Sean Bickerton

Much has been written about the last election, and many more will offer their own analysis in the weeks and months to come. But now that we’ve all had some time to reflect on the results, I think it’s time for the NPA to admit what happened.

What actually happened this election is that a group of dedicated, principled, passionate individuals that care about the future of our city got together and did everything they could to help a group of candidates, including myself, get elected.

That’s right, you heard it here first!: “A group of dedicated, principled, passionate individuals that care about the future of our city …”

I’ve been involved in five campaigns now, at the civic, provincial and federal level over the past three years, and this was one of the most professional, buttoned-down and disciplined campaign teams I’ve had the pleasure of working with.

Peter Armstrong was an amazingly inspirational leader and hard not to love. He literally threw himself into the effort to an unprecedented degree for any Chair. He didn’t just show up, he didn’t just do the fun events, Peter was out there in the rain at 7:30 am in the morning side by side with the candidates Burma-shaving, canvassing and mainstreeting. He was tireless!

He would send over books he thought would inspire us to greater efforts, and he brought groups of candidates together to work out differences … he made a Herculean effort and deserves credit for all good that happened this campaign.

Norman Stowe is one of the strongest, most professional business leaders I’ve met. He has a no-nonsense management style essential to ensure campaigns don’t devolve into chaos. He brought order, discipline, structure and a relentless focus on the fundamentals that inspired confidence and kept the campaign on track. And though famously well-hidden, he’s got a roguish sense of humor that built bonhomie, and was often used to break tension at critical moments.

Campaigns, especially losing campaigns, make or break people. Michael Davis, who handled media relations, was one of those that came shining through. He provided invaluable advice throughout the campaign and more than once saved candidates and the campaign from ourselves. Principled, level-headed, trustworthy, great instincts and a strong, calming presence when it was most needed.

David Hurford was one of the best policy partners a candidate could find. He was stellar. And if you actually look at the policy framework Suzanne Anton proposed, it is far more substantial than Vision’s and much more innovative. But I digress …

Other standouts were the Voter ID team under Marko Decovik, which dwarfed previous NPA efforts; fundraising under Rob McDonald which also surpassed all earlier campaigns. And there were a number of very nice people who worked in the campaign office and did everything they could to help, including Art Perret who ran operations for us. It was a great group to work with.

My difference with the campaign lies completely in the substance of what we offered voters, both in terms of content and tone. It’s not even that our campaign was perceived as negative – there’s nothing wrong with negative campaigns in and of themselves.

Vision’s campaign against the NPA in 2008 was terribly negative, and this time around they were still planting negative stories about NPA candidates in the press right up until election day. Gregor may look like a boy scout but Vision plays hardball. And so should we.

My beef is with the lack of intelligence in our approach, best exemplified by the campaign’s failed attempts at humour intended to both demonize and trivialize our opponents.

In an article for Business in Vancouver titled “NPA falls on its own sword of tired tactics“, former Mayoral candidate Peter Ladner wrote:

“It’s time for the NPA to get out a huge vacuum and suck up all the people who think every political opponent is evil and that job No. 1 is to eliminate them,” Ladner writes.

“It’s a tiresome, downer strategy borne of three years of citycaucus.com blog’s partisan putdowns – hilarious to family and friends, but tedious and irritating to anyone who cares more about the city than about hating Vision and COPE (RIP).”

Were we blinded by our own need to paint the other guys as evil? Whatever the cause, the NPA was handed a great opportunity this election and failed to seize it.

The city had just experienced one of the worst riots in its history due to the Mayor’s well-meaning but reckless irresponsibility; there is at minimum a quarter-billion dollar loss at the Olympic Village; Vision’s many broken promises were coming back to haunt them; and neighbourhoods across the city were up in arms over a lack of meaningful consultation.

Instead the campaign chose to focus its ire on trivial issues – a $5000 urban agriculture grant and the right for people to raise their own chickens – wedge issues used to divide voters and force people to choose sides.

It worked, just not as intended. Instead of bringing voters to our side, we drove centrist voters away, in the process alienating many of the people I know (and was counting on for support.)

As Rick Peterson recently observed in a Vancouver Sun editorial:

This year’s NPA campaign team decided to go with a “populist” approach … that many people found too negative … In the end, voters clearly favoured Vision’s “softer” and possibly more positive agenda focusing on the environment and social issues.

Vision pollster Bob Penner offered a particularly salient observation about our tactics relating to Occupy Vancouver:

Anton’s focus on Occupy also hurt her with some voters: many felt she was politicizing the issue for her own political gain. While these voters were mostly in the Robertson camp, they could also be found among Anton voters, and significantly among the undecided as well.

… The sheer volume of extra coverage probably did help Anton somewhat, given her low recognition and approvals at the beginning of the campaign.

But the media’s relentless focus on Occupy Vancouver’s every move, and the politicians’ every reaction to it, did limit more useful information from reaching voters, and we all missed an opportunity for a more substantive political debate, something that – at least in part – election campaigns are supposed to be about.”

And I think that about sums it up.

Those that are now arguing all we need is a better voter ID operation are missing the lesson of the election in which we did better at voter ID than ever before.

Ultimately, Voter ID, and every successful election campaign, requires voters to like something about you. That realization alone should require us to define ourselves in a way that doesn’t repel the average thinking voter.

Those that dream of a better result if we just reached more voters should have spent some time with me canvassing former NPA voters in Kits so turned off by our campaign they were actually hostile. Or they should have listened to the phone calls I received from friends literally sputtering they were so angry with the two-page attack ads they saw in the papers over Occupy Vancouver that morning.

The NPA has always survived as a grand bargain between federal Liberals and Conservatives, yet we came very close this campaign to alienating the liberals, myself included. Why? What was gained? We have re-ignited divisions many of us worked three years to try and tamp down.

So it behooves those who take charge of the next iteration of the NPA to demonstrate a little humility, admit the errors involved in this campaign, acknowledge the damage done to the NPA, try to heal deep divisions rubbed raw yet again, and recognize at the very least that the answers won’t be found in a small back room of the most partisan-minded among us.

The party’s future literally depends on it.