POLITICAL CAMPAIGN PLANNING MANUAL Page 3 of 105 PREFACE At the beginning of 2009 NDI finds itself making the fourth version of this manual, this time for.
CONTENTS INTRODUCTION STEP ONE: RESEARCH STEP TWO: SETTING A GOAL STEP THREE: TARGETING THE VOTERS STEP FOUR: DEVELOPING THE CAMPAIGN MESSAGE STEP FIVE: DEVELOPING A VOTER CONTACT PLAN STEP SIX: MAKING IT HAPPEN CONCLUSION APPENDIX A: A GLOSSARY OF CAMPAIGN TERMS APPENDIX B: CAMPAIGN RESEARCH QUESTIONS APPENDIX C: GEOGRAPHIC TARGETING METHODOLOGY APPENDIX D: ISSUES RELATED TO POLITICAL POLLING APPENDIX E: DRAWING CONTRAST WITH YOUR OPPONENTS APPENDIX F: SAMPLE CAMPAIGN FORMS APPENDIX G: STRATEGIC CAMPAIGN PLAN TEMPLATE EVALUATION FORM OTHER PUBLICATIONS AT THE NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTE POLITICAL CAMPAIGN PLANNING MANUAL A STEP BY STEP GUIDE TO WINNING ELECTIONS National Democratic Institute for International Affairs POLITICAL CAMPAIGN PLANNING MANUAL The National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI) is an international nonprofit organization working to strengthen and expand democracy worldwide. Calling on a global network of volunteer experts, NDI provides practical assistance to civic and political leaders advancing democratic values, practices and institutions. NDI works with democrats in every region of the world to build political and civic organizations, safeguard elections, and to promote citizen participation, openness and accountability in government. Copyright © National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI) 2009. All rights reserved. Portions of this work may be reproduced and/or translated for noncommercial purposes provided NDI is acknowledged as the source of the material and is sent copies of any translation. Printed in the United States of America. 2030 M Street, NW Fifth Floor Washington, DC 20036 Tel: 202-728-5500 Fax: 202-728-5520 Website: www.ndi.org This publication was made possible through the support provided by the National Endowment for Democracy. The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Endowment for Democracy. Page 2 of 105 POLITICAL CAMPAIGN PLANNING MANUAL PREFACE At the beginning of 2009 NDI finds itself making the fourth version of this manual, this time for the Malaysian context. A year after its historic March 8, 2008 general election, the Malaysian government has yet to revise its laws governing elections and campaigning to respond to the public call for greater transparency. As Malaysians work towards a more open process, this handbook seems timely. Originally developed a decade ago by NDI’s staff team in Russia, this manual has traveled the globe numerous times with localized updates. NDI’s team of political party experts in Malaysia edited the version you hold for that specific context. In 2004, Indonesia’s candidates ran campaigns using this manual and, later, candidates and their teams similarly followed the formula in that country’s first direct elections for governors and mayors. In 2007, in the landmark elections required by the peace agreement in Aceh after a forty-year conflict, a more substantial update to the manual gave candidates greater confidence to compete in the ever-changing world of campaign politics. The updates made to the manual reflect advances in targeting, message development and the use of technology in campaigns in every country; the lesson for all of us is that political campaigning is, quite simply, about effective planning. Campaigning techniques are refined over time. The lesson of political practitioners everywhere is to learn from each others’ victories and mistakes. And, to make sure the campaign we run is appropriate to the context in which we are competing. As this manual makes clear, campaign plans aren’t simply calendars of activities in an election campaign; campaign plans are much more than that. Good campaign plans are written months and even years prior to elections so that the party-building and good governance work required to be elected or to be re-elected are put in place with that clear, strategic goal in mind. The written definition of that goal – and the map of how to get there – is the essence of any campaign plan. This manual will be used by parties big and small, established and new, as they draw a picture of their future electorate and ways to engage them effectively. This manual will also enable more women candidates to effectively run campaigns and get nominated in the face of substantial obstacles. Women’s increased nomination – and election – will be beneficial to their parties and the communities these women will represent. Different political parties offer different analyses of the problems and solutions facing society. These are the choices put before voters. But if those ideas are not communicated effectively, to the right voters, using appropriate language and through a medium in which they can be heard and acted upon, those parties’ ideas will not be represented in parliament. A campaign plan is about thinking through the component steps of a campaign to touch voters in such a way that they choose you over the other parties and candidates on offer. Many techniques are the same regardless of party, electoral system or even country. But it is in the planning – and subsequent implementation – that Malaysia’s candidates will prove to voters that choosing them is the best option to keep Malaysia on a bright and positive path to the future. This manual is dedicated to every brave soul who agreed to stand as a candidate in Malaysia in 2008, and in advance to those who will agree to stand in the elections to come. You give a great gift to your community. Go and ask voters for their support in humility, but knowing with pride that you have chosen a noble profession…the opportunity to serve your neighbor. Stephanie Lynn Jakarta, Indonesia March 2009 Page 3 of 105 POLITICAL CAMPAIGN PLANNING MANUAL Stephanie Lynn is a Senior Program Director responsible for managing NDI’s programs for Malaysia and Burma. Programs in Malaysia focus on support for parliamentary and electoral reform. The Institute's Burma program focuses on support to the democracy movement in its advocacy in Southeast Asia, Europe and the United States. Until late 2008, Stephanie directed the Institute’s political party programs in Indonesia and its women’s political participation efforts in Southeast Asia. Before moving to Indonesia in 2003, Stephanie managed similar portfolios with NDI’s Serbia program for five years. Living first in Belgrade under the Milosevic regime and then operating ground-breaking programs from neighboring Hungary, Stephanie was able to return to Serbia after the dramatic elections of October 2000. In her ten years with NDI, Stephanie has trained more than 2,000 women and men from twenty countries, across three continents. A Canadian native, Stephanie worked as the Executive Assistant to the Minister of Finance in the British Columbia government. Prior, she served for seven years as an organizer of the BC New Democratic Party (NDP), acting as a trainer and election campaign manager, during which time she also developed and delivered innovative, successful campaigns to youth voters. Stephanie, who earned a BA (Honors) in Anthropology, lives in Jakarta with her husband and their seven year old son. Telephone: +6017 322 7004 (Malaysia); +62811 933 932 (Indonesia) Email: [email protected] Page 4 of 105 POLITICAL CAMPAIGN PLANNING MANUAL CONTENTS PREFACE.........................................................................................................................................................................3 CONTENTS......................................................................................................................................................................5 INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................................................................8 STEP ONE: RESEARCH..............................................................................................................................................10 ELECTION RULES ....................................................................................................................................................11 THE DISTRICT...........................................................................................................................................................11 THE VOTERS .............................................................................................................................................................11 PAST ELECTIONS.....................................................................................................................................................11 THIS ELECTION........................................................................................................................................................12 OUR CANDIDATE.....................................................................................................................................................12 VIABLE OPPONENTS...............................................................................................................................................12 WORKSHEET 1: ASSESSING THE POLITICAL LANDSCAPE.............................................................................13 STEP TWO: SETTING A GOAL.................................................................................................................................14 WHAT IS THE TOTAL POPULATION OF THE DISTRICT? ..................................................................................14 WHAT IS THE TOTAL NUMBER OF VOTERS?.....................................................................................................14 WHAT IS THE EXPECTED TURNOUT?..................................................................................................................14 HOW MANY VOTES ARE NEEDED TO WIN? .......................................................................................................14 HOW MANY HOUSEHOLDS DO THESE VOTERS LIVE IN?...............................................................................14 BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER...............................................................................................................................15 WORKSHEET 2: SETTING A CAMPAIGN GOAL..................................................................................................15 STEP THREE: TARGETING THE VOTERS............................................................................................................16 WHAT IS TARGETING? ...........................................................................................................................................16 WHY TARGET VOTERS? .........................................................................................................................................16 CONSERVING CAMPAIGN RESOURCES............................................................................................................16 PERSUADING TARGET VOTERS .........................................................................................................................16 HOW TO TARGET VOTERS.....................................................................................................................................17 GEOGRAPHIC TARGETING.................................................................................................................................17 DEMOGRAPHIC TARGETING .............................................................................................................................18 Our Demographic Groups .................................................................................................................................................... 19 Their Demographic Groups.................................................................................................................................................. 