Labour brings in... Howard Dean

[Rob]

Link

Labour has enlisted one of the engineers of this week's Democratic victory in the US midterm elections in an attempt to boost its flagging fortunes before the local elections in May.

Howard Dean, the former presidential candidate and one of the men credited with masterminding the trouncing of the Republicans, will visit the UK next month to brief party officials about his pioneering campaigning techniques.

...

Labour is particularly interested in the Democrats' style of targeting grassroots voters through low-key meetings in homes. "We want to look at their experience in campaigning, getting out the vote, holding house meetings where people can come together ... You don't want to transplant American politics, but there's a lot we can share," said Ms Blears.

Many political observers will regard the drafting in of Mr Dean as bizarre, given that the Democratic victory was largely founded on voters' anger about the war in Iraq - the very subject which has alienated many Labour supporters and on which Mr Dean has been so outspoken.

But Ms Blears believes Labour can benefit from the tactics used so effectively by the chairman of the Democratic national committee. "Part of [their new success] is politics, but it's also about organisation," she said.

She also said Labour could benefit from the so-called "viral" tactics Mr Dean helped pioneer. "Politics is increasingly local and decentralised ... People go to people they trust for word-of-mouth recommendations. It's about like-minded people talking, with concentric circles of campaigning, rather than about a political message from the centre."

...

Renewing Labour's campaigning techniques has become crucial, not just because of the Conservative lead in opinion polls, but also because the Tories are using their war chest in increasingly sophisticated ways, with highly targeted mail shots and telephone calls. The Tories and Lib Dems have also sent envoys to the US to learn new techniques from campaigners over there...

So, any thoughts on this? Will it have any impact at all on Labour's strategy, or on the vote next spring?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

What? Someone in the current leadership is actually interested in electoral ideas not based around Clinton worship?

I'm amazed... pleased, but amazed... there's no point in wasting time and money on trying to get votes from middle class people who no longer have any interest in voting for us, and it's good that this is finally be recognised...

A style of politics based around motivating the base could actually be very successful here, if done well.

[afleitch]

Labour's going to adandon the chase for the middle class vote? ----ing yes!

[merseysider]

Try to get back the nice, well-educated soft left middle class types but screw the mondeo man..

The problem with the nice, well-educated soft left middle class types you refer to is they will always be anti-Labour as long as we are in government. I know the type of people you mean; I went to school and university with them, I work with them, I live next door to them, I am friends with some of them.

The fact is, no Labour government would ever be principled enough for them; no Labour government would be radical enough for them; no Labour government would be liberal enough for them; no Labour government would be intellectual enough for them.

You could increase public spending by a million percent, send in a hit squad to assassinate George W Bush and be such a civil libertarian you made Lord Longford look like Norman Tebbit, and they would still be writing whingeing letters to the Guardian and threatening to vote LibDem.

The fact is that 'core vote strategies' don't work. They didn't work for William Hague's Tories; they didn't work for us in the 1980s. You can't win power, and hold it, by staying in your political comfort zone. In any case, our supposed natural constituency (unionised public sector workers and the urban poor) has been shrinking for years.

In any case, what is wrong with being a 'Mondeo man'? What's wrong with having a mortgage and wanting economic stability and reasonable levels of taxation? What's wrong with wanting to improve your standard of living and do the best for your kids? What's wrong with being ordinary?

Some people never learn......

[Rural Radical]

The middle class we wont get again are the so called soft left.

Mondeo man is still up for grabs though.

There is mileage in going after the Rural working classes though. This vote has largely been ignored since the 1960s.

It could make the difference in semi rural sets like The Wrekin and Shrewsbury.

[Bleeding heart conservative, HTMLdon]

I apologize profusely for rooting for Labour in the last election.

[True Democrat]

Another nail into the heart of New Labour. . .

[Ben.]

In any case, what is wrong with being a 'Mondeo man'? What's wrong with having a mortgage and wanting economic stability and reasonable levels of taxation? What's wrong with wanting to improve your standard of living and do the best for your kids? What's wrong with being ordinary?

"what is wrong with being a 'Mondeo man'?" for folks in the Labour Party?... could it be that they vote conservative

[Joe Republic]

I apologize profusely for rooting for Labour in the last election.

It's a mystery why you were rooting for them in the first place.  In any case, nobody cares.

[Keystone Phil]

I apologize profusely for rooting for Labour in the last election.

It's a mystery why you were rooting for them in the first place.  In any case, nobody cares.

Agreed. I like Blair but cheering for Labour was not an option.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The fact is that 'core vote strategies' don't work.

They worked alright for Labour before 1980.

IMO the reason why Labour did badly in the '80's wasn't because it alienated swing voters, but because it alienated many of it's (former) core supporters, meaning that the party's core vote became smaller than it had been even a few years earlier.

One of Labour's main advantages over the other parties is that we have a decent (if skeletal) organisation over 90% of constituencies. There is already a base there for strong, genuine, grassroots political machines. If enough work is put into that sort of thing, then there won't be any need for the stupid/obscene amount of money the leadership wasted on the media campaign last year... o/c the party can't afford to do that sort of stuff anymore anyway.

Btw, who is Mondeo Man and where does he live? Everyone seems to mean something different when they used that expression.

[merseysider]

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They might well have done. However, Britain is a very different place compared to the 1960s and 70s. There is more social and geographical mobility, we are much, much more affluent and aspire higher, and traditional class divisions mean a lot less than they used to.

In the 1960s, each party's real core vote probably was about 45% of the electorate, so you only needed to attract a few stragglers and waverers to win; only about 10% of the electorate was up for grabs. Now the core Labour and Tory votes are probably about 25% each, with up to half the vote up for grabs. Just look at some of the huge swings in individual constituencies in GE 2005.

