Election Reflection

A local vote and what it says about politics at large

No, my candidate did not win last Saturday. A hard-fought by-election where we deployed all the ‘get out the vote’ methods did not give us the desired result. We had a stellar candidate and used a solid campaign plan where we put every possible tactic to good use, apart from one. We did not go negative and agreed to keep everything positive in order to give credence to the campaign slogan of bringing the community together. There was lots of material to use when we considered some of the things that were coming from the other side, but we decided to take the high road. So after the numbers sank in it leaves you with some mixed feelings, as well as a headache as we had a pretty intense post-election party with all the supporters.

Whenever an election is lost I turn to this video about Reagan who at age sixty-five lost the nomination for the 1976 presidential election to Gerald Ford. Most people thought it was over for him. It is worth considering his attitude as it is instrumental in understanding how to pick up the pieces after losing an election. Even in defeat there are the embers for the next campaign and a future win. The cause will always go on.

There are a few other things I am taking away here and they indicate what is happening on national levels too. Two things really. First is that if a group of voters is ‘seeded’ with a certain negative narrative early on, it is very hard to turn this around. You can campaign yourself silly, knock on every door, but the initial innuendo sticks somehow. It is almost as if people are willing to believe the most negative scenario and hitch their wagon to it no matter what. And with that there is a second more or less related dynamic and that is resistance to real change. Our community is experiencing an adjustment following the last election and some of the drastic changes at the municipal level - highly necessary - were not all that well received. As our candidate sought to support and continue the new direction, the voters indicated on Saturday that things may have gone too fast. It is outside the scope of my summary here to go into details, but I think that voters only want change if it comes at a predictable and not overly fast pace. The rapid changes combined with the negativity from the other side cost us this election.

But again, the dynamic we experienced will set us up for the next municipal election in 2026. And with regards to the desired change: the train has left the station when it comes to municipal renewal. With this election result we will have to see if continued progress is going to be a frustrating one or if things can stay on track going forward. What I will say is that it is refreshing and energizing to work on a campaign with a group of like-minded and keen individuals. We worked so well together that we may incorporate and turn it into a business, or, maybe even better, run another campaign soon.