20 PROBLEMS WITH TARGETING .............................................................................................................................20 BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER...............................................................................................................................20 Explanations ...........................................................................................................................................................21 VOTER ANALYSIS ...................................................................................................................................................21 VALUES..................................................................................................................................................................21 ATTITUDES............................................................................................................................................................21 ISSUES....................................................................................................................................................................21 LEADERSHIP QUALITIES ....................................................................................................................................22 SOCIOLOGICAL RESEARCH ...............................................................................................................................22 WORKSHEET 3: GEOGRAPHIC TARGETING.......................................................................................................22 WORKSHEET 4: DEMOGRAPHIC TARGETING ...................................................................................................22 WORKSHEET 5: BRINGING TOGETHER ALL THE TARGETING ......................................................................22 STEP FOUR: DEVELOPING THE CAMPAIGN MESSAGE .................................................................................24 CHARACTERISTICS OF A GOOD MESSAGE........................................................................................................25 A MESSAGE MUST BE SHORT.............................................................................................................................25 A MESSAGE MUST BE TRUTHFUL AND CREDIBLE ........................................................................................25 A MESSAGE MUST BE PERSUASIVE AND IMPORTANT TO VOTERS .............................................................25 A MESSAGE MUST SHOW CONTRAST................................................................................................................25 A MESSAGE MUST BE CLEAR AND SPEAK TO THE HEART ...........................................................................25 A MESSAGE MUST BE TARGETED .....................................................................................................................26 Page 5 of 105 POLITICAL CAMPAIGN PLANNING MANUAL A MESSAGE MUST BE REPEATED AGAIN AND AGAIN ...................................................................................26 WORKSHEET 6: WHY ARE YOU RUNNING FOR THIS OFFICE?.......................................................................26 WORKSHEET 7: THE MESSAGE BOX....................................................................................................................26 WHAT WE SAY ABOUT US ...................................................................................................................................27 WHAT WE SAY ABOUT THEM .............................................................................................................................27 WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT US ...............................................................................................................................27 WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT THEM .........................................................................................................................27 CREDIBILITY - RAISING YOUR CREDIBILITY WITH VOTERS AND LOWERING YOUR OPPONENTS’ CREDIBILITY WITH VOTERS.................................................................................................................................28 ISSUES AND THE CAMPAIGN MESSAGE ............................................................................................................28 Remarks of President-Elect Barack Obama: Election Night ...............................................................................29 Chicago, IL | November 04, 2008......................................................................................................................................... 29 ISSUE SELECTION ...................................................................................................................................................32 WORKSHEET 8: DETERMINING ISSUE IMPORTANCE AND POSITION..........................................................32 SOCIOLOGICAL RESEARCH AND MESSAGE DEVELOPMENT .......................................................................34 STAY ON MESSAGE.................................................................................................................................................34 STEP FIVE: DEVELOPING A VOTER CONTACT PLAN.....................................................................................36 THE RULE OF FINITE RESOURCES .......................................................................................................................36 INTERCHANGEABILITY OF RESOURCES AND METHODS..............................................................................36 EFFECTIVENESS OF YOUR VOTER CONTACT...................................................................................................37 PERSUADE TARGET VOTERS .............................................................................................................................37 GET OUT THE VOTE ............................................................................................................................................37 VOTER IDENTIFICATION ....................................................................................................................................38 TYPES OF VOTER CONTACT ACTIVITIES...........................................................................................................38 LITERATURE DROP..............................................................................................................................................39 LITERATURE HANDOUTS ...................................................................................................................................39 MAIL.......................................................................................................................................................................39 DOOR TO DOOR ...................................................................................................................................................39 PHONING ..............................................................................................................................................................40 VISIBILITY .............................................................................................................................................................41 ENDORSEMENTS ..................................................................................................................................................41 COFFEES ...............................................................................................................................................................41 FRIENDS OF A FRIEND .......................................................................................................................................41 PRESET EVENTS ...................................................................................................................................................42 CREATED EVENTS................................................................................................................................................42 EARNED MEDIA - THE PRESS.............................................................................................................................42 PAID MEDIA - TELEVISION, RADIO AND NEWSPAPER ADVERTISEMENTS ................................................43 INTERNET WEB PAGES........................................................................................................................................44 COMBINING VARIOUS METHODS .....................................................................................................................44 WORKSHEET 9: DETERMINING WHICH VOTER CONTACT METHODS TO USE ..........................................44 CREATING CAMPAIGN LITERATURE..................................................................................................................45 SINGLE TOPIC ......................................................................................................................................................46 ACTION PHOTOS..................................................................................................................................................46 HEADLINES ...........................................................................................................................................................46 BULLETED POINTS ..............................................................................................................................................46 BE SPECIFIC .........................................................................................................................................................46 BREVITY.................................................................................................................................................................46 COMMON LANGUAGE.........................................................................................................................................47 STAY ON MESSAGE ..............................................................................................................................................47 STEP SIX: MAKING IT HAPPEN ..............................................................................................................................48 THE ROLE OF THE CANDIDATE............................................................................................................................48 THE ROLE OF THE CAMPAIGN MANAGER.........................................................................................................48 CAMPAIGN PROFESSIONALS................................................................................................................................48 CAMPAIGN STRUCTURE........................................................................................................................................49 VOLUNTEERS (PEOPLE).........................................................................................................................................50 WORKSHEET 10: BUDGETING VOLUNTEERS....................................................................................................51 SCHEDULING AND CALENDAR (TIME)...............................................................................................................51 WORKSHEET 11: CALENDAR ................................................................................................................................52 Page 6 of 105 POLITICAL CAMPAIGN PLANNING MANUAL WORKSHEET 12: TIMELINE ...................................................................................................................................52 COMPUTERS .............................................................................................................................................................54 THE COORDINATED CAMPAIGN - WORKING WITH YOUR PARTY...............................................................54 MESSAGE AND INFORMATION ..........................................................................................................................55 MATERIAL DESIGN ..............................................................................................................................................55 NATIONAL MATERIALS........................................................................................................................................55 PRESS.....................................................................................................................................................................55 VISITS.....................................................................................................................................................................55 