2008 Victoria University Post Election Conference

I’m attending the traditional post-election conference organised by Victoria University today. It is normally a fascninating day to attend because it isn’t just media and academics talking about the election, but you actually have the eight campaign managers or nominees attend and talk relatively openly about their campaigns, what worked and what didn’t.

I joked to someone, that it is where everyone gets to pretend they actually had a campaign plan 🙂

I will blog some interesting aspects of the conference. It is under the Chatham House Rule, so no names will be revealed, and comments may be from a presenter or from an audience member.

National

• Ran a positive campaign which was a huge contrast to Labour as they went all negative
• Feedback had been people wanted change and were over the current Government but wanted to hear what National was offering – not more criticism of Labour.
• Every element of advertising was issues based
• Had far less humour, partly because of the serious economic environment
• Media and core supporters wanted a scrap. Said campaign was boring and dire. But that was not in National’s interest
• Billboards were there to highlight the issues
• Tactical call to approach PM to suggest debates should be head to head. Amused that media report it was PM’s initiative. Were confident that John was a very good debater
• Media fragmentation meant there were eight debates requested
• TV ads swapped to attack for four days, but that was issues attack
• Expected Labour to go negative, but not to degree they did.
• Labour had heroic self belief in how bad National was, and got more shrill as public did not respond
• Not a single positive TV ad from Labour
• Labour used incumbency well with deposit guarantee scheme
• National caught up later with more announcements in response to the credit crisis
• Last few days very focused on the reasons for change
• Key moments in campaign were PREFU, tax policy two days later, shower flow regulations, campaign opening, 1st TV debate, MPs off message in third week, the 100 day plan, the transitional relief plan, the final TV debates, the US election distraction
• Determined not to fight the last war, unlike some other parties

Labour

• Labour lost support fairly evenly over New Zealand, but a bit more in Auckland and provinces
• The loss was a clear loss but not a thrashing
• A “benign dismissal from office” – more accumulated grievances than anger
• Time for a change, but not for a big change
• H-Fee situation poorly handled
• The trust theme ran up against time for a change
• Trust was the right issue to run on, but the way it was run was not ideal
• More use of Internet by both major parties, but not as good a presence as in US
• Blogs not read by a lot of people, but are read by mainstream journalists a lot and are influential
• Turnout was down, but not hugely
• Less passion than other election campaigns
• National’s policy inoculation was successful, and they ran a largely error free campaign
• Law & Order was an important issue
• Shower Head issue was a reminder of previous “Nanny State” issues