Campaning

What is Campaigning?

Campaigning is the process of mobilising people to join together to take action to challenge the powerful to make decisions to help benefit, not harm the powerless.

It is about tackling the causes of injustice by challenging those structures, policies and practices which serve to keep the poor in poverty.

Campaigning can involve writing letters to politicians, signing petitions, lobbying, marches, boycotts, demonstrations, prayer vigils, publicity stunts, media work etc

It is directed against a target to achieve a specific result.

 

But in our case has we all know Papua New Guinea is a free and Democratic country every person has the right to express their views and opinions on any and everything he/she thinks is right or wrong.

So for this years election you has a Papua New Guineans has the right to campaign for any candidate you prefer.

But apart from choosing the right candidates here are some few tips you should thinks about:

 

• Think of Integrity and honesty.
• Think of a leader who has skills and ideas to become a leader.
• Think of a leader who will become a slave to the people.
• Think of a leader who knows the difficulties, our country is facing.
• Think of a leader who can make a different to the situation we face with our economic, education, unemployment, poverty and many more………….

 

Don’t be fool by this:

It’s not what you say. It’s what you’re talking about

All campaigns are helped or hurt by certain issues. Your candidate may have the greatest answers on education, but if education is an issue that helps your opponent more than you, you’re fighting a losing battle even bringing it up. Start your campaign by defining which issues help your candidate, and don’t talk about anything else.

The key is to make the race “about” one of your key issues. List issues for your candidate and issues for your opponent. If your race becomes about one of your opponent’s issues, you lose.

Issues only matter if they define your candidate

Most voter polls show a great affinity for issues, but issues aren’t an end in themselves. Few votes actually turn on one issue. What voters mean by “voting on issues” is that they use the issues in a campaign to determine the character of a candidate. If your candidate’s issues can’t be connected together and articulated in a theme, change them until you can. You must give a clear, consistent and favorable definition of who your candidate is. People want to vote for candidates like themselves, and can forgive an issue difference here and there if the theme represents values similar to the voters.

Make them fight for their base

If someone aligned with your opponent is running in a simultaneous race nearby, find an issue that they disagree on and push it. If not, do the same with positions contrary to his supporters. Chances are, your opponent doesn’t want a lead story about how he is out of touch with his own side, and it reminds his donors and voters that your opponent isn’t always on their side, either. Make him waste time and money shoring up people in his base while you take the middle.

Better to say the same thing ten times then to say ten things once

Nothing frustrates a candidate more than giving the same answer a thousandth time, except maybe losing the race, which he most surely will if he doesn’t. When the candidate is sick of saying it, that’s when people are beginning to listen to it. Many times, campaigns are months of rehearsal for a week of performance. Stick to your message no matter how boring it is for a candidate who loves the thought of knowing everything about everything. It’ll pay off when it counts.

Tie every Q&A to your general theme, and from there back to one of your key issues. If a question is not in your candidate’s key areas, answer it briefly – very briefly – and bridge back to your themes and a key issue of yours. You can’t articulate your theme too often.

Negative should not mean angry

Reagan was a master. You can say very negative things with a smile and a shake of the head and not appear negative. When voters say they hate negative politics, what they mean is they hate angry politics. If your tone is positive and your look is upbeat, you can say things as negative as you want and voters will chuckle with you, and hate your opponent for being angry about it.

Never campaign to your base

Especially with paid media. They’ll turn out. They’ll vote for you. They aren’t going to switch parties because of your race. I do not mean ignore them. Invite them to your rallies. Call them for advice. Ask them to spend a day campaigning with your candidate. But don’t spend a dime of paid media reaching them or promoting issues mainly for their benefit. Go for the middle, or make a stab at the opponent’s base instead.

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Remember you cant change the past but you can change the future.

  Survey Responses:

Some questions and response colleted during the survey are as follows:

1. Would your relationship influence who you campaign for? Explain?

 

EK: “Yes, am currently in this situation. My girlfriend and I are form the same electorate, but we are campaigning for different candidates. Am not sure out relationship will last or not, but I hope it will last for as long as it takes.”

 

JB: “Not exactly, we would discuss but this will not influence us.”

 

SS: “Yes, coz I always listen and follow my boyfriend ideas coz he his smart, intelligent and above all I really love him.”

 

BJP: “Am really not sure my boyfriend and I live in the same province and same district but we’re not interested in campaign or elections.”

 

PJ: No, my girlfriend and I are so close we share everything together that’s why I don’t think it will influence us.

 

GT: Yes, I could have a candidate as my choice but then if my boyfriend could influence and convince me to go for whom he likes I guess I would easily follow.

JJ: I don’t know why I will just follow him.

 

KB: “No, it wouldn’t. I will make my choice based on my own judgment.

 

RR: “It wouldn’t because every person has a right to their opinion and I would always want to make my own choice.”

 

GP: “Yes, We would discuss about candidates but it wouldn’t influence my decision. It’s a free country. Every one has to make right to make their own decision about who to campaign for. It’s ‘national suffrage’. It’s preferable for her to make her decision and her choice but it’s about making the right decisions and choices.”

 

1. What do you say about the current election campaign? How has it affected your relationship?

 

EK: “No, because it is a free country and every person has the right to express his/her own political judgments

 

JB: “I would say this years campaign and about my relationship I don’t have a steady girlfriend so I don’t know weather it will affect our relationship or not but, has for my families my parents are arguing my mom and dad are currently campaigning for different candidates.”

 

SS: “I think the only affect it has on our relationship is it makes us to share our ideas on who to vote for and also influence my boyfriend to start listening to my opinions.”

 

BJP: “About the campaigns I think it’s noting like the previous one there noise here noise there every where.

Everywhere you try to go people talk about which candidates to campaign and elect and so fort.

About my relationship with my friend I don’t think it has any affect with us.

Have I told you already we’re not interested in Politics?”

 

PJ: “The current election campaign has not even on affects on my relationship.”

 

KB: “We debated a lot about who has the best interest of the people. It was interesting to learn the different ideas we have and how we see our people, our leaders and things like integrity, honesty, power and money.”

 

RR: “I don’t have one in which to experience whether the campaign affects it or not.”

 

GP: “It has not influenced anything about me having a relationship with a girl. We don’t live for this. Campaigning is not a risk unless the decision you make doesn’t settle well with your girlfriend. Don’t put your girlfriend aside and make the campaign very important.”