ENDORSEMENTS ..................................................................................................................................................56 BUILDING A COALITION AND OUTREACH TO CIVIC ORGANIZATIONS .....................................................56 ENDORSEMENT ....................................................................................................................................................56 MOBILIZE MEMBERSHIP ....................................................................................................................................56 PRESS EVENTS......................................................................................................................................................56 RESEARCH.............................................................................................................................................................56 PUBLIC EVENTS ...................................................................................................................................................57 OUTREACH ...........................................................................................................................................................57 RULES FOR WORKING WITH CIVIC ORGANIZATIONS ...................................................................................57 WORKSHEET 13: WORKING WITH CIVIC ORGANIZATIONS AND YOUR PARTY .......................................57 CAMPAIGN BUDGETING (MONEY 1) ...................................................................................................................57 WORKSHEET 14: DEVELOPING A BUDGET ........................................................................................................58 CAMPAIGN FUNDRAISING (MONEY 2) ...............................................................................................................58 WORKSHEET 15: DEVELOPING A FUNDRAISING PLAN ..................................................................................59 THE CONSTANT CAMPAIGN .................................................................................................................................60 CONCLUSION...............................................................................................................................................................63 APPENDIX A: A GLOSSARY OF CAMPAIGN TERMS ........................................................................................64 APPENDIX B: CAMPAIGN RESEARCH QUESTIONS..........................................................................................75 APPENDIX C: GEOGRAPHIC TARGETING METHODOLOGY ........................................................................80 APPENDIX D: ISSUES RELATED TO POLITICAL POLLING............................................................................81 APPENDIX E: DRAWING CONTRAST WITH YOUR OPPONENTS ..................................................................84 APPENDIX F: SAMPLE CAMPAIGN FORMS ........................................................................................................86 APPENDIX G: STRATEGIC CAMPAIGN PLAN TEMPLATE .............................................................................93 EVALUATION FORM................................................................................................................................................102 OTHER PUBLICATIONS AT THE NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTE ................................................103 Page 7 of 105 POLITICAL CAMPAIGN PLANNING MANUAL INTRODUCTION A political campaign can be an exciting experience. A great deal will happen between now and Election Day and with a little forethought and planning, you can be prepared for all the twists and turns and, in many cases, control the situation. This manual is designed to help you anticipate what will happen and be better prepared. While the given political landscape is an important factor in any campaign, in many cases the most important factor - the difference between winning and losing - is what goes on inside the campaign. There are three types of political campaigns that have nearly no chance to achieve victory on Election Day due to their own internal failures. The first is the campaign that does not have a persuasive message to deliver to voters and does not have a clear idea of which voters it wants to persuade. This type of campaign lacks direction from the beginning and the situation will only get worse. Second is the campaign that has a concise, persuasive message and a clear idea of which voters it can persuade but lacks a reasonable plan of what to do between now and Election Day to persuade these voters. This type of campaign wastes time, money and people as it wanders aimlessly toward Election Day. It is often distracted by the days’ events, by things the opponent's campaign does or by things the press says, spending more time reacting to outside factors than promoting its own agenda. Finally, the third kind of campaign is one that has a clear message, a clear idea of its voters and a plan to get to Election Day but it fails to follow through on the plan, not doing the hard work day after day to get elected. This is a lazy campaign that makes excuses as to why it cannot do what it knows must be done and in the end makes excuses as to why it lost. The winning political campaign is most often the one that takes the time to target voters, develops a persuasive message and follows through on a reasonable plan to contact those voters directly. This manual has been developed to assist political parties and candidates in taking these steps to become this type of winning campaign. You should read through the entire manual once so that you have some understanding of the whole process. You should then go through the manual step by step, answering all the questions and filling in all the worksheets. In this way, you will have a good start on writing a campaign plan. A written campaign plan, like the plan for building a house, defines the overall political landscape, the strategy and resources required to get to Election Day. As with construction plans, this campaign plan should serve as a guide to be referred to when questions arise. Progress can be measured against this outline. You could build a house without plans, but you would make a lot of mistakes, you would waste a lot of materials, time, and money and you probably would not be satisfied with the results. It is the same for the political campaign without a written plan. While it is true that every campaign is unique, there are some basic principles that can be applied to any election campaign. This manual is designed to help you apply these basic principles to your unique campaign. The basics of any election campaign are deceptively simple. All campaigns must repeatedly communicate a persuasive message to people who will vote. This is "the golden rule" of politics. A political campaign is a communication process - find the right message, target that message to the right group of voters, and repeat that message again and again. Page 8 of 105 POLITICAL CAMPAIGN PLANNING MANUAL Unfortunately, the actual planning process is much more difficult than simply following one rule. There is much more that goes into the process. This manual is designed to take the campaign through a step-by-step process to develop a written campaign plan. These steps include: 1. Doing the research necessary to prepare for the campaign. 2. Setting a strategic campaign goal of how many votes are needed to win. 3. Analyzing and targeting voters. 4. Developing a campaign message. 5. Developing a voter contact plan. 6. Implementing that plan. This manual cannot give you all the answers to all of the problems your campaign will face. It cannot tell you what your campaign message should be. It cannot tell you who your most likely supporters are. It cannot tell you what are the most effective methods of contacting voters in your region. What it can do is provide the questions that will help you think through the planning process in a thorough and methodical way. Therefore, the candidate, the campaign manager and all the key advisers should conduct a strategic planning meeting and go through this manual seriously and rigorously. Your strategic planning session should also result in a written campaign plan. Too often, politicians believe that they hold the winning strategy "in their heads." In reality, if the plan is not written down, there is no strategy at all and the campaign is wandering aimlessly. Or, at other times, the candidate and the campaign manager believe that they are following a single strategy, only to find out later that their opinions about the strategy are completely at odds. A written campaign plan, agreed upon by the candidate, the campaign manager and all the key advisors, avoids such problems. The rule is simple - if a plan is not written down, no plan exists. Once you have the written plan, you must follow that plan in a disciplined way. As with any plan, it is only as good as its implementation. All campaigns must be flexible to changing circumstances, but these changes should be carefully considered and weighed against the original research and strategy laid out in the plan. A political campaign is an intense experience and, when done correctly, it is also a lot of hard work. There are no tricks or short cuts to winning the confidence of the voters. A political campaign can also be an exhilarating, rewarding and fun experience. To the campaign workers, you should be commended for offering your time and skills to democracy work. To the candidates, you should be commended for stepping forward and offering your services to your community. In doing so you not only serve your community; you are contributing to the democratic process as a whole. Good luck. Page 9 of 105 POLITICAL CAMPAIGN PLANNING MANUAL STEP ONE: RESEARCH Every campaign is unique. While certain basic principles can be applied to each campaign, it is important to have a complete understanding of the particular situation and the conditions in which your campaign will be waged. At some point in almost every campaign, someone says, "it is different here" or "you're not taking into account our particular situation." "Step One: Research" is where you start and where you take into account the differences and peculiarities of each campaign. It is here that you have the chance to demonstrate just how different your situation really is. The first step in developing a winning strategy must begin with a realistic assessment of the political landscape in which you will be running. It is true that you can never know everything about your district, your opponents and the voters. However, by using your time wisely and setting clear priorities, you will be able to compile the kind of information you need to develop a good strategy and be prepared for most events in the coming campaign. There are a number of factors that should be understood as completely as possible as you prepare to write a campaign plan: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. What is the type of election and what are the rules? What are the characteristics of the district? What are the characteristics of the voters? What has happened in past elections? What are the main factors affecting this election? What are the strengths and weaknesses of your candidate? What are the strengths and weaknesses of all the viable opponents? Each of these points can be expanded into many more questions (as shown below and in Appendix B). You will know the answers to some questions immediately and others will require some research. In some cases, you may have to take an educated guess about the answer to a particular question, but you should do this only as a last resort. It is important for the campaign team to take some time to research the answers to as many of these questions as possible. If you have a large, reliable campaign team, you may want to assign different sections to different members of the team. They can then report their findings to the campaign manager who will be responsible for writing the final campaign plan. Either alone or as a team, it is important that you set and stick to a time limit for doing the research. There will always be more information you can gather, but this will only delay the use of the information you already have in developing your strategy. In some cases, this type of research may benefit from more scientific methods