader" had done it's job. The second campaign I keep thinking back to the recent Saskatchewan election and the NDP Wolf is sheep's clothing advertising campaign. While the ads were hard hitting, they had no impact on the election or the polls and even NDP members I knew didn't care for them. People didn't believe that Brad Wall was like Grant Devine and b) we couldn't figure out why it was necessary to bad mouth Alberta all of the time. The other thing is that the Saskatchewan Party did hit back with a pretty good ad of their own. Their counterattack ad which came out soon after the NDP spot aired did got in a shot of their own that did articulate what many people in Saskatchewan thought. Again, even die hard NDP commented to me that they thought the spot was excellent. Both of those examples feature negative ads which makes sense because as Kinsella points out on page 123, negative ads work. There are two reasons for this. First, television is an emotional medium, and emotional messages work best with voters. "With too much information around," the professors wrote, "our senses are overloaded and advertisers have turned away from information imparting ads to an approach that 'goes for the gut,' appealing to core values... Negative ads are crafted in the best dramatic tradition: they contain characterization (implicit or explicit), plot and conflict." Second, they wrote, negative ads work because they are negative. "Simply put, negative information is more powerful in crystallizing decisions than positive information. In politics, it is said, 'mud sticks' and negative ads are the way in which seeds of doubt about an opponent are introduced and negative perceptions are reinforced" Okay that all makes sense but this is supposed to be a review from a NGO point of view and my advertising budget is pretty small with not a lot of cash for negative ad buys. How do I get my message out? How do I survive in the data smog that is today's media market? As I was thinking about this while reading the next part of the lesson on how to do a ad buy when I got distracted by an article on how much it was going to cost for the Democratic and GOP candidates to do ad buys in all the February 5 state primaries. They are confronted by the same problems that I had. Too much message, not enough money to get it out. As I looked around at the Sask Party and Saskatchewan NDP YouTube sites it hit me that this for NGO's, this is where much of the media efforts are going to be. It won't replace advertising during Hockey Night in Canada or the Grey Cup but it is a distribution system that does have some power that is going to grow. The NGO's are not the only ones who are discovering this, Tony Blair launched Labour Vision on YouTube (whose main video has Gordon Brown now claiming credit for it) The often stodgy Conservative Party has one. The Archbishop of Canterbury is using it. Even Hillary Clinton is creating ads just for the web. If The War Room is a partial update to Kicking Ass, I imagine that the next update will feature not just a ad buy guide for network and cable audience but one for the web as well. Before you guffaw, before long everyone will have moved to a smart phone or media device like a iPod Touch which include YouTube capabilities. In case you haven't heard, a tiny company called Google is getting into the mobile phone market. Do you think that phone may have YouTube built into it as well? I am not saying that television is going away but it is going to be increasingly hard to ignore the impact of YouTube and Google Video in the future. Some more about this will be said when I get to Lesson Nine but if I was running a lot of organizations, I would start thinking long and hard about how you use video, how one creates a network to get the word out, and how that can grow, even if a Super Bowl commercial isn't in the works. Book Information The War Room: Political Strategies for Business, NGOs, and Anyone Who Wants to Win by Warren Kinsella Labels: book reviews, books, media, politics Disliking journalists is a waste of time, in my opinion. I think most journalists are professionals and -- most of the time -- they do a very good job. You need them, and they need you. And, even if you can't bring yourself to pretend to like ink-stained wretches -- as in the case of Prime Minister Harper, who clearly would choose serial root canals over a press conference -- consider this: the news media save you money. Lots of money. If I remember correctly, Bill Clinton playing saxophone on the Arsenio Hall was at a time when the 1992 campaign was low on funds and was taking advantage of all of the free media it could get. The more I think of it, outside of Daisy, how many memorable paid spots can we think of compared to the unscripted ones (for good or bad - think Howard Dean's scream) Of course dealing with the media has some risks and The War Room has The Twelve Handy and Immutable Media Rules. Perhaps the most useful is the fact that Nothing Is Off the Record. I am always cautious with this and when I am talking to the press I always assume I am being recorded and more than once this year I was told in hindsight I was recorded (luckily I had nothing that interesting to say). Also there was Andre Pratte quoting off the record conversations in his book about Jean Charest. The other rule that is worth reading and re-reading is that swords are for falling on. He uses this story about Stockwell Day and the Niagara Falls. During the year 2000 federal election campaign, former Canadian Alliance leaders, Stockwell Day (who, it should be noted, bears more than a passing resemblance to Dan Quayle) decided to use Niagara Falls as a backdrop to a campaign announcement. Standing at the falls' edge, Day attempted to draw an analogy between the flow of