Help get the Oldham postal vote out

Half of people in Oldham West and Royton get their ballot papers in the next few days. Can you encourage them to cast their votes for the excellent Liberal Democrat candidate Jane Brophy?

National Campaigns Officer Steve Jolly explains why you should:

All the details of how to get there are here and if you can’t get there in person, you could always make some calls for Jane or send some dosh.

Going to a by-election is great fun. They work you hard, but you never quite know who you are going to meet. You could end up canvassing with Jo Swinson or Tim Farron or any one of our peers, almost all of whom are heading up there. Most importantly, you could end up learning all sorts of campaigning tricks that you could use on your patch, as I wrote the other day:

The most up to date campaigning tricks and techniques will be there for you to see. Also you might learn about things as simple as ways to organise your delivery rounds or canvassing. If you’re in the office doing clerical work, learn from how it’s managed. You can pick up tips on all aspects of running an election that you can develop and use back home.

You would hope that it would be shining Lib Dem examples of brilliance that you would learn from but the other parties can teach you stuff too. There was one Scottish by-election where a former Lib Dem parliamentarian was seen shinning up a lamppost at dead of night to nab an SNP poster which, he declared, was brilliant in its simplicity and effectiveness. Well, he may not have put it quite like that, but you get the drift.

There’s been quite a discussion about old vs new campaign techniques in recent days, most notably on Elaine Bagshaw’s article. My view is that campaigns always involve, but the basic principles remain the same. Also, apart from Connect, which enabled people to phone from afar, you’d be hard pushed to find anything new fangled and fancy in our recent victory in Aird and Loch Ness. There, Jean Davis did the tried and tested thing of listening to the voters, campaigning on local issues and doing lots of leaflets in her massive 40 square mile ward. There are so many communities in it and it was clear when she spoke to us at our Scottish Kickstart on Saturday how well she understands them. While we need to keep up with the evidence base, we need to be careful not to chuck out what actually works.

* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings

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5 Comments

  • I couldn’t agree more about being “careful not to chuck out what actually works”. It’s not rocket science, choose your candidate early so they can get themselves known to the voters. Get the bigwigs – Peers, MP’s, Councillors knocking on doors and walking around the shopping centres, factories and clubs, Get the posters up and the leaflets out – let people know you are there. You no longer have to hide your leader, Tim Farron seems like a decent guy get him out meeting the people of Oldham. Don’t put so much faith in phones and emails, frankly to most people you are just another sales call. When you talk to voters talk about the things that matter to most people, most are not interested in Green banks, legalising pot or what the “Rock the Boat” type of groups have to say. I’ve never voted Tory in my life, but with the Labour and LibDem parties being in such a mess I may have little choice at the next election. One of the main reasons I might vote for them is that their candidate seems an OK guy with a decent hardworking team around him and for many people that’s enough.

  • malc: Of coure he is a good guy, he can join the other good guys in hitting the poor with tax credit changes, reducing local government to reduce services ,arguing to leave europe and losing thousands of jobs, stopping britain becoming a leader in renewable energy but that doesnt matter he is a good guy

  • bob sayer – In 2010 I voted for a new kind of politics, what I got was Nick Clegg and a pack of lies. I still don’t know how I will vote in the future, but I think I would vote for a good man/woman rather than just policies. People often lie about their policies, but decent people try and do their best and that’s good enough for me.

  • typo, pleeeeese correct it and delete this post
    [.My view is that campaigns always involve, but the basic principles remain the same. ]

    evolve

  • No Malc, a lot of voters ARE interested in legalising pot !

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