of obtaining the data, such as political polling or focus groups. You will need to determine what resources are available to you and whether they are worth the expense of time and/or money. In small, local races paying for a poll could cost as much as the whole campaign and therefore should not be considered. On a larger campaign where thousands of ringgit will be spent on advertising, you would be foolish not to spend a fraction of that amount to see if the message of that advertising will work. Appendix B provides a detailed list of the following questions. You are encouraged to answer all of these questions carefully. While a few particular questions may not apply to your race, the complete list is designed to make you think about what is needed to develop a clear strategy. Page 10 of 105 POLITICAL CAMPAIGN PLANNING MANUAL ELECTION RULES It is important to first determine the type of election in which you will be running and what will be the rules of the election. Much of the basic strategy depends on this information. Is this a legislative office you are seeking or an executive office? Do you need a majority of the votes to win or a plurality? Will there be a runoff election? In Malaysia, the answer is straightforward; it is the first-past-the-post system, but you will still need to determine your strategy based on the number of candidates and their relative expected strength. You should definitely research the laws and, if they are complicated, you may want to ask your political party or a lawyer to draft a memo outlining the most important points. Missing a deadline or violating some part of the law could end your campaign before it has even begun. THE DISTRICT Once you have determined the basic election rules, you should start to gather as much information on the district and the voters as possible. How large is the district in which you will be running? What type of terrain will you have to cover as you campaign? What type of transportation will you and the voters need to use? How has the population of the district changed recently? You need to understand the political landscape in which you will be operating. Who are the important political players in the area? How strong are the various political parties in the area? Who are the civic and business leaders that can influence the campaign? Winning the support of a particularly influential leader in the community can often make the campaign much easier. You also must understand how voters get their information. What are the local media outlets? Who are the reporters and what are their deadlines? How will the election be covered and how does the press view the various candidates? To develop a comprehensive press strategy, it is important to have as much information on the media as possible. THE VOTERS You will need to break the voters in your district into manageable groups. This is the basis you will later use to develop a strategy for targeting particular voters. The following are some of the questions you may want to consider. Is there a voter file or accurate list of all possible voters available to the campaign? What support is there for various political parties? What is the demographic composition of the voters? For example, what are the income levels, education levels, professions, ethnic backgrounds, religious backgrounds, age, gender, etc.? Where do people work, shop and play? What is the geographic break down of the voters? What percentage or how many people live in the city, in the rural areas or in small villages? Do the voters live in single-family homes or apartments? How would you describe your supporters and those voters you hope to persuade? Voters with similar characteristics may have similar interests and may tend to vote the same way. Seniors will be less interested in schools and more interested in pensions while young mothers will be more interested in schools and less interested in pensions. By determining how many senior citizens there are and how many young mothers there are, you will be better able to target your message to groups that matter to your success. PAST ELECTIONS Often you can gain valuable information about this election by looking at information from past elections. Who ran for this position in your constituency in past elections and what were the results? How many voters turned out for similar elections in the past? How many votes were needed to win? You may be able to use this type of information to predict the turnout and baseline Page 11 of 105 POLITICAL CAMPAIGN PLANNING MANUAL levels of support in this election. How did candidates with similar backgrounds and messages fair in past elections? Did your parties’ candidate(s) run effective campaigns or make mistakes that influenced the level of support received? Similarly, did your opponents run effective or ineffective campaigns in the past? These questions will help you measure the potential for growth over the last election. You will want this type of information later when you determine what worked for them and what you will have to do differently to do better than they did. THIS ELECTION Next you should look at the factors that will affect this election, namely the various issues that concern voters and other political campaigns, which are being waged in the area. What local, regional or national issues are important to voters? What will motivate voters to go to the polls? How would you describe the voter mood? What other races will be on the same ballot? Will candidates in other races help or hurt your campaign? Is there the opportunity to work with other campaigns in a coordinated manner? What effect will other campaigns have on the election? Your relationship with your party and other candidates on the same ticket will affect your strategy. Your campaign's message should complement, or at least not contradict, the other messages. OUR CANDIDATE The most important factor in your election will be the candidate. During your strategic planning session, you should honestly and candidly judge the strengths and weaknesses of your candidate. As you do this exercise, you should also look at your candidate from the point of view of your opponent. What you may view as a fresh new face with new ideas, your opponent may view as a lack of experience. You may want to organize your assessment into various sections, such as the candidate's childhood, education, work history, immediate family, and past political positions. It is important to look for both strengths and weaknesses in all of these areas. By finding weaknesses early, the campaign will be better prepared to deal with them and respond to charges that may come up later in the campaign. Too many candidates have lost because they refused to deal with past mistakes and were caught off guard when their opponents painted the picture of their mistakes in a very unflattering light. VIABLE OPPONENTS Once you have determined your own candidate's strengths and weaknesses, the next logical step is to repeat the process for your opponents'. If you are facing several opponents, you should determine which ones are your strongest competitors for the loyalty of voters you hope to attract. Again, you can organize your assessment into various sections and look for both strengths and weaknesses. Your opponents will not be forthcoming with information about themselves. You will probably need to do some digging to find reasons for voters to vote against them and for your candidate. Too often candidates and campaigns view opposition research as looking for the one scandal that will finish off their opponent's campaign. This may happen, but more often what you find is patterns of behavior that you can use to persuade voters to either vote against your opponent or for you. You will use this to create a contrast between your candidate and campaign and your opponents' campaign when you develop your message, but this process is the basis for finding that contrast. Page 12 of 105 POLITICAL CAMPAIGN PLANNING MANUAL The other mistake campaigns often make, is saying that they do not want to wage a negative campaign. Researching your opponent and waging a negative campaign are two entirely different things. By not taking the time and doing the hard work of opposition research, you forfeit the ability to be prepared for what your opponent will say and do and to build the contrast between yourself and your opponent. As you gather your opposition research, you must be extremely well organized: list the sources of your documentation, and have a system in place that will allow you to quickly access the information. It will do no good to know something and not be able to provide backup of the information. All of this research should be gathered together in a binder for easy referral and referenced for easy tracking. Being meticulous and organized now will save a lot of time and energy later. WORKSHEET 1: ASSESSING THE POLITICAL LANDSCAPE 1. Set aside a few hours for you and your campaign team to do a comprehensive analysis of the political landscape in which your campaign will be operating. Everyone should have a copy of the questionnaire in "Appendix B: Campaign Research Questions." 2. Answer as many of the questions as possible. If you do not have the answers immediately available, determine where the information can be found and who will be responsible for gathering it. It is important to set a deadline for finding the information. You may want to have a second meeting of the campaign team in a week's time to bring together all the information. Once you have compiled all the research, create a notebook that will provide the details in an organized fashion and draft a summary of the information that will be used as the basis for your strategy and the written campaign plan. 3. Page 13 of 105 POLITICAL CAMPAIGN PLANNING MANUAL STEP TWO: SETTING A GOAL The ultimate goal of almost every political campaign is to win elected office. What you need to do here is determine what must be done to achieve that victory. Too often campaigns forget to calculate how many votes will be needed to guarantee victory and determining where these votes will come from. They then spend their precious resources of time, money and people trying to talk to the whole population instead of the much fewer voters they will actually need to win. Here you will reduce the number of voters with whom you need to communicate to a much more manageable size. As part of your research, you should determine the total population of your district, the total number of voters, the expected votes cast, the number of votes needed to win and the number of households in which these voters live. Some of the answers that are needed here require you to look into the future and make some educated guesses. Use your best judgment and the information you have found from past elections. WHAT IS THE TOTAL POPULATION OF THE DISTRICT? "Total population" is all the people who live in your district. Considering children too young to vote and people not registered in the district, this number should be larger than the total number of voters. WHAT IS THE TOTAL NUMBER OF VOTERS? "Total number of voters" is all the voters in the district who are eligible to vote and can possibly vote in this election. WHAT IS THE EXPECTED TURNOUT? "Expected turnout" is the expected votes cast in this election. Not every voter will vote. Often you can determine how many voters will vote by looking at past similar elections. If there was 70% turn out in the last general election and there are no added factors to change the situation, you might figure that about 70% would vote in the next general election. If on the other hand, there are to be changes, you may want to estimate a different percentage of voters will turn out the next round, possibly between 75% and 80%. In the case of Malaysia, changes are already taking place with a few by-elections garnering more voter percentage than the last general election. HOW MANY VOTES ARE NEEDED TO WIN? This is a very speculative number. What you are looking for is the total number of votes needed to guarantee victory in your race. Again, in the case of Malaysia, you need a majority of the votes to win. This would be 50% of turnout plus one vote or less if there are more than two candidates. How many actual votes will guarantee your victory? You should be conservative and err on the side of too many votes rather than too few. HOW MANY HOUSEHOLDS DO THESE VOTERS LIVE IN? You can reduce this group yet again. On average, let us say that there are two voters per