Lake Erie from the north to south and the "brain drain" from Canada to the United States. A reporter fom the area pointed out to Day that, in fact, the relevant body of water drained from south to north. Missing a golden opportunity to poke fun at himself, and thereby seem as human as the rest of us, Day darkly warned that he would "check the record, and if someone has wrongly informed me about eh flow of this particular water, I'll be having a pretty interesting discussion with them." Not only did Day succeed in making himself look like a dummy, he also came across sounding like a dummy who couldn't take responsibility for his own mistakes. I remember how long that story lingered on for during the campaign (I imagine aided on my a certain War Room) and all he had to do was shrug it off. The most frustrating rule for me was Leave No Charge Unanswered. He points to Carville's advice and I agree with him if I was running a campaign. John Kerry got beaten to a pulp because they didn't hit back at the Karl Rove funded Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Day after day their blog and war room was silent until the damage was done. Now if I was up against Karl Rove, I would hit back. The problem with many NGO's, it is death by a thousand paper cuts because the opponent isn't Rove or big tobacco. I feel bad for any provincial minister of Social Services who gets to deal with all sorts of stories that he or she can't contradict because of privacy concerns. I was there myself a couple of weeks ago with a call sheet that included several media outlets, MLAs, and the Provincial Ombudsmen. I couldn't say much but all had an idea of what was up and the story died. Of course this was a segue to a fascinating part of the chapter which is maybe it doesn't matter what the media is saying. Opinion columns--like the unsigned editorials found every single day in any newspapers--don't change anyone's point of view. In fact there is evidence to suggest that these editorials ay actually persuade readers to embrace the opposite point of view. I kid you no. Claims made by newspaper opinion makers-- that they are fostering public debate and boosting democracy--are facile and self-serving. (page 102) Of course as a blogger we all know that I am not actually changing anyone's opinion here. I read the New York Times opinion pages everyday and I find myself disagreeing with Friedmann, Dowd, and Krugman lots. I occasionally watch FOX News and Bill O'Reilly hasn't convinced me on too many things. Even theologically I find myself reading Calvin off and on to know what I don't agree with. So maybe we don't have anything to worry about. The problem with these false thoughts are that those that read papers and follow politics are better educated, better read, and more likely to make up their own opinions more. The problem is that a large percentage of people who don't know how many millions in a billion and do rely on the media to make up their mind about something so those of us at NGO's are doomed. Book Information The War Room: Political Strategies for Business, NGOs, and Anyone Who Wants to Win by Warren Kinsella Labels: book reviews, politics If there is any truth left in politics--if there is anything at all that any smart politician or war room soldier knows to be beyond dispute, beyond debate, that can never, ever be refuted, even by God--it is that. Facts tell, stories sell. The other Big Truth is that you need to stick to your story, once you figure out what it is. But first, let me tell you what I mean when I (and others) proclaim that facts tell, stories sell. The tidy tautology or that truism was made clear to me in the fall of 1993, during the federal election campaign. Michael Marzolini, a smart young guy from Toronto, was the Liberal Party's pollster. Nobody as young had ever been in a position like that before, but Marzolini didn't let us down. His ability to analyze the polling numbers and tell us what we needed to know, and not what we wanted to hear, was remarkable. One day during the campaign, he said something that may have been total and complete bullshit. Even now, so many years afterwards, I don't know if Marzolini--who is the pollster I use, whom many of my clients use, and who is respected from coast to coast--was pulling our leg. But here's what he said: "Forty percent of Canadians don't know how many millions are in a billion." (page 65-66) It was an epiphany to Kinsella and in addition to unlocking other mysteries of the universe, also explained to him how Ronald Reagan became President of the United States. In October 1980, just a week before Election Day, Reagan won the keys to the Oval Office when he went toe-to-toe with the guy who was then still working there, Jimmy Carter. Carter was an amiable, decent man, but he was also completely unable to communicate in a simple, compelling way. He couldn't spin his way out of a wet paper bag, in fact. The United States had been going through an economic and post-Vietnam existential crisis, and the Democrat from Georgia appeared completely incapable of describing what needed to be done... So during the second Presidential debate, Reagan turned to the camera and delivered the line that would bring an abrupt end to Carter's re-election hopes: "Are you better off then you were four years ago?" It was simple and (to some) simplistic, yes. But it did the trick. Communicating in a deliberately uncomplicated, unsophisticated way is not condescending. It does not suggest that you think your audience are dummies, or slow, or poorly educated. Far from it: taking pains to ensure that your words reach the greatest number of ears-- doing all that you can to ensure that you are understood--is the very essence of democracy. It is respectful. It acknowledges your obligation