I'd hope to be more active blogging during this election than I was in 2008, when my role in the BC war room made blogging as openly as I like too a little difficult. This time as campaign manager in Vancouver Island North, my hometown riding in BC, I was free to blog but I just didn't have the time.
Now though the office is nearly cleared-out, the signs are coming down, and after five straight weeks of 12-hour days I do have a little time to sit down, think, and write. I'll leave the national picture for now and focus on my local experience here.
We went into this race knowing it was an uphill battle. The riding has become very polarized between the Liberals and the Conservatives in recent campaigns and, with each taking at least 40 per cent of the vote recently, it doesn't leave much ground for others. We were also coming off a weak Liberal campaign in 2008. The candidate. Geoff Fliescher, was a great young Liberal who had won the nomination early, but with the election delayed committed to training in Vancouver. Consequently, he was unable to campaign full time and had no local organization. Essentially, there was no campaign and no signs, and the Liberal vote sunk to 4th, behind the Greens.
Our challenge going in was to be taken seriously by the media and the public as a viable contender, and deal with the issue of strategic voting. We accomplished the first. Our candidate, Mike Holland was very well known in the riding from his fights to save a local complex care facility. The second was difficult. And while you can urge people to vote their heart and make clear this isn't going to be a 2008 situation, it's so much ground to make up that, if you do want to vote strategically, it was impossible to say it should be for us.
It's a riding where it's not easy to be a Liberal, but we managed to run the strongest Liberal campaign we've had in this riding in years. We had a great core group of volunteers bigger than any we've had here before doing regular canvassing and phoning. We burmashaved nearly daily. We attended all the all candidates debates, where Mike won much praise for his performance. We put out a lot of great lit, and sent a brochure to every household in the riding. We did a fun, cheeky web site. And while we couldn't compete with the NDP and Liberals on signs, we were a very active presence. And we raised more money during the campaign than we have in years.
In the end, the results weren't what I had hoped for. Conservative incumbent minister John Duncan won re-election by 1699 votes over NDP challenger Ronna-Rae Leonard. If we couldn't have won I was hoping Ronna would pull it off and they were back and forth for much of the night, but John cleaned-up in the advance polls. Conservatives vote early.
We were able to move from fourth to third, just ahead of the Green Party's Sue Moen. Our 3,038 votes are disappointing, but we did increase our vote by 647 votes over 2008, and our percentage share slightly as well. I'm not sure there are many Liberal campaigns that can say the same. I had much higher hopes, but with the polarization, strategic voting and the national collapse it just wasn't there for us.
Looking back, I can't say I have any regrets or would have done anything differently. I'd have liked to have had more people to hit more doors, and more money to do more advertising. But we made the most of our budget, knocked on thousands of doors, did a targeted ad campaign and got lit to every household. I worked with a great team that gave a lot of their time and worked all0out for five weeks. We had Bob Rae at the beginning of the campaign, and Sheila Copps at the end. We couldn't have done any more.
For myself, managing my first campaign, and getting to do it in my home town, was a great learning experience and challenge. It certainly tested me in new ways, and gave me a new appreciation for the challenges and importance of on the ground organization. It also reinforced that, no matter how strong your effort on the ground, the national air war and campaign, the media narrative and polling are far more influential.
This is a riding like many in this country where we just need to keep working hard, building the local organization between elections. It will take long-term, multiple election strategy. And it will take a re-think by the party around how it supports and helps the riding associations. But that's a topic for what will be many posts on party reform to come.
I'm here for the rest of the week, off to San Francisco for a work trip next weekend, and then back in Toronto late the next week. Looking forward to taking a few days off in San Francisco to relax and decompress. It's been a long five weeks, but a great experience.
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