Friday 6 September 2013

There were three 'phone calls

last night. Two of them were a waste of time and money although I doubt the political strategists thought that.
We have been plagued by phone calls throughout the election period. They seem to have taken the place of door knocking.
We have never had a politician knock on our door here in the suburbs. Our current local representative knows us. He is likely to keep his position unless something goes horribly wrong. I assume the opposition has better things to do than visit us.
But we have had "automated polling" (just put the phone down) and "automated electioneering" (again, just put the phone down).
Last night I listened out of curiosity. What would the final pitch be?
The Opposition Leader came first. His message admitted it was automated in the first sentence. That would give anyone a chance to put the phone down. Good. He was polite. Good. He asked you to vote for the local candidate. Expected. He thanked you. Good. That was it. It was short and clear. He seems to have grown increasingly confident but his delivery style could still do with improvement.
The Prime Minister came next. There was no admission it was automated. That would be using words he wants to use to convince us to vote for his side. He was aggressive. Well yes, at the moment he does appear to be on the losing side. He asked (or perhaps told) you to vote for the local candidate. Expected. He told you how essential it was. Expected. He used more words than the Opposition Leader. Expected. His delivery style was "chatty". Expected.
The Opposition Leader uses less words. It makes him sound less fluent and less certain of himself. The present Prime Minister can use more words than Sir Humphrey Appleby - and say less. Both men could benefit from some coaching although I doubt the Prime Minister could change his style. He has tried to convince the electorate he has changed from the first time around and it looks as if he has not succeeded.
Tomorrow is E-day. I will endeavour to vote early. I suspect the queues will be long if large numbers of people decide to do their own thing and vote below the line for the Senate. I have my guide prepared. I printed off a blank form the Senior Cat. He was still struggling over the final numbers last night. We are ready.
Are the leaders ready?
The messages were a reflection of the personalities of the two contenders. The first was probably better strategy than the second, especially in the final stages of a campaign. Less is more. Use less words and get the message across?
No doubt they have been advised about getting the message across.
"Fewer words and more action" would be a good motto for all politicians.

3 comments:

Sue Bursztynski said...

I just had one of those recorded phone calls. I hung up. What made me angry a few weeks ago was getting an envelope with "Important information about Postal
Votes!" in large letters on the outside. Inside, there was no information about postal votes at all, just the candidate's advertising blurb and a postal vote application, addressed, not to the AEC, but to a PO Box that I suspect was the party's HQ. This is apparently quite legal - before sending it on, they take your details to tell them your demographics. It is slimy and sneaky, because you have to open the envelope. Then they did it again, with a window envelope that might have been a bill, which you had to open to find out what it was about. I had to ask: would I be prepared to trust this man to represent my interests when he had effectively lied to me twice already? The answer is no.

catdownunder said...

We had a third one on Friday night - from a welfare organisation which should not be spending charity dollars urging us to vote for anyone!
And we got the postal vote material too - probably from the same source. Interestingly our sitting member also sent material out but the envelope was addressed to the AEC.
I returned the other envelopes to the party in question - they had to pay for the postage - but there was nothing in them.

Anonymous said...

I answered to the PM, and had a few words for him which he ignored. I didn't get one from the opposition, but it could have been one I ignored during a week of having quite a few calls from people trying to sell me a solar system ... for a rented house.