household. Some families may have three or four voters living in the same house. Some voters may be single and live alone. Now, if you think that a husband and wife are likely to vote the same way (although they don’t always), you can sometimes assume that if you talk to one member of the family, than you can expect to get the second vote. So, how many households will you need to communicate with to receive the number of votes needed to win? Page 14 of 105 POLITICAL CAMPAIGN PLANNING MANUAL BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER How does all this come together? Let us say that your constituency has a population of 70,000 people. Of this population, there are 20,000 children below voting age and other non-registered voters, leaving a total number of 50,000 voters. In the last general election in the constituency, there was 75% turnout of voters, or 37,500 votes cast. You assume it will be the same next round. Your target is 50% plus one vote or 18,751 votes. However, if there is a third (or even more) candidates, you will need some number lower than this. If you figure an average of two voters per household, this would come to about 9,380 households. Let’s round up the figure to 19,000 voters and 10,000 households. Now, you cannot assume that every voter you talk with will be persuaded to vote for you. So you should plan to communicate with a larger number of voters in order to receive the votes from 19,000 voters or 10,000 households. Suppose you persuade seven out of every 10 voters you communicate with to vote for you (however, in your campaign the proportion may be substantially less than that). In this scenario, you will need to talk to 54,000 voters or 13,000 households in order to be assured of support from 17,000 voters or 8,500 households (28,000 x 0.7 = 19,600 and 15,000 x 0.7 = 10,500). It is still a lot easier to talk with and try to persuade 15,000 families than it is to talk to and try and persuade 37,500. This whole process is narrowing the group of people you need to persuade down to a much smaller size. WORKSHEET 2: SETTING A CAMPAIGN GOAL Using your research information and your best judgment, answer the following questions and incorporate the answers into your written campaign plan: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. How many people (not just voters) live in your district? How many of these people are able to vote in this election? What percentage of these voters do you expect to vote in this election? How many expected voters is this in real numbers? How many candidates will be running for this position? How many of these candidates could be considered serious? If the election were held today, what percentage of the vote do you think each candidate would receive? What percentage of the votes cast will be needed to win? How many votes cast in real numbers are needed to win? On average, how many voters live in one household? Do these voters living in the same household all tend to vote for the same candidate? If they do tend to vote for the same candidate, how many households will you need to receive the support of to guarantee victory? If you talk to ten average voters, how many can you persuade to vote for you? How many households will you need to communicate with for your message to reach enough voters to achieve victory? Page 15 of 105 POLITICAL CAMPAIGN PLANNING MANUAL STEP THREE: TARGETING THE VOTERS WHAT IS TARGETING? Once you decide how many votes you need to win and, therefore how many voters you need to persuade to support your candidate, you need to determine what makes these voters different from other voters who will not support your candidate. This process is called "targeting the voters" or simply "targeting." The point of targeting is to determine which subsets of the voting population are most likely to be responsive to your candidate and focusing your campaign efforts on these groups of voters. You will remember when you worked on "Step One: Research," you were asked to break voters down into more manageable groups. It was said then that you would use this information when you targeted particular voters. That time has come. WHY TARGET VOTERS? Targeting is important for two reasons. First, you want to conserve those precious campaign resources of time, money and people, and second, you want to develop a message that will best persuade those voters you still need to convince to vote for you. CONSERVING CAMPAIGN RESOURCES If you develop literature for everyone in the district and try to shake the hand of every voter in the district, then you are wasting a lot of money and a lot of time on people who will not vote for you no matter what you say or do. If, on the other hand, you can identify a smaller but significant group of voters who will most likely be persuaded by your campaign message. You will then be able concentrate your efforts on them and you will have more resources to repeat your message over and over again, until it seems that they have no choice but to vote for your candidate. Suppose, for example, that you decide that you need to communicate with 33% of the voters to win. If you could identify exactly which voters were most likely to deliver that 33%, then your campaign could reach them with one-third of the resources that you would need for an untargeted campaign. Put another way, if your campaign had the resources to reach every voter in the district one time, you could instead target your efforts to reach your most likely supporters three times. Candidates that do not take the time to target their voters have lost the right to complain about scarce campaign resources. PERSUADING TARGET VOTERS In the next section a good bit of time will be spent discussing your campaign message. Before that however, you need to determine who the best audience for that message will be. This will help you determine what you can say that is likely to persuade them. An important rule to remember is that as a party or candidate tries to reach a broader and broader audience, then that party's or candidate's message becomes diffused and weaker for each part of that audience. Ultimately, the party or candidate that promises everything to everybody has an empty message that no voter will find credible or compelling. The goal of targeting, therefore, should be to focus your campaign effort on a range of voters that can deliver approximately the same number of votes that you set as your campaign goal in Step Two. If your target audience is too narrow, you will not attract enough votes to win. If your target Page 16 of 105 POLITICAL CAMPAIGN PLANNING MANUAL audience is too broad, your message will become diffused, and candidates with better focus will steal parts of the message - and the electorate - from you. Generally speaking, there are three types of voters: your supporters, your opponents' supporters and those voters in the middle who have yet to make up their minds. Your supporters are those who have already decided to vote for you. Your opponents' supporters are those who have already decided to vote for your opponents. Those voters in the middle who have not yet decided and still need to be persuaded to vote for one or the other candidates are called “persuadable voters”. It is some portion of these persuadable voters who you want to target and with whom you want to communicate your message. Remember that a political campaign is a communication process. HOW TO TARGET VOTERS Once you have determined that you need to persuade only about half of the electorate or less to vote for your candidate, you need to figure out what makes your potential voters different from the others. There are two ways to determine this: geographic targeting and demographic targeting. Most campaigns will use some combination of both methods. GEOGRAPHIC TARGETING Geographic targeting is simply determining who will vote for your candidate based on where they live. For example, let us say that candidate "A" lives in town "A" and is well known and liked by her neighbors. Candidate "B" lives in town "B" and is well known and liked by his neighbors. Most of candidate "A's" supporters are going to come from town "A" and she needs to go to town "C" to persuade those residents who are not already committed to a candidate in the race that she is the best candidate. She would be foolish and wasting her time to go to town "B" and try to persuade those residents and neighbors of candidate "B" to vote for her. This is a very simple example, though there are elections where the targeting is that easy. More often the campaign will have to look at past elections to determine past performance, the persuadability of the voters and the expected turnout. This can best be done where data can be obtained for past elections down to the precinct level (the smallest geographic area in which votes are cast and tabulated). Past performance is the percentage of votes that your candidate, your party or a similar candidate received in past elections. Precincts with high performance contain your most likely supporters. In theory, a campaign should not spend resources on very high-performance precincts; after all, it makes little sense to try to persuade voters who will already vote for you. However, most candidates should some spend resources in areas with a history of voting for your candidates and party in order to solidify their base of support before reaching out to other potential supporters. These areas will also generate volunteers and donations for the campaign, if asked. The persuadability of voters is the percentage of voters in a precinct that do not vote in a consistent way. It is the difference in percentage of votes for similar candidates either in the same election or two consecutive elections. Voters either "split" their vote (vote for candidates of different orientations in the same election) or "shift" their vote (vote for candidates of different orientations over the course of two or more elections). In a Malaysian context, "vote splitting" constituencies would be constituencies that voted for one party or candidate at the state level and a different party or candidate at the parliamentary level on the same day in March 2008; such as Democratic Action Party (DAP) for parliament but Barisan Nasional (BN) for state. "Vote shifting" constituencies would be constituencies that voted, for example, for BN in March 2004 but then voted for DAP in March 2008; or who voted for BN in the Page 17 of 105 POLITICAL CAMPAIGN PLANNING MANUAL Kuala Terengganu parliamentary seat in the 2008 general election but voted for the Islamic Party of Malaysia (PAS) in the January 2009 by-election for the same seat. It is generally considered that "vote splitters" and the "vote shifters" are the voters most likely to be persuaded by a campaign's efforts. Because of this, most campaigns spend the majority of their effort - posters, door to door, etc. - in constituencies with high persuadability. This strategy makes sense. Expected turnout can be determined by the percentage of voters who turned out in the most recent similar election. It makes no sense to spend campaign resources on people who will not vote, so your campaign should spend more resources on precincts with a history of higher turnout. Appendix C provides a more detailed look at the methodology used for measuring a precinct's "turnout," "performance" and "persuadability." You will need to determine which formulas make the most sense in the context of your region or election. Once you have decided upon a formula, you can do the math or enter the state-level at the parliament level (or the voting district-level for the stats-level) voting data into a computer spreadsheet and determine for each precinct a level of turnout, performance, and persuadability. You will then be able to rank your parliament's state votes, as in the following example of the Kuala Terengganu by-election in January 2009 with a total turnout of 79.73%: State Constituency Total Votes Turnout PAS’s Performance (As an average of similar parties) 56.16% 50.58% 51.46% 52,60% 7.64% Persuadability (Percentage that sometimes votes for PAS) >7% >1% >5% >5% <90% Wakaf Mempelam Bandar Ladang Batu Buruk * POSTAL VOTES 16,727 13,750 12,213 19,320 1,125 *In the Malaysian context, postal votes denote voters who are military and police personnel. The voting trend is usually for the government of the day, although officially the military and police personnel are free to choose. Your campaign should plan different tactics for different types of precincts. In this