I think that we should focus our efforts around the notion of 'Campaign Readiness'.
According to Elections Canada, the seat for Winnipeg Center is vacant and although the by-election has not been scheduled, it is imminent.
Electoral district Winnipeg North (Man.)
Date Speaker's warrant received April 30, 2022
Earliest date to hold by-election June 21, 2022
Latest date to announce by-election October 27, 2021
Date of by-election - Not yet announced.
From:
http://www.elections.ca/content.asp?section=cir&document=vacant_2008&dir=dis&lang=e&textonly=falseThis would be an excellent chance to see what we are against, 'up-close'.
Winnipeg Center contains or is near enough to the University of Winnipeg, I believe. Through the University grape-vine we should be able to get some presence there.
I have been looking at the mechanics of getting elected. I could write an essay on how important being 'election focused' is to a policital party. Parties that do not get any members elected eventually die *and* you are not very likely to get elected unless you really work hard at it.
I do not have the numbers (but will crunch them if someone gets them for me into a spreadsheet), but it is pretty clear to me that there is a very strong correlation between dollars spent on a campaign and the outcome of the campaign. Number of votes appears to correlate strongly with dollars spent for all the candidates, including the winner.
Whatever the strict relationship, it is clear that you need around a dollar or so per vote. I have a feeling that if you could raise about $1.50 per eligible voter, you would have an excellent chance of getting elected.
Here are the results of recent federal elections in that riding.
http://www.elections.ca/scripts/pss/PastResults.aspx?L=e&ED=46011&EV=99&EV_TYPE=6&PC=R3B2E9&Prov=&ProvID=&MapID=&QID=11&PageID=28&TPageID=Here is a page showing recent results and the dollars involved:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnipeg_CentreOfficial Description and map:
http://www.elections.ca/scripts/pss/Map.aspx?L=e&ED=46011&EV=99Census profile:
http://www.elections.ca/scripts/pss/Profile.aspx?L=E&ED=46011&EV=99There are about 58K voters in that riding, of which 25K voted. Total expenditures in the election for that riding appear to have been about $77K. That is about $1.30 spent, on average, per eligible voter and a little over $3.00 per vote.
Although money is necessary, it is not sufficient. I would say that to make a successful bid in that riding, we would need to raise about $50K. Much less than that would not likely win it. To make money one of the things that goes strongly in our favor, I would suggest we make a goal of about $150K. That is a lot to raise from this riding -- it is one of poorest ridings in Canada. In fact, last I saw, it was the second poorest in the country.
It is crude, to say the least, to start with finances, but it is pretty clear from the incredible amount of attention paid to this, that it is critical to the goal of getting elected.
I have a feeling that although there is a correlation, its causality is murky. Does popular support yield greater financial support or do finances affect the vote directly? I expect it is a little of both. I know from personal experience that even the most lavish spending will not elect a candidate for which there is not much initial voter support. That is, unless there is a strong 'grass-roots' organization on the ground you will not win an election no matter how much you spend.
In the riding in question, in a prior election, the liberal candidate outspent (in total dollars), the winning NDP candidate by more than 25%. This expenditure translated into votes, but those votes cost an averate of more than $7 each. The NDP candidate won by spending a little over $4 per vote.
There appears to be a relationship between what one candidate spends and what another spends. Were we to put together a large war-chest of $150K it would likely cause the incumbent NDP candidate to spend about $100K. This would partially cancel out any advantage conferred by the money. Still, it would likely put us well in the race. If the donations are from individuals it would be a good barometer for how votes would play out.
I note that the turnouts have only been about 50%. If we could somehow find the non-voters and bring them out to vote for us, it would be enough to win an election in that riding (and likely others as well). I honestly think that we could and should focus at least some of our 'pitch' on just getting the vote out.
Althought the time to put this together is short, I think it is doable. A win would be great and put us on the map. Whatever we did, it would provide a valuable learning experience for the organization.
There are many things to work out between where we are now and getting members elected to Parliament. A lot of things can be roughly estimated and we can, in turn, infer what would be needed to support our goals. If, for instance, it is our goal to win, then we need to run a winning campaign. Although we know that $50K will not guarantee a win, we can be pretty certain that a budget of $10K will guarantee a loss.
I am a former member of the NDP and the NDP youth before that. I still have a soft spot for the NDP and, all things being equal, I still vote for them. If there is a PPC candidate in my riding, I would vote for them. Otherwise, I would vote NDP.
I have a certain reluctance about running against the NDP. I would hate to see them lose a seat. However, in this instance, the fact that it is a strong NDP riding would likely work to our advantage. Although it takes about 13K votes (about a quarter of eligible voters) to take the riding with the NDP fully supported, that number drops as we siphon off votes from them. In normal circumstances, there appear to be about 11K hard-core NDP voters. However, the current election results from the sitting NDP member vacating their seat to run in another election. I have a feeling that this circumstance could well shake that core of voters a little. I partially asuage my conscience with the notion that we can't cause another candidate to defeat the NDP. We would be taking votes from all parties and unless we won, the NDP would win anyway.
As a general rule, ridings have a certain political 'character' that gives them hard support for a given party. Some ridings (this would appear to be one) are a near sure-thing for a given party. In general, elections will favor those parties. As a general rule, elections favor an incumbent. I am not sure if this is an artifact of what got them in there in the first place or some 'incumbent effect'. However, in the case of this riding, there *is* no incumbent. To some extent, this riding is wide-open again. The NDP candidate will be a new one like everyone else.
