Strategic Planning for Elections
Strategic planning is an ongoing process that determines what a party will be in the future and what paths the party will take to get there.
Thus, it involves:
• Developing a vision for the future; and
• Identifying the activities, skills and resources necessary to achieve that vision.
Strategic planning serves, among other things, to:
- Clearly define the purpose of the party and to establish realistic goals and objectives consistent with that mission in a defined time frame.
- Communicate those goals and objectives to the party’s constituents.
- Ensure the most effective use is made of party resources by focusing the resources on the key priorities.
- Provide a base from which progress can be measured establish a mechanism for informed change when needed.
- Provides clearer focus of organization, producing more efficiency and effectiveness.
Political parties should have two interrelated strategic plans. A party should have plans for:
- The overall development of the party
- How the party will contest an election
While these two types of plans are related they are not the same thing. A party should have a plan for its own development independent of one for how it will contest elections.
With respect to strategic planning to contest an election, the natural place to start is with a realistic goal for the party’s electoral performance (NDI 2004: 26).
Strategic Goals
Voters judge political parties and politicians by the results they have achieved, not by the promises they made. As a result, thinking about ways to achieve the goals is at least as important as the nature of the goals themselves. So when developing a good strategy, the first step is to determine the goal.
Goals should meet these four criteria:
- Specificity: The more specific the goal, the more enthusiasm it will cause amongst potential supporters. Vague or undefined goals do not sound convincing to voters and should be avoided.
- Measurability: If a goal is not measurable (e.g. reducing the number of poor people by 50% in four years), it will never be possible to determine whether it has been achieved, or whether it ought to be amended. A party that does not set itself measurable goals will never know how realistic its plans are.
- Feasibility: Goals can – and sometimes should – be visionary, but if there is no realistic chance of achieving them within a reasonable term, people will turn their backs on you.
- Inspirational value: People will not get behind a (political) programme they are not enthusiastic about. The road to success is often long and full of frustrations and disappointments. The only way to keep faith in the party is if voter and members are inspired and motivated by the “higher” goal. So setting aims too low (e.g. “we’ll be happy if we get a single woman voted into parliament”) is not a good idea either.
A sound political goal strikes a middle course between inspirational value and feasibility (van den Boomen 2009: 7).
Campaign Strategy
The kind of strategy that a party develops is largely dependent on the position of that party in society. To determine exactly what that position is parties need to carry out research.
Key questions that this research should focus on include:
• What do voters think about the party?
• What do they think about its leader?
• What do they know about the party’s programme and how do they feel about it?
• Does the voter consider the party reliable or trustworthy enough to give it their vote?
• What is the key to electoral success?
Strategy development is very important during a campaign. Political parties often employ a number of strategists focusing solely on this task. They frequently play an important supporting role in the campaign and cooperate with researchers on various tasks. Strategists formulate research questions and use the results to plan a winning strategy. They also have to be able to adapt the strategy to changing circumstances. Campaign managers should always remain flexible and prepared to adjust their strategy if things do not go as planned (van den Boomen 2009: 8).
Election Campaign Goals and Strategies
An election campaign strategy can have a wide variety of goals, depending on the party’s position within the political spectrum and what is feasible within the political context.
Some possible campaign goals are:
• Becoming the largest party
• Minimizing an anticipated election loss
• Entering government (local or national)
Strategy for Candidate’s Electoral Campaigns
When deciding on the best campaign strategy, the campaign team needs to consider factors about their candidate, their opponents and the election.
Status of the Candidate
There is a big difference between running as an incumbent and running as a challenger. Incumbents have records to run on and to be attacked on. Challengers usually (but not always) have trouble raising money, and often must spend time and resources raising their profile in the constituency.
Strategies for Challengers
Depending on their office, incumbents have lots of advantages – name recognition, networks and connections in government, and often increased fundraising ability. However, some strategies that challengers can adopt when running against an incumbent include the following:
Define Your Opponent
When challenging an incumbent, it is important that the campaign defines your opponent before he or she gets a chance to define themself. The campaign team should carefully research the incumbent’s record while they were in office and develop a critical message early. If this is done effectively, the challenging campaign team can frame the discussion about their opponent in terms that are favorable to them.
Draw a Contrast
After defining their opponent, the campaign team should draw a sharp contrast between their candidate and the incumbent. People will not vote for an incumbent if they find someone better. The campaign team has to present the voters with a better alternative to their opponent. Show them why their candidate is different and why those differences makes them a better candidate.
Define the Agenda
Each candidate will try to focus the election on his or her strengths and their opponent’s weaknesses. For incumbents, they will base much of their message about their strengths on things they did well while they were in office. For instance, if an incumbent was strong on the issue of education, he or she may try to make the election about who can do a better job improving schools in the constituency. A candidate’s campaign team should try to focus the debate on their candidate’s strengths and the weaknesses of the incumbent (Garecht n.d.a).