example, the plan may call for a lot of posters or a series of rallies in state constituencies such as the Malaydominated areas. On the other hand, the candidate may want to personally go door-to-door in precincts like Bandar with a higher number of Chinese ethnic voters who reportedly tend to need a higher level of persuasion. DEMOGRAPHIC TARGETING Demographic targeting is splitting the voting population into various groups or subsets of the population. These groups can be based on age, gender, income, level of education, occupation, Page 18 of 105 POLITICAL CAMPAIGN PLANNING MANUAL ethnic background or any other distinct grouping. The point of breaking the population down like this is that similar people are likely to have similar concerns and vote for the same candidate. We can then mix groups into cross-sets or break them down further into subsets of subsets. For example, breaking the population down by gender may give you roughly 50% of population for men and for women (do not assume this is always the case). Working women would be a smaller subset of women. Working women with children would be an even smaller subset of working women. Working women with children are likely to have very particular concerns about childcare that, if your candidate addresses, is liable to persuade a large percentage of them to vote for you. The trick here is for the group not to be so small as to be insignificant. Left-handed concert violin players have specific concerns as well (they are constantly jostled by right handed concert violin players), but winning both of the left-handed concert violin players’ votes will not move you much closer toward victory! While geographic targeting looks specifically at where people live and their past voting results, demographic targeting also includes a discussion of where you find these people who have similar demographics. For example, where do working women with children gather? Where do they get their information? Where might be go to find this demographic group in order to communicate our message to them? Equally important in identifying which demographic groups we want to target is the discussion of where we can find them. Childcare centres at drop off and pick up time is one example of where we could find working women with children. Or at schools. Or in Parent-Teacher Associations. Or in business women’s associations. Our Demographic Groups Often when determining which groups will be persuaded to vote for a candidate, you should look for groups to which the candidate belongs. Say the candidate is a 38-year-old, college educated small businessman, married with a son and a daughter in school, living in the largest city in the district. His target groups are going to be young people between the ages of 25 and 40, small business people, and parents with school age children. He is less likely to appeal to groups of the voting population to which he does not belong. This occurs because voters tend to look for candidates that they believe understand them and the problems they face. He will have less appeal to pensioners, workers with less education, and farmers from the rural part of the district whose problems are different than the one he faces directly. If there are enough votes in his target groups to win and he is the best candidate to appeal to these voters, then he need only to communicate a persuadable message to this group throughout the campaign to win. There are two elements that can make this targeting less effective. First, if the demographic groups he chooses are too small. Second, if there are other candidates with similar backgrounds who are appealing to the same group. In both cases, if another candidate is also appealing to this same group or it is not a large enough part of the population to provide the margin of victory, then the campaign needs to look to collateral groups or those groups nearest in interests for further support. In the above example he may want to expand his message to include people with a higher education (usually professionals). He would want to broaden his message to appeal to teachers and doctors, which may work nicely with his message to parents with school age children. The point of all of this targeting is to do the math and figure out how many voters in a particular group can be reasonably expected to consider voting for the candidate if they hear a message that addresses their concerns. You shouldn't expect to win 100% of the vote of any population but if, with a little effort, you can expect to receive 6 or 7 out of every 10 votes cast, then this is a group of voters with whom you should be in touch. Page 19 of 105 POLITICAL CAMPAIGN PLANNING MANUAL You will not be able to come up with very precise numbers for these groups (politics, after all, is an art, not a science). However, going through this exercise and determining numbers for your subsets and cross-sets will help you determine whether your targeting strategy is realistic or not. Their Demographic Groups An important part of demographic targeting is determining which demographic groups will not be part of your targeted audience. During your strategic planning session you should, for example, state explicitly "we will not target government workers" or "we will not target young entrepreneurs." This exercise will help you avoid the trap of defining too wide a targeted audience. It is often easy to determine which demographic groups you are willing to “give” to your opponents once you have decided which groups are yours. They are the opposite of the groups that you consider to be your best target groups. For example, older male pensioners are going to have the least in common with young working mothers, so if you have targeted one group, you will most likely leave the other group to your opponents. It would be very difficult for one campaign or candidate to develop a message that will persuade both groups that you have their interests at heart when they have seemingly contradictory sets of priorities or needs. PROBLEMS WITH TARGETING Again, demographic targeting is not a precise science; even in the best of circumstances, definitions of demographic subsets are fuzzy and overlap with one another. They can be made more difficult by three factors: 1. 2. 3. A large number of candidates in each race, which forces candidates to consider groups from which they will receive much less than half the vote. The lack of available, accurate demographic data. The undeveloped self-identification of individuals as having specific interests based on their demographic characteristics. Nevertheless, it is important to do this exercise and look at these issues. Many candidates in the past have lost largely due to a failure to define a target audience. Candidates, when asked to identify their audience tended to respond either 1) by naming every demographic subset imaginable, or 2) by saying, for example, "I represent the intelligentsia." In the first instance, they had no target audience because their target audience was everybody. In the second, their target audience was simply too small to bring them victory (the intelligentsia is a relatively minor part of the voting population and is, moreover, claimed by virtually every democratically-oriented party). BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER The following chart provides one model of how to relate targeting to your campaign efforts: Likely Voter Likely Supporter A Solidify Support Base Potential Voter D Focus on Motivating to Vote E Secondary focus for persuasion Non-Voter G Possible motivation effort (last priority) H No Program Potential Supporter B Primary focus for message communication and persuasion Page 20 of 105 POLITICAL CAMPAIGN PLANNING MANUAL Unlikely to Support C Possible Communication (low priority) F No Program I No Program Explanations Box A: People who are most likely to vote and are most likely to support you are your base of support. You should, first of all, plan activities to solidify this support. Box B: Likely voters who are potential supporters are your number one target for your persuasion efforts. Spare no effort on these voters. Box C: Do not spend too much time on people who aren't likely to support you. In fact, your activities may make it more likely that they will go to the polls and vote for your opponents. Box D: Likely supporters who are only potential voters must be persuaded to vote. Target these people with motivational messages and a strong Election Day push to make sure as many of them as possible vote. Box E: Potential voters and supporters are important but not crucial. Focus on them only after you've communicated with Boxes A and B. Box G: Possible target for motivational efforts. But do not spend scarce campaign resources here until you've thoroughly covered the boxes above or if you need these votes to win. Your time, money and people would be better spent above. Boxes F, H, and I: Do not waste efforts on these voters. VOTER ANALYSIS Having determined a target audience for your campaign, you should make an effort to understand the members of this target audience thoroughly. The four areas you should analyze are values, attitudes, issues and desire for leadership qualities. VALUES What are the core values that unite the voters in your target audience? For example, which do they value more: Social protection or economic opportunity? Societal order or personal freedom? Stability or reform? Peace or police security? What values do they share with the rest of the population? What values set them apart from the rest of the population? ATTITUDES Are voters optimistic or pessimistic about the future? Are they trustful or mistrustful of government and other social institutions? Do they feel better off or worse off now than in the past? Do they want change or stability? ISSUES What are the important issues that will make voters sit up and take notice of this election? Generally, you should know whether voters are more concerned about economic issues, social issues, or foreign policy issues. Examples of more specific questions to ask might include the following: Is controlling crime more important or less important than it was in the past? Will your position on business investment be important in this election, or will no one care? Page 21 of 105 POLITICAL CAMPAIGN PLANNING MANUAL LEADERSHIP QUALITIES What qualities do voters most want to see in their leaders? Are they looking for stable, experienced leadership, or do they want someone young and dynamic who will shake up the establishment? Would they prefer leaders from the intelligentsia, or do they want leaders who can relate to the concerns of the common person? SOCIOLOGICAL RESEARCH Whenever possible, your voter targeting and analysis should be tested through solid sociological research. Campaigns that are not based on solid research are like drivers at night without headlights. They often do not see what is right in front of them until it is too late. Most politicians everywhere believe that they have a natural gift for understanding "the people." They believe that they know, without doing research, what issues to discuss, what values to invoke, and what concerns to address in order to attract the interest of their voters. They are often surprised either by the results of a political poll or by the results on Election Day. Most political activists use two types of sociological research to help them plan their campaign strategies: focus groups and political polling. Focus groups are designed to gain qualitative knowledge about the values, attitudes and concerns of voters, while political polling is used to gain quantitative knowledge. The theory and methodology of sociological research is beyond the scope of this document, however there are some materials on polling included in Appendix D. WORKSHEET 3: GEOGRAPHIC TARGETING Answer the following questions to determine the geographic targeting for your campaign: 1. 2. 3. 