Kevin’s campaign notebook

Four weeks into an eight-week campaign for city council, the candidate finds the going pretty good so far

by Kevin Potvin <kpotvin@republic-news.org>

Thanks to many volunteers, and with special thanks to the members of the Mud Bay Blues Band, Sue & Shelly Band, SandyBone and his band and Wyckham Porteous, the fundraiser party at the WISE Hall last Friday was a very big success. Enough money was raised to contemplate a much more intensive advertising strategy in the final four weeks. But more importantly, I came away from the night humbled with a strong sense of responsibility after having my claim to represent the community so strongly confirmed by that community.

This independent campaign for council was broken down into two separate campaigns, one aimed at winning the votes of constituents, and the other, being completely different and nearly totally separate, is aimed at winning exposure in as wide an array of media as possible.

The two campaigns run simultaneously, the former piggy-backing on the latter. Once I win exposure in the media, then I use that limited space or time to appeal to voters. They are separate campaigns because statements that appeal to voters are not the kind of statements that the media would pick up on; and the tactics that the media pick up on do not necessarily appeal to voters.

An example: I was given the idea of inviting the United Nations to move to Vancouver’s Deadman’s Island, and while I recognized it immediately as a pie-in-the-sky idea, I knew it could attract media attention. And it certainly did: I earned seven minutes on the widely-listened to Philip Till show on CKNW radio in the morning, a large (by their standards) article plus picture in 24 Hours newspaper, a lengthy article and picture in Westender newspaper, an interview with the Chinese-language newspaper World Journal, and a television interview on ICTV, all with that one idea. What I was able to do with that exposure was allow the public to learn about who I am, the kind of things I think about, and what level of vision I bring to the process at City Hall. I talked about the world military situation, the state of international diplomacy, world opinion regarding United States imperial adventurism, the traditional (and proud) Personian role of Canada in that world, the civic ideal, the image of Vancouver in the world, the beauty possible with a significant building in that location, and the overnight cosmopolitanism of Vancouver if all this should happen—as though cosmopolitanism were a good thing.

Not bad for one press release. But I wanted better. Acting on a revealing reply from one reporter, I realized that mass-broadcast press releases through email may not be the best method of attracting attention. I happen to know the work of most of the reporters in this city who cover city politics, but it would not take more than a long afternoon at the public library for anyone to scan all the papers and make a note of bylines and columnists, along with notes on what sort of things they seem interested in. Then one could try writing directly to specific writers with ideas tailored to interest them.

My experiment came when I googled all the party-nominated candidates and looked for something there or not there I could use. When all the bios were in front of me, the hook leaped right off the screen: not one of the party candidates from any party had a background in small business retailing, and I do. Voila.

It was a business story so I turned to civic business writers. I know the work of Don Cayo in the business pages of the Vancouver Sun, and I know he often looks toward the edges for more interesting story ideas, and I thought he might consider covering an independent candidate for City Council, even if only one independent has ever won a seat in this city. I pitched a story to him directly about me being the only small business retailer on the ballot. He wrote back within ten minutes and we had an interview arranged at Calabria Café on Commercial Drive five minutes after that. The result was a big picture and a huge article in the Vancouver Sun, the biggest print media in the city. As a bonus, that same day I was called for an interview with a Terminal City writer responding to an earlier mass press release.

In both articles I was able to convey the image of myself as a thinking person outside the normal mold but still one who is consistent, aware of reality, and reasonable. A key to managing the presentation of this image was having the forethought to consult early on in the campaign with someone I was introduced to who had long been involved in campaigns. The best advice from an evening discussion was, write out a brief and well-reasoned (that is, revised and revised again) response to every and all possible issues that one can imagine coming up in a civic election. Then read them over and over again. The result was that in all interviews so far, there has yet to be a question I hadn’t anticipated. While I do not suggest rote, scripted answers, I can say from experience it sure is a lot easier to ramble in conversation over any subject knowing all along what you want to roughly say about it in the end.

The next stage in the media campaign will be to convey the image of a candidate whose election victory is a fait accompli so that there are no quandaries in editorial offices over granting me media coverage, now that all the other independents have come out of the woodwork and will be slinging accusations of non-coverage at the media. I will use the huge success of the fundraiser party on October 7 plus results of a unique (and still secret) polling method to get that message out. I will use the resulting coverage to develop a theme of handling civic issues with a broad view of the wider world in mind. Tune in, same bat channel, same bat time!

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