Strategies for Incumbents
While incumbents have many advantages over challengers, there is a risk that they might be seen as loosing touch with the voters. If an elected representative ignores their image and their communication with the voters in between elections, this could put their chances of being reelected in danger. To reduce this risk, elected officials should run a “permanent campaign.” Some aspects of this include:
Keep the campaign Organization Alive
To make sure that they have an large supply of volunteers and fundraisers available, elected officials should never abandon their campaign organizations. They should rather keep a small inner circle of campaign supporters active. This inner circle should maintain contact with your entire campaign organization, including volunteers, donors, and supporters in between elections.
Keep Constituents Informed
Incumbents should be sure to maintain frequent contact with their constituents. Newsletters and mail should tell constituents what the elected representaitve has been doing (legislation, events etc.), what their schedule is for the upcoming month, and any items of interest that maintain the image of the representative in the voters minds. Representatives can also use email lists and newsletters to activate supporters, inform them of fundraising events, and spread your message in the months leading up to an election.
Keep Appearing in Public
Incumbent candidates can work with local organizations and volunteers to setup meetings around their constituency where citizens can voice their concerns. Local elected officials should be proactive about opportunities to speak in public. They should have a press secretary or volunteers who work to gather offers for the candidate to speak throughout their constituency. At these events, incumbents should be well prepared and be sure to have literature on their activities and achievements while they have been in office (Garecht n.d.b).
Other Factors that Affect a Campaign’s Strategy
Amount of Campaign Funding
If a candidate is wealthy or well-funded, they will be able to afford a full time staff, hire professional researchers, and pay for a lot of advertising in the media. However, if a candidate under-funded, they will need to rely on volunteers and grassroots tactics. Access to funding and other resources has a big effect on the kind of strategy that candidates can and should to use.
The Candidate’s Background
The specific knowledge, skills and experience that a candidate has should be considered when developing a campaign strategy. For example, if a candidate used to be a teacher, then education could be a big part of their message. This would mean that targeting those parts of the electorate for whole education is an important issue (i.e. parents, teachers and students) would be significant aspect of the campaign strategy.
The Central Issues of an Election
The issues that are most important during the campaign period should also be considered when developing a campaign strategy. For example, if there has recently been a big scandal or conflict related to a particular issue, then this could affect the message of the candidates in a campaign. Some candidates might need to either play up their strengths or minimize their weaknesses in light of these issues. The campaign strategy will be based on these considerations.
There is no single “best” campaign strategy. The right strategy will differ for each candidate and for each election. Candidates and campaign teams should take the time to think through all of these features before developing and implementing a campaign strategy.
Some Examples
A Positive Challenger Strategy
When in the opposition or running against an incumbent, a campaign might emphasise change and renewal by putting forward a new leader, a new team and an appealing and fresh programme with a positive agenda promising change. Some slogans typical of these kinds of campaign include: “Myanmar deserves better”, “A better life for all”, “A positive vote!”, “Yes we can”, “A fresh start”, “New energy”.
A Negative Challenger Strategy
Opposition parties might describe the results of the incumbent government’s policies in the in a negative way during their campaign. In this way they can try to convince voters that only a vote for your party improve the situation. Typical slogans of such campaigns: “Vote against XXX”, “Say no to this administration”, “this government is not working”.
A Positive Incumbent Strategy
Parties that have been in government and brought about some positive changes, should can try to take advantage of this success. Slogans typical of such campaigns are: “Let the prime minister finish the job”, “Much accomplished, much to do”, “Are you better off than you were four years ago?”. Parties should emphasise the fact that many voters understand that four years is too short to implement a long- lasting policy and are prepared to offer them a second chance.
Negative Incumbent Strategy
Many parties try to win elections by feeding on people’s fears. They frighten the voter by referring to their opponents’ previous failures or potential dangers. Social democrats, for instance, are generally faced with the accusation that they are spending too much who only want to raise taxes; conservatives and liberals, on the other hand, are often accused of always wanting to cut government spending and only serving the interests of the rich. A good example of a slogan capitalizing on people’s fears is the “No Return to the Dark 90s.” Another example is “New Labour (Party), New Danger” (van den Boomen 2009:21)
Tactics
Tactics are the tools and approaches used during a campaign, which are a direct consequence of the overall strategy. The tactical choices that a campaign team makes should follow logically from its strategy. The choices that a campaign team makes will depend on the resources (both financial, human and material) that a campaign has access to. Another important factor that will determine the tactics that a campaign might use includes access to the media.