Anachronistic appeals to working-class solidarity and to authentic socialist ideology are likely to meet with indifference or bewilderment. The world has changed (although, unfortunately, some of our members have never really accepted that we have to change with it, in spite of the Blair revolution).

As for building up party organisation, that's all well and good, and this weekend I'll be out shoving newsletters through letterboxes in one of our target wards. However, to establish a real presence on the ground in a community, you need hundreds of activists. Each parliamentary constituency has about 45,000 front doors to knock on.

The only way you will reach the vast majority of the voters is through the media; advertising hoardings, newspaper adverts, party political broadcasts on TV etc. Unfortunately this costs MONEY!

[Filuwaúrdjan]

However, Britain is a very different place compared to the 1960s and 70s.

Yes, it is different (and, generally, in a bad way). But not so different as it has become conventional to assume.

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I would say it was around 40% or so in the '60's, around 35% in the '70's and around 30% now.

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Half the vote certainly isn't up for grabs, and the idea that it is actually runs against the current leaderships approach to elections (which seems to be based around the idea that a small number of genuine swing voters can swing marginal constituencies (and because of that, the election) and that an intensive media-driven (and policy light...) campaign is the best way to swing these voters. Meanwhile the core vote can be taken for granted, as it won't vote for another party. IMO there's an element of not seeing the wood for the trees in this).

Btw, I'm not suggesting ceasing to appeal to swing voters. I just don't like the tendency to appeal to some of them in some selected constituencies at the expense of all other voters. If the base doesn't turn out, you lose no matter how many swing voters swing (o/c in 2005 they generally voted against us).

I also think we need to look out for new voters, something the national party hasn't bothered with for a decade now.

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The interesting thing about those, is that most had more to do with differential turnout of core voters than with swing voters swinging around... with some interesting exceptions (and in these cases the swing voters swung away from Labour, very heavily in some constituencies. The national campaign to target swing voters seems to have failed this time round).

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I don't think that billboard and newspaper adverts swing more than a handful of votes. IMO they are a complete waste of money (money which the party can't afford to waste anymore).

[Hatman 🍁]

Interesting. Guess who is the keynote speaker for the Liberal leadership convention tonight?

Howard Dean. Damn him, I thought he was cool.

[The Man From G.O.P.]

Haha ha, this just shows liberals line up abroad in the same firing squad, a circle.

[Cubby]

Haha ha, this just shows liberals line up abroad in the same firing squad, a circle.

yeah b/c Dean was such a failure in the midterms

Cameron is such a moderate, I'm starting to think he wouldn't be that bad. After 10 years, people just want change.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Haha ha, this just shows liberals line up abroad in the same firing squad, a circle.

yeah b/c Dean was such a failure in the midterms

Cameron is such a moderate, I'm starting to think he wouldn't be that bad. After 10 years, people just want change.

No, no he's not. But he does a good job at looking appealing to the very shallow. Plus people are bored of the Blair\Brown soap opera which seems to rank as an important news item only to the media, and so want an alternative. And Menzies "Ming" Campbell does not come across like one.

Btw, When is the new Liberal party leader announced?

[2952-0-0]

Did Howard Dean actually know what he was talking about? I mean, he mentioned that the Liberals pushed for such things like public healthcare. That part was wrong. They were in a minority government situation, so they had to support the NDP's proposals. Hence, this half-truth.

I really think foreigners shouldn't address a national political convention, at least not before they're better informed on the facts.

[Cubby]

Haha ha, this just shows liberals line up abroad in the same firing squad, a circle.

yeah b/c Dean was such a failure in the midterms

Cameron is such a moderate, I'm starting to think he wouldn't be that bad. After 10 years, people just want change.

No, no he's not. But he does a good job at looking appealing to the very shallow. Plus people are bored of the Blair\Brown soap opera which seems to rank as an important news item only to the media, and so want an alternative. And Menzies "Ming" Campbell does not come across like one.

Btw, When is the new Liberal party leader announced?

I'm not shallow

[Hatman 🍁]

Did Howard Dean actually know what he was talking about? I mean, he mentioned that the Liberals pushed for such things like public healthcare. That part was wrong. They were in a minority government situation, so they had to support the NDP's proposals. Hence, this half-truth.

I really think foreigners shouldn't address a national political convention, at least not before they're better informed on the facts.

I dont mind so much, as long as they pick the correct party. I mean, the NDP is basically the Dems with the word "new" infront of it

[2952-0-0]

As are the German National Dems or the Russian Lib Dems

[Hatman 🍁]

As are the German National Dems or the Russian Lib Dems

Pfft. We all know the US and Canada are more similar than Russia or Germany is with the US.

[The Man From G.O.P.]

Haha ha, this just shows liberals line up abroad in the same firing squad, a circle.

yeah b/c Dean was such a failure in the midterms

Cameron is such a moderate, I'm starting to think he wouldn't be that bad. After 10 years, people just want change.

Dean wasn't a sucess, he was kept in the cupboard away from real people, and I'd say the result was mellow for the democrats, no landslide at all.

[Cubby]

Haha ha, this just shows liberals line up abroad in the same firing squad, a circle.

yeah b/c Dean was such a failure in the midterms

Cameron is such a moderate, I'm starting to think he wouldn't be that bad. After 10 years, people just want change.

Dean wasn't a sucess, he was kept in the cupboard away from real people, and I'd say the result was mellow for the democrats, no landslide at all.

Winning both Houses of Congress back and having the biggest gain in seats in 12 years isn't a landslide? I guess someone is still in denial.

I know you don't care about Democratic Strategy, but for the record, Howard Dean's "50 State Campaign" helped lay the groundwork for Democratic victories at the state and local level. I'm not sure why Dean scares Republicans so much, he's a much better politician than your party and the media make him out to be.