to win the support of the greatest number, and not a select few. If voters and consumers have a problem in the new media environment, it is not that they are intelligent. It is that they lack the information that they feel to make an intelligent choice. Okay, I can agree with that but I am left with a couple of questions. The first one is why most political parties tend to ignore this. Spinning on television has become a parody of itself. I was watching some old video clips of George Stephanopoulos spinning and I compared it to the debacle on Mike Duffy Live that is our Canadian MP's and spinners and I realize that spinning today has just become a parody of what Kinsella is saying. Spin is one thing but today we hear talking points repeated over and over and over again often at higher and higher volumes. The other thing is showed me is why Karl Rove's divisive campaigns worked so well. They appeal to the lowest common denominator and when a large percentage of your voter base is deciding who to vote on based on rainfall or they can't figure out how many millions in a billion, it explains how Karl Rove can get away with what they have in the past. It also explains the disconnect between preaching and the congregation. I know story telling is mocked by many theologians and some pastors but I have heard more than one sermon featuring theological phrases that I may have been the only person on the congregation that understood them. I can remember one in particular that the substance was amazing and profound but it left the congregation feeling bewildered. Darryl Dash is much more of an expert on this than I am but too many pastors/priests do not take the time to ensure that your words reach the greatest number of ears. Tomorrow is Lesson Three. Other Lessons Book Information The War Room: Political Strategies for Business, NGOs, and Anyone Who Wants to Win by Warren Kinsella Labels: book reviews, books, politics Before I get into that, I thought I would post this line from the forward from the Rt. Hon. Jean Chretien. I am delighted that people have bought Warren Kinsella's new book, but I would be more delighted, and so would they, if they bought mine. The book is somewhat reminiscent of Buck Up, Suck Up, and Come Back When You Foul Up: 12 Winning Secrets from the War Room by James Carville and Paul Begala. Both books look at political campaigns and then take what was learned from campaigns and places them in the context of business and organizational development. Campaigns whether long marathons (U.S) or mercifully short (Canada and the U.K.) have much in common with the rest of life. Unfair media (okay everyone complains of unfair media coverage), limited budgets (every company not named Microsoft or Google), mistakes (like this guy), gaffs, and competitors that want you to lose spectacularly. (PS3 vs. XBox 360 vs. Wii). Lesson One: Let's Get Started Campaigns contain too many unhelpful variables--inexperienced candidates, wonky policy, bullheaded fundraisers, overeager volunteers, unstrategic advertising, nasty journalists, unrealistic deadlines-- for one person, or one war room team, to fully control. Campaigns are a mishmash of emotion and ambitions that are sometimes too big and budgets and resources and timetables that are usually too small. When you have worked at the centre or a political campaign, what is extraordinary is not that things go wrong. What is extraordinary is that more things don't go wrong. Thus, the need for an organization, a comprehensive, detailed, written down plan, or blueprint, about how to win. Hard work and good intentions won't suffice. As David M. Shea wrote in his valuable book Campaign Craft, "Neil Armstrong could never have reached the moon by simply pointing the rocket." (Page 44-45) What does that plan look like? In my experience, you need to address ten things in your campaign plan. Number one, money. Two, a campaign structure, identifying who does what. Three, a campaign calendar. Four, everything there is to know about your candidate--particularly what he or she believes in, and why. Five, everything there is to know about the opposition--and how those things make the opposition an inferior choice. Six, what the target audience believes about your policies and plans and about the policies and plans of your opponent. Seven, the key messages, and how to communicate them to the media and through your advertising campaign. Eight, the campaign context--just a fancy way of describing the other things that are going on in the world, which may or many not have an impact on what you hope to do. Nine, the geographic outlines of the place where the campaign will be fought, and everything you need to know about the battleground. Ten, the campaign strategic theme - that is the front step pitch. As in, your targeted supporter has opened his door to you, you've told him who you are, and now you need to tell him what you stand for: "Hi there. I am running because I want every little girl to have a pony and because I favor ballistic missile defense systems." (It's not much of a campaign theme, admittedly, but it's something.) (Page 45-46) It also varies on the candidate and the context The campaign plan is going to vary depending upon the candidate, the cause, the consultant, and the context. Because I am a Liberal and a liberal, I typically tend to agree with these rules, laid out by Dick Morris, a former advisor to Bill Clinton. "Message is more important than money: Issues are more central than image. Strategy matters more than tactics. Positives work better than negatives. Substance is more salient than scandal." (Page 45) Does that plan work outside a campaign? Yeah. Money? I have have tried to do a lot of things without money. Some worked. Many others did not. A campaign