Before you think the writer is a computer Luddite, it should be mentioned that we spent a lengthy business career explaining computers and computer software through the media. Our last company was a pioneer in database development that helped usher in the excesses of the Internet era. It was only when Katie Telford told the Liberal Party meeting in Winnipeg how the last campaign was won because of computer competence that we knew the party needed a reality check.
Computer programs can never be a sole solution to campaigning but are an important aid in analysing information on voters. You just have to remember that a database is only as good as the data that has been input. It is like we would still like to talk to the wise-ass at party headquarters who switched our records from our home electoral district of Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte to Toronto’s Beaches—East York. Frankly the Beaches riding information was far more interesting and more plentiful than that from our riding. We would have been more aware of what was wrong in our riding if we had all the information.
And that is the bone we would pick with Katie Telford and her team’s compilations of the Liberal database information. The problems in our riding should have stuck out like a sore thumb. There were a lot of local Liberals who believed we would win this riding. When the recount showed that we were less than 90 votes off the mark, they felt betrayed.
The people running the central campaign would not send Trudeau to Barrie during the campaign for the wrong reasons. Their data was corrupted and they had no intelligence on what was wrong. There are algorithms to help correct database errors but as many people have figured out with Google, they can go much to far and you end up with garbage.
You can never replace humint—human intelligence gathering. The late Keith Davey, who never had the Internet to help him win elections, always started his day with a fresh sheet of 8.5 by 14-inch paper. By the end of the day, Keith had it filled with very tiny notes from talking to his contacts from coast to coast. Those sheets of paper told the story of every day of that particular election campaign.
What was most obvious about the campaign in 2015 was that announcement timing was not under the control of people with good political instincts. While Telford gave the credit for the campaign to the computer edge, she was also laying blame. It seems that actions that instinct told you should have happened a week earlier, would have to wait for a computer program to make it happen.
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Copyright 2016 © Peter Lowry
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