4. Where do all the candidates live? Are there any distinct geographic areas of support for any particular candidate? What are the past performances of similar candidates in each precinct of the district? What is the level of persuadability of voters in each precinct of the district? What is the expected turnout of each precinct of the district? WORKSHEET 4: DEMOGRAPHIC TARGETING Answer the following questions to determine the demographic targeting for your campaign: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. What are the demographic profiles (age, gender, profession, education, etc.) of all the viable candidates, including your candidate? What demographic groups should support your candidate? Are there enough votes within these groups to win the election? Where do these demographic groups gather? How do they get their information? Are there other candidates appealing to the same demographic groups? What demographic groups will you concede to your opponents? What collateral groups might you appeal to if need be? WORKSHEET 5: BRINGING TOGETHER ALL THE TARGETING Answer the following questions and incorporate the answers into your written campaign plan: 1. List all the likely supporters, both geographically and demographically. Page 22 of 105 POLITICAL CAMPAIGN PLANNING MANUAL 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. List all the potential supporters, both geographically and demographically. List all the unlikely supporters that you will concede to your opponents. What are the values of both likely and potential supporters? significant way? What are their attitudes? What issues concern these voters? What leadership qualities are they looking for? Which of the answers to questions 4 through 7 are likely to be the most important factors influencing your target voters in this election? Do they differ in any Page 23 of 105 POLITICAL CAMPAIGN PLANNING MANUAL STEP FOUR: DEVELOPING THE CAMPAIGN MESSAGE WHAT IS A MESSAGE? Once you have decided who your target audience is, you need to decide what you will say to persuade them to vote for you. This is your campaign message. It tells the voters why you are running for this particular office and why they should choose you over your opponents for the same office. Sounds simple, doesn't it? Well, once again, it is deceptively complicated. For example, let us start off by saying what a message is not. A campaign message is not the candidate's program of what they will do if elected, it is not a list of the issues the candidate will address, and it is not a simple, catchy phrase or slogan. All of these things can be part of a campaign message, depending on whether or not they will persuade voters, but they should not be confused with the message, a simple statement that will be repeated over and over throughout the campaign to persuade your target voters. WHAT VOTERS CARE ABOUT AND HOW THEY GET THEIR INFORMATION There are two important things you need to remember about voters. The first is what is important to them and the second is their sources of information. Take a minute to think, what are the most important issues in the average voters' minds? Their list of priorities is probably something like the following: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. How are they getting along with their husband, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend or whatever? How are their children or parents doing, either in school or in life? How are they doing in their jobs or whether or not they will have enough money to get by? How is their football team doing, why do they keep losing and will they will be able to see the next game? What is their favorite celebrity starring in next and when can they see it? Who should they vote for in the election tomorrow? The point is that you and your election campaign are pretty low in the average voter's list of priorities and rightly so. All of the other things higher on the list will have much more direct impact on their lives in the very short term and, with a little attention from them, they too will have much more impact on those things. The second thing to remember is that voters are being bombarded with information everyday. They get news on television and the radio, they get reports at work, they get advertisements all the time, and they hear that juicy piece of gossip about the neighbor down the street. Candidates think that their competition is the other person running for the same office, when in reality their competition for the voter's attention is all the other sources of information the voter receive everyday. Your campaign message has to break through that thick wall of other information. So, while candidates and campaign workers are spending hours and hours, days and days, months and months, thinking about, worrying about, doing something about this campaign, voters will give you a minute or two of their precious time and attention. You must not waste it. Advertising companies understand all this. That is why they come up with a clear, concise message and spend a lot of money making sure their target audience sees, hears and tastes that message as many times as possible. You must do the same thing. You can spend hours and hours writing the most thoughtful position papers and newsletter articles, but if the voters throw them away in 15 seconds, if no one reads them, you are wasting your time. Page 24 of 105 POLITICAL CAMPAIGN PLANNING MANUAL This said, you should have the greatest respect for voters. They can see through an insincere message quicker than the politician can say it. CHARACTERISTICS OF A GOOD MESSAGE There are a number of criteria that make up a strong message. A MESSAGE MUST BE SHORT Voters have very little patience for listening to long-winded politicians. If you cannot effectively deliver your message to a voter in less than one minute, then you will surely lose that voter's attention and probably their vote. A MESSAGE MUST BE TRUTHFUL AND CREDIBLE The message needs to come from the values, practices, policies and history of the candidate. It cannot be inconsistent with the candidate's background. In addition, your message should be believable; candidates who make unrealistic promises simply add to voter apathy. Voters must believe what you say, both about yourself and what you will do, is true. It is therefore critically important to backup your statements with evidence of experience or knowledge from your personal past. Saying you understand a problem or issue without demonstrating why or how you understand it is a waste of your time and the voters' time. A MESSAGE MUST BE PERSUASIVE AND IMPORTANT TO VOTERS You must talk about topics that are important to your target audience. These topics will often be problems that voters face everyday in their lives, not issues that politicians think are important to public policy. Voters are more likely to support candidates that talk to them about their jobs, their children's education or their pension then a candidate that talks about the budget, even though the budget may deal with all of these things. Remember you are trying to convince the voter that you are the best candidate to represent them and persuade them to do something, namely vote for you. A MESSAGE MUST SHOW CONTRAST Voters must make a choice between you and other candidates. You need to make it clear to the voters how you are different from the other candidates in the race by contrasting yourself with them. If every candidate stands for economic development and social security, then voters will have no way of making a clear choice. If, on the other hand, you support tax cuts for this particular industry and your opponents do not, then the voters will have a very clear choice. Filling out the message box, which will be discussed in some detail later, will help with developing a clear contrast. Appendix E also provides some advice on how to draw a clear contrast with your opponent. A MESSAGE MUST BE CLEAR AND SPEAK TO THE HEART Your message must be delivered in language the voters use and understand easily. Too often politicians want to impress the voters with how smart they are, using technical words that either the voters do not understand or have no real meaning for them. You do not want to make the voting public have to work to understand what you are talking about. Creating a visual image in the minds of voters is much better. Talk about people, things and real life situations to describe abstract ideas, such as "economic policy." Page 25 of 105 POLITICAL CAMPAIGN PLANNING MANUAL Politics is an emotional business and politicians who appeal to the hearts of voters generally defeat those who appeal to their heads. This does not mean that you should abandon the intellectual basis of your party or candidacy or that you should underestimate the intelligence of the voter. This means that you must find a way to tie your campaign message to the core values of your voters and make it clear that you understand the problems they face everyday. A MESSAGE MUST BE TARGETED As discussed in "Step Three: Targeting the Voters," if your campaign message speaks to everyone, then in reality, it speaks to no one. The people who will vote for you are different from those who will not vote for you and both groups have different concerns. Your campaign must determine what these differences are and address your message to your likely supporters. In many cases, voters just need clear information about who really represents their interests. If they have that information, they will vote for that person. Politicians often fail to provide that clear information. They seem to expect voters to either somehow know it without being told or wade through everything the politician says to figure it out. A MESSAGE MUST BE REPEATED AGAIN AND AGAIN Once your campaign determines what message will persuade your target voters to vote for your candidate, then you must repeat that same message at every opportunity. Voters are not paying attention to your campaign. Just because you say something does not mean they are listening or will remember what you said. For your message to register with the voters, they have to hear the same message many times in many different ways. So, if you change your message, you are only confusing the voters. WORKSHEET 6: WHY ARE YOU RUNNING FOR THIS OFFICE? 1. Make a list of all the reasons why voters should vote for your candidate or your party. 2. Now, choosing the most compelling reasons from above, write a brief statement about your candidate. This should be the answer to the question "why are you running for this office?" or "why should I support you?" Now, read the statement aloud and time yourself. You must be able to complete the statement in less than one minute. If you go over a minute, you must trim your message. Takeout any long phrases or explanations. Remember that voters will not be paying attention to all of your ten-minute speech. Grade your message against the above criteria. Is it credible and truthful? Do you backup your statements with personal experience from your past? Are you talking about things that will be important to your target voters? If you are running over one minute, then there are probably a lot of useless words and phrases that you can delete. Do you offer a clear choice between your candidate and your major opponents? Now rewrite your statement, taking into account those things you missed the first time. You still must keep your message under one minute. As you write and rewrite this statement, as you begin using it as you talk to voters, it will continue to improve. 3. 4. 