Election campaigns have many options for tactics that they might use to achieve its goals. These include:
• Electronic Media
• Print Media
• Printed Material (Posters and Billboards)
• Rallies
• Telephone and Mail
• Campaigning – Door-to-Door Contact
• Voter Education
• Get Out the Vote
• Polls
• Resource Mobilisation (Financial and In-Kind)
• Volunteer Mobilisation
Campaign teams should assess the strengths and weakness of all of these tactics, and consider the resources (time, people and money) they have access to before making decisions about what kind of tactics would be most effective for their campaign.
Furthermore, a time line for those activities should be constructed and the human and financial resources (and other materials) needed for each activity identified. It may not be possible to do all of these things or to do them all to the degree the party would like so it will be important for the campaign team to think strategically and prioritise.
Strategic planning will not solve all of a party’s problems and there are potential problems to the planning process itself.
Those problems include:
• Planning shouldn’t be too rigid (a plan is only a guide and needs to be able to adapt to changing circumstances);
• Time and energy must be devoted to planning for it to succeed;
• Campaign teams shouldn’t let planning become a substitute for action;
• Campaign teams rely on generic approaches to strategic planning; and
• A plan that isn’t written down in “easy to understand” language won’t be used (NDI 2004: 28).
Campaign Planning
A good campaign plan is the key to a successful campaign. Without a campaign plan, campaign teams and candidates move from one activity to the next without being able to implement an campaign strategy that will make the best use of the resources available and give the campaign an advantage over its opponents. Also, the lack of a general guideline increases the chance of internal conflict, which is the last thing that a campaign team needs during a campaign.
Having a detailed, step-by-step campaign plan allows the campaign team to measure their progress and successes throughout the campaign. Sticking to this plan also helps the campaign team to identify potential problems ahead of time. It is a way of ensuring that they make strategic decisions by themselves rather than having to react to events and circumstances that are outside of their control.
A carefully written campaign plan helps to prevent unwanted surprises. It is discouraging if a campaign team is suddenly confronted with a simple lack of advertising space in a local newspaper or with volunteers who suddenly have no time for the campaign (van den Boomen 2009:79).
The Campaign Plan
A campaign plan is a brief document concisely stating the main targets of the campaign. It contains the targets, a timeline and an estimate of the campaign’s budget. All possible activities and parts of the campaign are described, from large- scale mobilization activities to the printing of election posters.
Also, it is highly likely that the campaign plan will need adjusting over time. The campaign will have to be able to react to new events not mentioned in the campaign plan.
A campaign plan can be either long or short and they can vary in the level of detail they go in to. But a campaign plan should contain at least the following elements:
1. A brief outline of the political context:
• What happened in the country during the last term?
• What are the hot issues at the moment, and what are likely to be hot issues in the future?
• What does the political landscape look like? Who is the candidate’s or party’s biggest rival?
2. The election strategy:
• What is the election goal and how will the campaign team go about achieving it?
• What is the central message and what is the image the party wants to project?
3. Tactics and activities:
• What are the concrete plans for achieving the goal?
• Which activities will be carried out?
• Where are the voters and how does the campaign team plan to reach out to them?
• Which specific target groups does the campaign team plan to reach out to (e.g. people with or without jobs, people working in health care, young people etc.)?
4. Media and communication material:
• Which media will be used?
• What other communication means will be used?
5. Budget:
• What is the campaign budget?
• How will this budget be used?
• Will the campaign team try to raise funds, and if so, how?
6. Timeline and allocation of tasks:
• When do the various tasks have to be prepared and executed?
• Who is responsible for which tasks?
How to Draft a Timeline
Below is an example of a campaign timeline. The main condition is that planning should start well ahead of time. For a national campaign, a year’s preparation is appropriate. A local campaign will take at least six months. The timeline indicates which steps to take month by month, week by week.
It can be helpful to make a wall calendar or a planning board for the entire duration of the campaign. This can provide an overview of important data and activities. Obviously, the planning will get more detailed as the election approaches (van den Boomen 2009:80)
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PvdA timeline for a local campaign for town council elections – 6 months Month 1 Put together campaign team Month 2 Monthly campaign meeting Month 3 Monthly campaign meeting Find volunteers Month 4 Definitive election programme ought to be determined by this time 8 weeks until the election Monthly campaign meeting 7 weeks until the election Book ad space in local printed media Book ad space on local TV channel Campaign on the streets on Saturday 6 weeks until the election Produce commercials for radio and TV Prepare activities Campaign on the streets on Saturday 5 weeks until the election Prepare activities 4 weeks until the election First weekly campaign meeting Prepare activities 3 weeks until the election Start campaign 2 weeks until the election Weekly campaign meeting 1 weeks until the election Schedule meeting to thank volunteers (after the elections) Activities Last week before the election Daily telephone round to discuss progress Activities Arrange transportation to polling stations for the elderly and disabled Elections – VOTE Source: Becoming a better politician: political skills manual |