A quick look at the news appears to indicate that the NDP is not too intensely looking for a strong candidate and it is uncertain if they are prepared to fight a difficult election against a determined challenger.
I am not certain how the amounts spent in by-elections shape up, but my suspicion is that they would be higher than in a general election. The parties only have to support the one election and in some instances it could be an important seat. On the other hand, since a general election has not mobilized all the troops, it could be that nationally the parties do not have the human resources to support the election from the national level. For us, since we are in building mode already, we would be at full strength and presumably, if we have a chance here, we would be putting a lot of those resources into supporting the election. For us, this would, in essence, be the same as a general election.
I have a feeling that the likely party affiliation of voters who do not normally vote differs from those who do. That is, if the non-voters were to vote, the election percentages would vary, perhaps markedly. As a point of strategy, we might be well served by getting those who usually do not vote out to the polls.
Winnipeg Center is an attractive target, it seems to me. With the University nearby, we have an entre with a crowd that likely has a greater and more visceral understanding of our core issues. We also have a more cohesive group to target. Our message can be clear, simple and focused for them.
Winnipeg Center is very small physically. It is possible to cover the enire area on foot. This is attractive to us for a number of reasons. We can get greater visibility with few signs. If we can assemble a large enough workforce we can get them to meet centrally and then canvas on foot after a pep-talk.
One thing that I am thinking could work very well for us is if we were to mobilize all 'Pirate Sympathetic' people in the city and get them to help us in that riding. It is physically proximate to a large population and even though we might not have a large *percentage* of the population that would be immediatly sympathetic, this could well translate into large enough numbers to mount a good campaign. For instance, the population of Winnipeg is just about ten times the population of the riding. It takes 25 percent of the voters to carry that riding. If riding association resources are roughly equivalent to votes carried, then to match the 'in-riding' resources of the other parties, we would only need to get one tenth of that or 2.5 percent of the city's population. Can we, as a new party, reach one in 40 of the people who would work in an election campaign? I think we can.
Whether we can realistically field a candidate in Winnipeg Center, I think it would be an excellent discipline, to help us get our ducks lined up, to act as if we *are* fielding a candidate in that riding. This will give the party experience in gathering the resources necessary to fight elections generally.
In the old forums, I postulated that we could form a government and that it is in our best interests to act as if we expect to do so. If only the people who do not even show up at the polls were to vote for us, we would form the next government for certain.
Even if we have difficulty mobilizing a winning campaign in Winnipeg Center, it might serve us well to get involved so that we can work out all the 'kinks' in the machine. Having been involved in political campaigns in the past, I can tell you that there is much to deal with and the party has not really scratched the surface of the things required to fight and win an election.
My time is limited (you would hardly know that from the length of my posts). I will be looking in from time to time and will offer to help as I am able. I will certainly answer direct questions if I can.
If we are going to make a pitch for Winnipeg Center, I will help with what I know about doing market research, organizing and managing people, purchasing stuff, etc. A lot of things are 'tricky', but fairly easy if you know the direction to take.
It is helpful to take the mindset that 'we will win'. It causes us to do, for instance, things like approaching companies, organizations and wealthier individuals for donations. We might not otherwise think to do so. It also causes us to at least address the issue of getting signage up in stores and other places. By inference, it causes us to determine how many signs we need and what they should look like. Say, for instance, there is some subtle problem with our artwork that makes it unsuitable 'as-is' to putting up signs. It is better to work that out in practice rather than simply hope for the best at election time. Approaching an election with a genuine intention and expectation of winning will force us to be realistic in determining what we need to win and conducting ourselves appropriately.
I think we should use this opportunity to do all the 'nuts and bolts' research required to get on with the business of getting elected. Things such as metrics with respect to physical geography and related logistics, number of voters in a riding (it varies a fair amount), expected turnouts, makeup of the constituency, past voting practices, etc can all be obtained in advance of an election for all the ridings. We could use this one as a dry run for these things, even if we elect not to field a candidate.
If we do not field a candidate, but can find a way to mobilize a riding association to help in an election, we should give some thought to determining which of the candidates is most sympathetic to our cause and pitch in to help them get elected. This would help us a little in advancing our general cause.
Whatever we do, I think we should focus on doing what is required to get elected. That is what political parties do. Rather than having an election and its associated problems and opportunities take us by surprise, we should be pro-active in developing 'full-on election preparedness'.
I have a (perhaps fanciful) notion that the successful pary of the future will be in touch with the constituents in a riding long before an election takes place and that the voters will, in essence, not be voting for us, but rather for themselves. That is, we truly represent their best interests and represent their wishes faithfully by knowing what those wishes are and either persuading them to our point of view or doing as they wish.
There is an old chestnut that 'all politics is local'. I belive that to be true. People will vote based on what is important to them. We need to get some practice in showing how our core issues relate directly to people where they live. We need to learn how to persuade people. We alo need some practice and education ourselves. We have to build a representative platform that deals with the most pressing issues that concern local voters. Although our 'core' issues are important, they will not decide an election. To get our issues into the public debate, we need to be ready willing and able to debate the other issues as well.
