"Paper's for wimps," Toby said. He leans over the pool table, drafts a few paragraphs of the State of Union address in his shiny head, then sinks the next ball. "Now that's cool," I thought to myself in bed this morning, while drafting my big scoop in my head. It was pretty good, but then I fell asleep again and lost it.
Damnit. I can't write articles in my head AND I can't play pool. At least I have hair.
But are they really that cool, the pros behind the candidates? Are the candidates just airbrushed products (some airbrushed better than others) who get rolled off the production line in an election? What are elections really about?
Tony Sutorius, the Director and Producer of Campaign, would know - he was a fly-on-the-wall during the 1996 Wellington Central race, when MMP was new, Jim Bolger was in charge, and ACT had a chance of reaching 5%.
(Interview was conducted via web-based chat. Emphases have been unchanged. Links are added by me. I thought about HTML-ing them, but really, I'm an old-fashioned kinda guy. Call a *spade* a *spade*, I say, not a .)
Keith: Jordan Carter, the Campaign Manager for Marian Hobbs, says that "Elections are about voters, not pundits. They're about candidates, not campaign managers." Do you agree?
Tony: Well, that's sort of like saying customer service is about customers and not the people giving the service. I agree if he means the voters have the real power in the relationship, but not if he's suggesting his own role is as a neutral conduit.
Keith: How much of the campaign managers and the external influence (e.g. commentary in the media) showed through in how the candidates carried themselves?
Tony: I think, and this may sound hard to believe, that many people (including candidates) actually UNDERestimate the extent to which local political campaigns are almost entirely about what is reported in the media.
Keith: Well, what *do* they think it's about? *Them*??
Tony: Political candidates have an extraordinary ability and propensity to believe what they want to believe. If they feel their worldview is not coming through in the media they tend to believe that the media is a third party to their direct relationship with the electorate. They say things like "that just doesn't reflect what people are saying to me at meetings". They are kidding themselves!
Tony: I don't say that as a put-down, by the way, it's just that their message is FAR more important *to them* than it is to the public at large.
Keith: What about the campaign managers and the people behind the scenes? Are they the same, or do you think that they're pretty clued up - but just don't tell the politician?
Tony: I suppose some campaign managers would see part of their role as "telling truth to power"... I didn't see this much in '96, though. I'd say the campaign managers reflected their candidates quite closely.
Keith: You mean they were 'yes men'?
Tony: No... well, maybe, in effect. But not cynically. In the campaigns I saw, a LOT of time was spent "reading the entrails". I think the effect of this is that, while they may get it right or wrong, the key players within a campaign tend to be in approximate agreement.
Tony: The inside of a campaign is an echo chamber. once an idea takes hold it becomes self-reinforcing as people keep repeating it to each other!
Keith: What about on matters of real substance? Do you think that the candidates... for lack of a better way of putting it - do you think they have principles? Principles on which they stand on their own, despite what their managers, or the media, or anyone else says?
Tony: Yes. What trips them up is the fact that these are not often very relevant to the electorate.
Keith: So what do you think that the electorate really cares about in a campaign?
Tony: I have enormous respect for the sophistication of electorates. For example, in 1996 Prebble was elected because many people saw the logic in his simple line "6 MPs for 1 vote". He argued that a vote for him gave a leveraged result if you wanted a right-wing government. It was a clever and credible thing to say.
Tony: The problem MANY local candidates have is that people know full well that they will either be a backbench government MP, or in opposition, or they'll get in anyway on the list. Voting for them will often seem "pointless" - and it often is!
Tony: I think the challenge for any local candidate is to mount a credible case that, if elected, they will be in a position to do anything significant. Doesn't make much difference what their values are if they won't be in a position to do anything about it!
Keith: Are electorate candidates elections anachronistic?
Tony: "Anachronistic" might not be exactly the right word... perhaps "irrelevant in many cases"?
Keith: Do you think who they *are*, and the personality that they present is more important, given the small difference their election makes in the grand scheme of things?
Tony: My observation is that successful campaigns establish two or three good reasons in the mind of as many voters as possible why its a good idea to vote for their candidate. Personality sits around this (like, do I believe this guy?) but is not in itself a very strong reason. Take Nandor for example...
Keith: So you don't think Nandor can win an electorate seat?
Tony: Nandor could, but not just because he's Nandor!
Tony: Most (like, nearly all) local campaigns fail because their messages are FAR too diffuse.
Keith: Do you think that might be because there generally aren't any hard issues that a candidate can push on?
