06) COPE WEIGHS UP POST-ELECTION
STRATEGIES
PV Vancouver Bureau
On election
night in
For many, the
emphasis is on looking forward. COPE has faced major setbacks before, such as
the 1996 campaign which saw the defeat of every candidate. That outcome sparked
a review of the labour/left civic party's strategy,
leading to a successful campaign three years later, based on building broader
electoral alliances.
Young
community activists who have played a major role in rebuilding COPE in recent
years quickly began discussing what comes next. With school trustee Allan Wong
as the only COPE elected official, their focus is on moving into action around
a wide range of urgent local issues, rather than immediately locking into a
particular electoral tactic for 2014.
Among some
others, one reaction was very different. Before anyone had an opportunity to
examine poll-by-poll results, defeated council candidate Tim Louis was
attacking the party's electoral cooperation agreement with Vision
On the
surface, the argument looks persuasive. The 18 Vision candidates for mayor,
council, school board and park board all won, averaging some 60,000 votes. Only
one of COPE's nine candidates was elected, and COPE
candidates averaged 47,967.
But this
analysis breaks down on closer examination. The fact is that for six years,
Vision has claimed a larger share of voter support than COPE, the party from
which it bolted back in 2004. Reports from the
campaign indicate that while many Vision and COPE voters fully backed each
other's candidates, others did not. COPE itself may have contributed to this
development, by deciding during the initial campaign period to avoid listing
Vision candidates or the joint slate on COPE materials. This was done to allow
COPE to project a stronger independent image, appealing to voters who might
have sharp disagreements with Vision's record running the city over the past
three years.
Some COPE
candidates disagreed with this strategy, which was shifted by early November.
For the final two weeks of the campaign, both COPE and Vision materials and ads
placed much more emphasis on the joint slate. The E-day "doorknocker"
delivered to tens of thousands of likely supporters was a useful tool to
promote the full slate.
But was it
too late? At that point, the media had turned the contest into a head-to-head
battle for the mayoralty between Vision's Gregor
Robertson and the right-wing NPA candidate, Suzanne Anton. As Vision and the
NPA poured vast amounts into print, TV and radio ads, COPE's
strategy of trying to compete for media attention by focusing on policy
proposals was drowned out.
Another
factor was the splintering of progressive voters at the ballot box. This hurt
COPE incumbent councillor Ellen Woodsworth,
who lost to Green candidate Adriane Carr by just 91 votes. Many COPE-leaning
voters also backed Carr, unwittingly defeating Woodsworth
and depriving council of its most powerful radical voice.
Could COPE
have achieved more by running full slates and a mayoralty candidate? This seems
unlikely. A "go-it-alone" strategy would have cost COPE most of its
financial and organizational support from the labour
movement, which desperately wanted to block the NPA from regaining control of
City Hall. COPE's election budget would have been far
lower, there would have been no E-day doorknockers, and the number of
volunteers would have been far lower than the 400 who formed the backbone of
the COPE campaign.
Here are some
facts and figures which will be weighed up as COPE members analyse
the campaign.
Overall votes
and turnout were up, from 120,000 (31%) in 2008 to 144,000 (34%) in 2011.
The gap
between Vision and NPA candidates stayed constant. For Mayor, Robertson won
over Anton by 77,005 to 58,152 in 2011 (and 4007 for Randy Helten
of Neighbourhoods for a Sustainable Vancouver),
compared to his 2008 margin of 67,598 to 48,794 against the NPA's
Peter Ladner. These numbers also show that both the
NPA and Vision votes went up considerably.
COPE also
made gains in 2011, such as a 2700 vote increase for Woodsworth.
At school board, COPE incumbent Jane Bouey gained
3800 votes over 2008, followed by increases of 2900 for Al Blakey
and 900 for the popular Allan Wong, the only COPE candidate who stayed ahead of
the NPA.
For the four
COPE incumbents (Woodsworth, Wong, Bouey, Blakey), the average vote
was 52,362. For the first timers, the average was 43,331. The result for former
councillor Tim Louis, 43,936, was far closer to the
first‑timers, even though Louis received enormous media coverage,
including a front page of the Georgia
Straight weekly.
David Cadman,
the long‑time COPE councillor who was defeated
for a nomination this time, received 56,000 votes in 2008. Following the
pattern of other COPE incumbents, he would have gained votes and been re‑elected
by a margin of over 8,000, probably helping to pull Woodsworth
up into tenth place. That would have given COPE two councillors
instead of zero.
COPE first‑time
candidates like R.J. Aquino brought new activists and energy into the campaign.
But this was not enough to overcome the disadvantage of lower name recognition
in an at-large election dominated by massive media ads.
While Tim
Louis drew some new and former COPE supporters into the race, his vote gain of
600 over his 2005 result was very small. Even some COPE supporters did not vote
for Louis for various reasons, such as his enthusiastic support for the Fire
This Time cult which has sown divisions on the left. It appears that COPE did
not benefit from having Louis on the ballot, and lost significantly by dropping
Cadman.
The COPE
executive is still reviewing the results, and preparing to move towards a more
grassroots action strategy now that the political balance of forces has changed
in
(The above
article is from the January 1-31, 2012, issue of People's