Politicking: How to get that vote

>> >>> Former Chrétien advisor and political consultant Warren Kinsella offers insight on how to win a municipal election

by PATRICK LEJTENYI

Warren Kinsella, the fast-moving, straight-talking politico and author of the recently published Kicking Ass in Canadian Politics, is no stranger to going for the jugular in electoral campaigns. The Toronto-based lawyer, political consultant and columnist has advised the federal Liberals in two campaigns, running the secretive Liberal "War Room," and is credited with helping the Grits with the sound thumping they handed the Alliance last year. In Montreal this week to promote his book, Kinsella offered his thoughts on the ins and outs of mayoral campaigning, the importance of smart campaigning and how to generally kick ass in municipal politics.



Stunts

"Nobody pays any attention to municipal politics, not to the extent you want them to, so you have to do something dramatic. You have to do something that is dramatic and something that's yours... Soundbites get you earned media, so you have to say something pithy, and ideally funny and memorable, so it punches through and grabs people's attention. TV is about pictures, so you have to do something that is relevant to the medium in which you are operating [like the stunt Kinsella pulled on Canada AM during the dying days of the last federal campaign, in which he savaged avowed creationist Stockwell Day by reminding him that The Flintstones wasn't a documentary, and the only dinosaur that has ever walked with man is Barney.] Do something that captures people's attention, like the Montreal rally during the referendum. It was the people holding up the flag. Was that worth 5,000 votes? Probably."



Mockery

"If you're the challenger, you attack the incumbent. If you're the incumbent, you pray that nobody notices. My advice is generally to kick ass, so Tremblay should be saying, 'The mayor here is Mayor Moonbeam. He's not on the same planet as the rest of us,' and just go at him."



Fear

"From what I've heard, what seems to be possible is that you'll have a council that'll be all Tremblay's guys [with Bourque winning as mayor], so Montreal's looking at three years of Israel- Italy-like aggravation and irritation. Nobody's going to want to read a newspaper anymore or turn on the news because they're already going crazy with these guys fighting all the time. What Tremblay's gotta do in the last few days is punch through and say, 'Let's avoid all of that. Elect me as mayor. Because what we're gonna have is Mayor Moonbeam over there, who's out of touch, he's out of ideas, he's out of time and we gotta get a team that represents all your interests. Montreal's gonna be a legislative gridlock for three years if you have that situation.' Instead of just pretending he doesn't have a problem, he's gotta say, 'You need me there.' And get all his councillor candidates to say the same thing. And Bourque could say the same thing: 'Elect all my councillors. Don't isolate me there.' So both of them can use the same argument from different angles. It's just a question of who gets there first. I should charge for that advice. I can't believe I gave that away for free."



Repetition

"Repetition, simplicity, volume. Repetition, simplicity, volume. You'll see people in municipal politics who, because they're so far into issues sometimes, don't remember that the people who put them there don't think in those kind of idiosyncratic terms. They think, 'Is my garbage at the end of my driveway getting picked up? Is my rent going up or not?' You gotta get an issue and you stick to it. Now obviously amalgamation makes it easy for everybody this time but it's not just talking about what everybody else is talking about, it may be talking about something different."



Keep it local, stupid

"A politician has to know that local stuff. You may not be the most agreeable person on earth--voters actually may be quite irritated by you--but if you are seen as having a good command of local, municipal issues, that's your strength. You win elections... Everybody's working hard, and they're preoccupied with their kids--the soccer-mom thing is true. People look at issues in terms of sectoral things: health care, taxes, is my kid gonna have to go to war. Make it relevant for them. Capture their attention."



GOTV (Getting out the vote)

"Use every trick in the book. If you've got a residence of elderly Montrealers, get a team of volunteers who, on election day, get the car and take people over to the polls. And you stand in line with them until they vote. And you make sure their needs get addressed. This is a big issue in Montreal. Montreal's actually become notorious for, in elections, getting elderly people expiring from waiting to vote and exercising their franchise. Do everything possible to get people voting. Help them."