Tony: I think its more an issue of "don't" rather than "can't".
Keith: Why do you think they do that?
Tony: Lack of imagination? Damien O'Connor on the West Coast is a great example of someone who has pulled this off...
Keith: So, how do you think the Hobbs/Blumsky campaigns are faring so far?
Tony: I think Blumsky made a *great* start with his campaign launch.
Keith: How so?
Tony: Blumsky? Well, his choice of film was outstanding, and displayed keen irony... or something...
Keith: Does sense of humour and a set of eyebrows win elections?
Tony: No.
Tony: ...if its up against something tangible.
Tony: To be completely honest I'm not sure what either candidate will do that will make a difference for Wellington. It's early days of course, but if anyone has a three-point bullet list I haven't heard it.
Tony: BTW: If I were Marion Hobbs, I'd say something like "Elect me, and I will stop the road race, get transmission gully actually started, and make public transport free at peak times to easy road congestion"... or whatever. But three solid, definite, practical things. And then she should say them 27,000 times, and not say much else, on the campaign trail. And recognise that the media is who she is really talking to.
Keith: Do you think that their campaigns, which I gather are much more well-resourced than their counterparts in 96, will bear any resemblance to the ones we saw in Campaign?
Tony: I can't say for sure, but I imagine they'll be near-identical!
Keith: In that the behaviour of the candidates will be similar? Won't the money and the profile make a difference?
Tony: Candidates are generally good, honest, sincere people who want to make the world a better place.
Tony: But innocent.
Tony: And often woolly.
Keith: Even Blumsky and Hobbs? They've been around for a while....
Tony: Hobbs, yes, I'm afraid so. I REALLY like Marion personally, she's been kind to me, but she is NOT good at clearly and in a disciplined way explaining what the point of voting for her is. I would note that this doesn't mean I think she'd make a bad MP... just not a great campaigner.
Keith: So is that where the campaign team comes in? Having a manager there to crack the whip whenever she goes "off-message"?
Tony: The first step is having a strong and clear enough message to stay "on". Every candidate *should* be able to answer this question: "If you are elected, specifically what will change in Wellington as a result in the next three years?"
Keith: Good point. I'll ask them!
Tony: And any answer involving "listening" or "consultation" or "a voice" are just not good enough.
Keith: That's a bit like getting them to give an answer without using the letters "e"!
Keith: Just want to ask you about tactical voting and backroom deals. In one of your previous interviews, you said that you were uncomfortable with the way the Bolger screwed over Mark Thomas to prop up Prebble, and that it "left a pretty filthy taste in the mouth". Do you think that other people, further away from the action, saw it like that too?
Tony: I think Bolger acted against the culture of the National Party in doing this, not against the "rules of politics". Important to note that his call only worked because a lot of people saw the sense in voting tactically.
Keith: But do you think that voters are turned off by these kind of backroom deals? (Now, that is, not in 96.)
Tony: How was it a "backroom deal"?
Keith: In that voters want parties to be addressing voters and dealing with voters, rather than other parties and trying to prop them up for tactical purposes.
Tony: Bolger was telling people who wanted a right wing government how he thought they could best get one. Many agreed, and did it. I doubt there was any interaction between ACT and National in advance of Bolgers pronouncement - there was no need. Prebble's campaign argument, that a vote for him could secure six MPs and a right wing government, was credible, and many voters who wanted that outcome decided to do it. Bolger released some more from the shackles of "tribal" loyalty, allowing them to do the same.
Keith: Do you think that the lack of these kinds of interactions in this election will mean that it's more boring?
Tony: Hmmm... might be too early to assume none, both ACT and the Greens could find themselves in very tricky positions with the 5% threshold...
Keith: You think Hide could pull out the same "6 for 1" line in Epsom?
Tony: Guaranteed.
Keith: You think it'll work again, now that voters have had so much more experience with MMP?
Tony: Not sure it'd get him elected, but I think it's as true now as it was in 96. It's one reason I find the Greens' decision to rule out local candidates rather odd.
[The Greens are, in fact, standing electorate candidates - Keith]
Keith: Just one last question: By the end of filming Campaign, how did you feel about the candidates and the people behind the campaign?
Tony: I liked them... even the ones whose politics I loathed. They were keen, willing to put themselves out to make the world a better place. Made me feel far more confident about our democratic future.
Tony: I think politics is intrinsically about idealism colliding with raw power. It's a triumph that we don't generally kill each other over these issues any more!
Keith: Thanks a lot Tony!
Tony: Been fun, Keith.