Looks odd from the outside

In countries used to strict party discipline it is oddly disconcerting watching US primaries candidates ripping each other apart so fiercely. For one thing the parties will need to unite behind the final selection, even after the winner will have their greatest weaknesses revealed for all. For another, there are 480 other races for each party to contest.

Now I realize this is the way things are done in the US, and can only conclude each part of the game is played separately and somehow the damage isn’t carried over. But if I was involved with a party national administration I expect I’d have a team set aside to pick up every bit of dirt being flung by inter party rivals for reuse later.

The other reason I find this openly venomous display strange, particularly for the Democrats, is that while the republicans might be on the nose the Democrats still have a big task ahead to win voter confidence.

According to figures by the Pew Research Center half of US voters lean toward or identify themselves as Democrats, the Republicans have fallen to 35 percent. But for the Democrats ‘lean towards’ is the operative term, this is not locked in support.

The party not in power normally has the advantage when voters are dissatisfied, but unlike Australia, voting in the US isn’t compulsory. Here, compelled to vote they will punish the government, in the US they are just as likely to simply stay at home.

What I find really odd is that the masters of slick advertising and marketing run the least disciplined campaigns I’ve ever encountered. Without any doubt these are the biggest spending campaigns the world has ever seen. Ergo, one would think, the very best money can buy. Not so, it appears.

Let’s put aside the seriously fractured national party gems and look at some of the candidates.

Hillary has a long and deep background in campaigning, plus the benefit of Bill’s experience, they didn’t call him Slick Willy for nothing. Yet her campaign appears to be one blunder after another.

Obama has less experience but still has the ability to put together a hot shot team. Perhaps in a sense, his blunders are a positive, but only for a while. We see very little of Edwards downunder, I guess he doesn’t rate in the time allocated to cover this great event, and I’m not really keying into the Republican battle.

What I am seeing is all that money dumped into an advertising bucket, but without the benefit of in-house polling to show what messages are best directed where. It is, very honestly, amateurish. We are talking $millions and a few hundred thousand of that toward research would make every cent spent on advertising earn its value.

It doesn’t take buckets of money to run an effective campaign, it takes organisation and information. By all means, if money is a measure of a candidate’s success, money gives the power brokers a hard on, collect it. But target the voters; find out what the independents want and how the candidate can accommodate that want. Don’t simply make the media richer by throwing cash about.

Money should not take over from research and imaginative campaigning. From the research I’m seeing voters, more particularly that growing band of independents, want real change and the candidate who demonstrates that in their campaign will go a long way to winning hearts and minds.