The other day a ‘hired gun’ who has been actively engaged in the PN’s negative campaign strategies since before the 1996 election said it all. With the recent turn of events and public statements, GonziPN strategists have no other option than to go back to the drawing board.
The government seeks to portray itself as gradually shifting into overdrive when it is merely going through the motions- Leo Brincat
This was reconfirmed when fire was opened on eminent former PN leaders and key personalities for contradicting themselves and undermining their own party’s recent campaign message.
But old habits die hard. And I am sure that in the coming days, weeks and months we will continue to be offered far more heat than light. This would be in the same way that “a relentless campaign of fear and odious metaphors” has been developing in the US presidential campaign, where hypocrisy and fear mongering have taken the place of the talk of hope and change that had characterised the Obama campaign four years ago.
The Audacity of Hope must have been the current President’s most seminal work but from a campaign strategy perspective, David Plouffe’s The Audacity to Win remains the definitive inside story of a brilliant campaign.
Not only was it a telling lesson about how Barack Obama won, but it ended up as a blueprint analysed and studied by many others – including European political parties – either in search of victory or re-election. It was both detailed and revealing, and as The New York Times had diligently pointed out, “it gave readers a visceral sense of the campaign from an insider’s point of view”.
It is indeed a pity that this time round negativity seems to have taken over both camps in the US, so much so that there seems to be general consensus that this has been a relentlessly negative campaign so far. Nearly 80 per cent of television adverts have been negative, an all time high. Or low.
The impression I have been getting in my contact with various segments of the Maltese electorate is that such a stance might initially impact on voters, including the discerning, but at the day’s end it wears them out. It increases their disillusionment and frustration with politics in general while adding to their temptation to switch off completely, as they desperately seek in vain for new solutions to today’s problems. This is particularly so when lumped with an Administration that is far more interested in the art of political survival at any cost than anything else, even at the expense of sacrificing any attempt to grapple with the real world.
Technology and the grass roots focus were definitely at the core of the Obama campaign from the start. And I am sure that this will be the case in Malta too, although nothing beats the connectivity of listening directly to people’s ambitions, problems, aspirations, concerns and frustrations.
GonziPN’s biggest handicap is that it has been repeatedly trying to take off while ‘affixing the wings’ – no mean feat. Social networking on its own will surely not help them address such a deficit effectively or well enough.
The party in government has started with one big deficit – its own internal strife, political instability, uncertainty about its own future as well as the actual and effective duration of its term in office.
In Obama’s case he had an uphill struggle which was far easier to surmount. Nevertheless, when all is said and done the cutting edge that technology gave to the Obama campaign will gain in significance, even more so with the benefit of hindsight. With time they honed their skills to such near perfection that not only did they improve their digital strategy and execution but in their own words they were digitally competitive with any business-oriented start-up.
The main message – and a most successful one – was that Obama was then the right candidate for the time. The right man at the right time.
This is once again GonziPN’s biggest failure, which no amount of social networking skills will help.
Right now I get the feeling that GonziPN are far more interested in bringing back the disillusioned, by preaching to the once converted, rather than reaching out to those who are genuinely still undecided. Except for trying to scare them away from ‘the alternative’.
After a few months of auto criticism, it is pitching yet again in favour of triumphalism. The net result is that it risks alienating people further by coming across as even less focused without conveying any sense of urgency, except for that of clinging on till the very end to satisfy their ego and certain people’s ambitions linked to the lucrative execution of mega projects.
Looked at analytically, we have a government that seeks to portray itself as one gradually shifting into over drive, when in actual fact it is merely going through the motions.
In his 2007 campaign launch, Obama was determined to defeat the politics of cynicism and division that was so pervasive in Washington and replace it with a politics of unity, hope and common purpose.
Whether he will do so this time round or not is for the American people to decide. As for GonziPN, this is a near mission impossible, mainly thanks to some of his self defeating inner circle, whether the official ones or paid sidekicks who will continue to tug remorselessly in a different direction.
Brincat.leo@gmail.com
www.leobrincat.com
Leo Brincat is opposition spokesman for the environment, sustainable development and climate change.