5. WORKSHEET 7: THE MESSAGE BOX The American political strategist Paul Tully designed the following exercise to help candidates design their messages and think through their election strategies methodically and thoroughly. He called this exercise the "message box." The message box requires candidates not only to determine Page 26 of 105 POLITICAL CAMPAIGN PLANNING MANUAL what they will be saying during the campaign, but also how they will respond to their opponents' attacks. On a large piece of paper or a chalkboard, draw the following graph: What We Say About Us What We Say About Them What They Say About Us What They Say About Them Now fill in each box with as much information as possible. WHAT WE SAY ABOUT US How do the candidate and the campaign define themselves? This quadrant is filled with all the positive things the campaign wants the voters to know about your candidate. This is mostly the information you put down in Worksheet 6. WHAT WE SAY ABOUT THEM How does your campaign define your various opponents? This quadrant is filled with all the negative things the campaign would want the voters to think about your opponents, the reasons why voters should not vote for them. You may not say these things directly, but you should at least know what they are. WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT US In this quadrant the campaign must begin to view your candidate and campaign from the point of view of your major opponents. What would the opponents want the voters to think about your candidate and why, in their opinion, should the voters not vote for your candidate? WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT THEM As you continue to view your campaign through the eyes of your major opponents, now look at how they would define themselves. Why, in your opponents' opinion, should voters vote for them? If done correctly, the complete message box should outline everything that could possibly be said during the election campaign by both your candidate and all of your major opponents. This includes things that may go unsaid or charges made by implication. For example, if you say that you are the more experienced candidate, by implication you are saying your opponents lack experience. By saying you are honest, you can imply that your opponents are corrupt. Your opponents can do this to your candidate as well. If, for example, when they say that they care about education, they are implying that you do not care about education. How will you respond to their charges, both stated and implied? Often the difficulty is putting yourself in the role of your opponents and view your opponents positively and yourself negatively. Remember, just because your opponents say it does not mean that it has to be true. The real question is what will voters believe? If you do not respond to what they say, the voters may take your opponent’s information as the truth. Page 27 of 105 POLITICAL CAMPAIGN PLANNING MANUAL The other important part of this exercise is to have answers for the possible charges your opponents will say about you. If they attack you or blame you for something in one of their boxes, how do you respond in your boxes? CREDIBILITY - RAISING YOUR CREDIBILITY WITH VOTERS AND LOWERING YOUR OPPONENTS’ CREDIBILITY WITH VOTERS As you consider your message and develop the contrast with your opponents, you should keep in mind that what you want to accomplish in the end is to have more credibility with your target voters than you opponents have. In other words, you want more of your target voters to view you as the better candidate and vote for you. There are two ways to accomplish this. First, you can do and say things to raise your credibility in the eyes of the voters. You may do this by concentrating on your positive characteristics and popular stands on issues. Second, you can try to lower your opponents' credibility in the eyes of the voters. You may do this by pointing out what voters will view as the negative characteristics of your opponents or unpopular positions on issues. Which of these methods you choose and in what combination most often depends on what position you find yourself in over the course of the campaign. Often, if you are ahead in the polls and can expect to win easily, then you can concentrate on raising your credibility. You will not want to mention your opponents and bring attention to them. You also do not want to risk alienating voters by running what may be viewed as a negative campaign or unnecessarily attacking your opponents. On the other hand, if you find yourself behind in the polls, raising your credibility may not be enough to win. In this case you may be want to raise your credibility and, at the same time, work to lower your opponents' credibility. In a sense, you have nothing to lose (you are already losing) by attacking your opponents and everything to gain (you may win). ISSUES AND THE CAMPAIGN MESSAGE As stated above, your campaign message is not your program or the list of issues you will address. Still, your campaign should address the issues that are important to your target voters. You may think of your campaign's message as the trunk of a large oak tree, strong, stable and well rooted in your candidate's values and personal experience. Following this analogy, the campaign issues that you will discuss are the tree branches, covering a wide area but all firmly connected to your message tree trunk. Similarly, your campaign must cover a broad range of issues that concern your target audience. However, in order to address these issues effectively, in order to avoid confusing your target voters with a jumble of incoherent program ideas, you must tie all of your issues to your campaign message. In the USA, Governor Bill Clinton's 1992 challenge campaign against President George Bush provides an excellent example of how to do this. His presidential campaign is still regarded as one of the strongest campaigns in communicating an effective message consistently, time and time again. Clinton's message was a simple one: After twelve years of Republican leadership resulting in social stagnation and economic recession, the American people are ready for change. The choice in 1992 is clear: change or more of the same. The Clinton campaign did an excellent job of tying each campaign issue to this message. If, for example, Bill Clinton talked about health care reform, the question was “change or more of the same”? If Clinton talked about education, the economy, social welfare or anything else, the question was always the same, “change or more of the same”? Page 28 of 105 POLITICAL CAMPAIGN PLANNING MANUAL It should be noted that the Clinton message strategy met all of the criteria for a good message and followed the recommendations outlined in this Campaign Planning Manual. For example: The campaign message was based on solid research. Political polls and focus groups showed that the American people were, in fact, hungry for change. The message was short, truthful and credible, important to a majority of voters, showed contrast with Bush and the Republicans, and spoke clearly to the heart of the American people. The message was designed for a discrete target audience, workers and the middle class who felt that Republican policies were not helping them to get ahead. Bill Clinton stayed on message continuously. He repeated the same message, "change or more of the same," at every opportunity. Another very recent example of a great political orator in US politics is its new president, Barack Obama. Similarly speaking to a message of “change” and “hope,” Obama captured the imagination of large numbers of American voters, including often-elusive youth. Through effective use of a decentralized campaign and strong internet coverage, the Obama campaign took its message of change directly to voters on a scale previously unprecedented for that country: “change we can believe in” and the slogan “Yes, we can.” A key in the campaign was the consistency of its message across many different communications tools. To see how that messaging continues to unfold in Obama’s presidency, go to www.barackobama.com. The following speech by Obama on election night demonstrates this skill: Remarks of President-Elect Barack Obama: Election Night Chicago, IL | November 04, 2008 If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer. It's the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen; by people who waited three hours and four hours, many for the very first time in their lives, because they believed that this time must be different; that their voice could be that difference. It's the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled - Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been a collection of Red States and Blue States: we are, and always will be, the United States of America. It's the answer that led those who have been told for so long by so many to be cynical, and fearful, and doubtful of what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day. It's been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America. I just received a very gracious call from Senator McCain. He fought long and hard in this campaign, and he's fought even longer and harder for the country he loves. He has endured sacrifices for America that most of us cannot begin to imagine, and we are better off for the service rendered by this brave and selfless leader. I congratulate him and Governor Palin for all they have Page 29 of 105 POLITICAL CAMPAIGN PLANNING MANUAL achieved, and I look forward to working with them to renew this nation's promise in the months ahead. I want to thank my partner in this journey, a man who campaigned from his heart and spoke for the men and women he grew up with on the streets of Scranton and rode with on that train home to Delaware, the Vice President-elect of the United States, Joe Biden. I would not be standing here tonight without the unyielding support of my best friend for the last sixteen years, the rock of our family and the love of my life, our nation's next First Lady, Michelle Obama. Sasha and Malia, I love you both so much, and you have earned the new puppy that's coming with us to the White House. And while she's no longer with us, I know my grandmother is watching, along with the family that made me who I am. I miss them tonight, and know that my debt to them is beyond measure. To my campaign manager David Plouffe, my chief strategist David Axelrod, and the best campaign team ever assembled in the history of politics - you made this happen, and I am forever grateful for what you've sacrificed to get it done. But above all, I will never forget who this victory truly belongs to - it belongs to you. I was never the likeliest candidate for this office. We didn't start with much money or many endorsements. Our campaign was not hatched in the halls of Washington - it began in the backyards of Des Moines and the living rooms of Concord and the front porches of Charleston. It was built by working men and women who dug into what little savings they had to give five dollars and ten dollars and twenty dollars to this cause. It grew strength from the young people who rejected the myth of their generation's apathy; who left their homes and their families for jobs that offered little pay and less sleep; from the not-so-young people who braved the bitter cold and scorching heat to knock on the doors of perfect strangers; from the millions of Americans who volunteered, and organized, and proved that more than two centuries later, a government of the people, by the people and for the people has not perished from this Earth. This is your victory. I know you didn't do this just to win an election and I know you didn't do it for me. You did it because you understand the enormity of the task that lies ahead. For even as we celebrate tonight, we know the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime - two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century. Even as we stand here tonight, we know there are brave Americans waking up in the deserts of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan to risk their lives for us. There are mothers and fathers who will lie awake after their children fall asleep and wonder how they'll make the mortgage, or pay their doctor's bills, or save enough for college. There is new energy to harness and new jobs to be created; new schools to build and threats to meet and alliances to repair. The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even one term, but America - I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you - we as a people will get there. There will be setbacks and false starts. There are many who won't agree with every decision or policy I make as President, and we know that government can't solve every problem. But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face. I will listen to you, especially when we disagree. And above all, I will ask you join in the work of remaking this nation the only way it's been done in America for two-hundred and twenty-one years - block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand. Page 30 of 105 POLITICAL CAMPAIGN PLANNING MANUAL What began twenty-one months ago in the depths of winter must not end on this autumn night. This victory alone is not the change we seek - it is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were. It cannot happen without you. So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism; of service and responsibility where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves, but each other.
Originally developed a decade ago by NDI's staff team in Russia, this manual traveled the globe numerous times with localized updates. NDI's team of political party.
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Media as a Campaign Platform. The NDI Political Campaign Planning Manual gives an idea of the extent of organisation involved.
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POLITICAL CAMPAIGN PLANNING MANUAL
Political Campaign Planning Manual. эксперт американской неправительственной организации NDI.