Emotional Appeals

Obama Girl, (aka Amber Lee Ettinger) the one with a crush, has a new video out on Youtube; this one is a message for Hillary Clinton to give up basically - who is sponsoring Obama girl? While now a minor celebrity for being the hottest presidential candidate's groupie, she also seems to have a lot of backing - a flashy website, high production videos - it is one of those questions that seems unasked.

The Youtube War

The Political Betting blog reported the Youtube war 4 days ago, where the candidates from Crewe & Nantwich had all posted their campaign videos and were awaiting an audience. On Sunday the scores were Cons 796; LibDem 469 and Labour on a derisory 181. I wondered if this had changed, had this gained extra hits for any of the candidates. It seems there has been a change but it is a Conservative landslide. Timpson's video has now has 2,996 views, LibDem is 976, Labour now have 811. Does this tell us anything - not long to wait to find out.

click through to political betting for the videos

Dirty Tricks?

Not sure of the veracity of the story but it is alleged that a Labour source had a accused a rival candidate in Crewe & Nantwich of being unable to spell Britain correctly when signing Gwyneth Dunwoody's book of condolences. The victim of the attack is neither of those currently threatening to consign Labour to third place (depending on the source of data), but Gemma Garrett (left), Miss Great Britain, standing on a platform of bringing beauty into politics, as well as the more serious policies of increasing wages for armed services personnel and cutting tax on all childcare benefits. Miss Garrett hit back, winning support from one reader on the website of the Crewe and Nantwich Guardian. Defying any dumb blonde stereotypes, she is quoted as responding with:

"This is precisely the low, petty and underhanded sort of action which contributes to the overall impression that politics is a sleazy and grubby business. It is ironic that Labour, which is supposed to cherish the rights of women, created this cheap, wrong and stereotypical image of me intended to suggest that any girl who happened to be blonde and to look good cannot spell. It is risible and sad that they have stooped to this level of personal abuse..."

Strong words, the big question is why would Labour attack a candidate that is not a threat, even if she did make a spelling error, if it was not Labour was it someone else with the intention of slurring Labour and Tamsin Dunwoody their candidate, whose dirty trick and why?

The professional campaign

Iain Dale is currently reporting from Crewe as he helps with the Conservative campaign, he notes the lack of poster-boards all over, things that used to be a staple element of a campaign (for those who have never seen them there is a picture, the only one I could find online in fact). They were once everywhere across constituencies, now they tend to be on high volume roads, but all the same it was a symbol that there was an election taking place that reminded everyone the contest was on. Now it seems it is more about media coverage, and this could be why the Conservatives are winning. David Cameron has been there three times, countless members of the Shadow Cabinet have been there, and these high profile visits lead to media coverage. Party leaders make news purposely to gain coverage, Cameron today joined forces with his candidate Edward Timpson to invite Gordon Brown to visit the constituency to discuss the concerns of the real people. This is perhaps the modern, professional campaign, getting to the greatest number of people using the best means: the local newspaper.

The Perils of Facebook

Tamsin Dunwoody, not to be outdone, has a supporters group on Facebook that has 309 members; well why not. The only problem is that the wall posts are censored, well I can understand that given the context, but it creates orphan responses to insults if they too are not removed. Hence one supporter posts "Its right sad that Joel took time out of his day and joined a group just to sit and slag people off .. Sort it out you tool!" while the post from Joel 'said tool' is missing. This, perhaps, sends out the wrong image; someone was slagging you off but you removed it. Does this offer a worse perception that leaving the original 'slag off' message or not: it's a question.