calendar? I would have a stronger case to argue against it if I wasn't looking for a good project management program tonight. Geographic outlines of your riding? Working in Riversdale is a lot different than trying to do something similar on the east side of the city. The list goes on and on. In unpacking the things that need to be a part of every campaign and organization effort, he brings up the concept of hard market research. Working in non-profits and churches, there isn't the money or desire to spend money on market research for a couple of reasons but often times it means that big expensive decisions are made on anecdotal evidence or just as bad, really poorly designed surveys. Everyone has anecdotal evidence to back up their beliefs and I enjoyed this story about Gerry Schwartz/Onex's failed takeover of Air Canada a few years ago where the research showed that their personal feelings about Gerry Schwartz were not held by all Canadians. A few years back, for example, I was part of a war room that had ben set up to beat back a hostile airline industry takeover by a respected business leader. This guy was a formidable adversary: he had lots of money, he was a philanthropist, he had shrewdly hired every lobbyist in Canada, and he was a red blooded Canadian. I also happened to like him personally. It looked like he was going to beat us. But war is war; so we commissioned a battery of polling and public opinion research to determine what folks thought of him and what he wanted to do. While respondents didn't seem to be staying awake at night fretting about the impending buyout, we found--to our genuine surprise--that they didn't like this man. Something about him rankled them, big-time. We didn't agree with their assessment, but we weren't about to argue, either. So we made certain everything we did, every speech, every press statement, every leaflet, even every button airline employees wore on their lapels--mentioned this fellows name. We made certain that he became the public face of the hostile takeover. His own pollsters eventually warned him out the problem, but by then it was too later. We had won the battle of public opinion and, therefore, the support of the public opinion-obsessed politicians who would be needed to okay the acquisition. We beat back the takeover bid. Moral of the story: if you can afford it, always do solid public opinion research. It's worth it. Of course the tenth step is important as well. What you need, desperately is the campaign theme. Many campaigns are busy. They raise money, hire staff, and start printing up brochures They do all of the things you'd expect they'd do. But a few campaigns--and quite a few more than you'd expect--have no clear sense of what they want to accomplish. "They know they are trying to win," notes Joel Bradshaw, a Democratic political consultant, "but they never come to a resolution as to how they are going to win... they fail to define a strategy." When that happens, get ready for a lot of seriously unhappy days on the election trail. With no coherent, cohesive theme, you can fully expect to be tossed around like a piece of lint in a hurricane. To win, you will be depending on luck, or some unforeseen external event (like a flood in Manitoba), or a screw-up by your opponent. More than once, I've been in a smoke-free backroom, and some genius will say, "Just wait. You'll see. [Insert opponent's name here] will say something stupid. It'll happen." And it never, ever does. It reminds me of the last provincial election here in Saskatchewan. While I think the people of Saskatchewan liked former Premier Lorne Calvert, he just didn't give them a compelling reason to vote for him other than the other guys are no good and wanted to make Saskatchewan more like Alberta. It is a lot more complicated than that but calling the other side evil only goes works so often. A former mayor of Saskatoon kicked off his re-election campaign years ago musing that if he wasn't the mayor, he didn't know what else he would do. He lost. Stepping outside of politics for a second, I have been in too many meetings where it was apparent that no one knew why we were doing what we were doing outside of the fact that for a long time people have done it before us. I am not a big fan of the mission/vision statement thing as they can be written about anything but it does occur to me that much of what goes on in society happens for no reason and therefore it is impossible for a coherent or cohesive theme. Of course that I was in meetings as well that had a reason to exist but because someone didn't do what Kinsella writes about, the meeting went no where because there was nothing to rally around. That's enough for tonight, tomorrow I will post some from Lesson Two: Get Spinning and as I go along, I'll link all of posts together. Book Information The War Room: Political Strategies for Business, NGOs, and Anyone Who Wants to Win by Warren Kinsella Labels: book reviews, books, politics Labels: book reviews, books, business, politics, work Choire Sicha is was covering the New Hampshire primary and posted this video to give the rest of us an idea of what it is like. Let's see Brad Wall or Ed Stelmach top this. Labels: jordoncooper.com, politics |
This story brings back fond memories of watching it all happen on Canada AM but it also made me think of other attempts to be creative in 2000. The newly elected MP for Okanagan-Coquihalla was basking in his overwhelming federal byelection win and somehow thought that it would be a good idea to arrive at a Penticton press conference in a wet suit, riding on a showed some skin Monday when he talked to reporters in Penticton. The soon-to-be opposition leader, arrived at the lakefront news conference on a Sea-Doo. I will always remember the bemused look on 
