information, what do you think the lessons are? How did the Conservatives mobilize voters? What can people running campaigns, provincial or na- tional level campaigns, take away from this recent election campaign in terms of how to mobilize votes?


MS: It is very, very difficult to get people to vol- unteer on an election campaign…and it is very difficult to get people to volunteer in general… people are so busy with their daily lives. Political campaigns give up very quickly and say, “oh well it’s too hard to get volunteers so I’m going to do this all myself ”. Every campaign needs lots, and lots, and more volunteers. As soon as you give up, you’ve lost.


RS: Getting the volunteers and shaking the tree to find every person who is willing to give an hour or two of their time to…


MS: An hour, ten minutes whatever amount to do whatever it is that they want to do.


RS: Any innovative ways that you’ve seen or heard - whether it’s on the national campaign or a local campaign - ways that were used to motivate people to volunteer for the ten minutes or for the entire writ period?


MS: Pick up the phone or knock on their door and ask them.


RS: Yes.


MS: People have given up on doing that, they’ll send out an auto-dial and say press one if you want to volunteer. That’s not good enough and that’s not respectful of me or my time.


RS: You think it’s the candidate that needs to be diving into those asked? Is it the campaign direc- tor?


MS: We’ve all been in the position where we beg, borrow and steal from our friends and family, and say, “please, please it’s only one hour”. Yes, people show up if candidates ask, but most people are not political party people. Most volunteers get in- volved because of issues. Many get involved be- cause of the local candidate who is someone they know and are willing to help out. Candidates need to be prepared to draw on their network of friends, family and colleagues. The more volunteers the better. A campaign can never have enough volun-


RS: Yes, so the most old-fashioned collection of tactics is because you have the most people now involved in your party and you have the most mo- tivated people involved in your party, you’re able to do it the most in the most parts of Canada.


MS: Yes. That’s r ight.


CR: To our political friends, who take the time to go through campaigns and elections in Canada, there is no excuse for not defining yourself any longer as a leader and not allowing yourself to be defined by others. We would say that you’ve got to ignore the noise, that as much as the daily process story is deafening during a race, it is about your broad message track and stay absolutely consistent in delivering that to voters. Finally, if you can’t spend a few hours yourself knocking on doors, get on the phones. Be a volunteer – find a volunteer, or find many.


June 2011 | Campaigns & Elections 9


teers. The Conservative candidates did a great job of mobilizing volunteers, new and faithful Party members.


CR: In addition to Mark’s point about volunteers, I’d add the phrase, “what’s old is new again”. Suc- cess in this past election was also related to a Party’s ability to track, persuade and communicate with individual voters, not just targeted blocks or a very clever strategy on media or message or some other tool. When polling is no longer accurate, because we’re inside the margin of error and it isn’t giving a true sense of how fast voter opinion is actually moving, then campaign managers and candidates need to feel confident that voters in their data- base, the twenty-thousand or so names and current phone numbers and addresses, have all been con- tacted before and on election day. Of course, it is all about volunteers mobilizing these voters through advanced polls and election-day.


RS: Maybe that’s the lesson of the Conservative majority that hasn’t been talked about enough. For all the talk about modeling, voter ID’ing, and ad campaigns, the reason for success is that they have the most number of volunteers, motivated vol- unteers, which allows them to put paid resources and significant volunteer resources into actually contacting voters in the most old-fashioned ways, which is at the doors and picking up the phone and calling.


MS: More and more at the door.


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