A blog worth following

Crewe TV, a lively "photo diary of life in Crewe, the people, places and its politics, including the railway, town centre redevelopment, Crewe Alexandra Football Club, local events and more" is the place for the insider perception of the by-election and particularly what the candidates are up to. One often asked question by commenters is "Where's Gordon", with a lot of negative comments about him having 'given up' knowing 'the clock is ticking'. Not sure who visits the site but there is a poll there, and currently Labour are in third place, the 703 contributors see Timpson ahead for the Conservatives with Liberal Democrat Liz Shenton a very close second (full poll scores are to the right); with reference to the last post, is this an indication of a climate change in British politics? I suspect that it may not be that representative (looking at the percentage voting for Monster Raving Loony candidate: Flying Brick) but it enforces the idea of a close race with Labour doing badly which may not be too far away from the final truth.

The cost of credibility

Is about 10pence it seems. This whole sorry saga is quite shocking for a man that may not have been renowned for a great deal across his career except for his competent management of the economy. How this went so wrong we may never discover until memoirs appear, if it was a mistake in the first instance then no-one seemed to notice until too late; whatever the political and financial ramifications seem to have been completely ignored. Is this the final straw, the low point from Labour cannot return. The Conservatives seemed doomed to lose from the first poll taken after Black Wednesday, while Brown's standing has never been high is this the event that means that the next election is the Conservatives to lose? It is whether there is a symbolic significance attached to the recent economic events.

If economic management is all Brown stands for within the public consciousness then that is now shattered as it seems that the decline in support is linked to accusations of dithering over the future of Northern Rock, is inability to explain how economic stability will be maintained or how much it will cost the nation, and this long drawn out series of discussions over the 10p rate where Brown simply got it wrong. What could brown do to reverse his standing, how much will the heartlands abandon Labour for alternative leftist parties or the Liberal Democrats, or perhaps more importantly what would David Cameron have to do to lose the election. What will be interesting in Crewe & Nantwich is not who wins or not but the extent of the swings in votes. If these indicate vote switching away from Labour it could say a great deal about the general tide as there is no incumbency or personal vote. So it could be, in microcosm, despite the lower turnout, the general feeling of the nation if May 20th was a General Election and not just a by-election.

Bad Satire or Shaming the Opposition

The campaign for an English Parliament, equivalent to those of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, is worthwhile and perhaps there are elements of the video that could be perceived as fair comment, but are the cheap shots necessary or effective. While calling John Prescott a 'Vast Waist Of Space' may work for Private Eye is it right for a political campaign video? Or does it make it engaging? The curious bit for me is the choice of music 'Cap in Hand' by The Proclaimers; while the sentiment "But I can’t understand why we let someone else rule our landWe’re cap in hand" may be felt by English Democrat supporters it could be perceived as essentially anti-Westminster if not anti British/English. But the main feature is the slideshow presentation of current politicians attacking them, does this work and why.

Engaging, evidence of Dumbing Down or just Dumb

I only just found this wonderful trailer to advertise Super Tuesday's television coverage. This is the way to advertise an election contest, forget swing-o-meters, gimmicky sets, on the spot interviews, lets superimpose the candidate's heads on wrestlers and pretend its WWF. The soundtrack is Down with the Sickness by Disturbed, why does that seem just so appropriate. But then is this actually the way to capture a television audience, get them excited in the contest? Alternatively does it encourage a non-participatory audience, similar to WWF enjoying the game of candidates biting chunks out of each other and pretending to be wounded?

Experts get it wrong

Yes I would have probably agreed, and also been wrong, but it is good when you have company. The PRCA Leader's Panel declared Boris Johnson won the campaign but "more than 50 per cent" believed he would lose the election. It seems they felt that nothing could carry Boris over the finishing line due to his credibility gap and Ken's rebranding of himself as "cuddly".

Perhaps we all missed a very important point. Ken Livingstone could not rebrand himself, the London electorate had a set of attitudes towards him and his administration based on eight years of experience. Johnson had one advantage, he was not Ken and could offer something different. All he had to do was overcome the clown image, appear as the 'new' managerial, business-like Boris and sell that perception to the voters. Clearly he did that! Boris also was able to set the agenda with the support of the Evening Standard, had to be a bonus for him.