Sometimes it’s smart to run silent, run deep

By Ivan Morgan

As the days dwindle down to a precious few, I have no idea how this federal election is going to go.

 I did six months ago. Everywhere I went, most everyone I spoke with was angry about the federal Liberals – and the federal NDP who supported them. I get around, and talk to all manner of folks, and the anger seemed deep and widespread. Pierre Poilievre and his Conservatives looked to be on a wave to victory in the upcoming election.

Now, six months later, the federal Liberals have a new face and say they are going to save us from Trump. Cleverly, the last ten years in power is never mentioned. They have masterfully changed the topic away from Justin Trudeau and his policies to Carney the All-Canadian Trump fighter. And the polls seem to show this is working.

Has all the anger dissipated?

Some thoughts before we see this all play out.

 First and foremost, I don’t trust polls. I studied polling decades ago in university and have kept up with the methods since then. For all the new modern techniques and theories, voters are more sophisticated, and harder to reach. Pollsters will have you understand they know what they are doing. That’s what gets them paid. How accurate are they? They had Kamala Harris edging Trump for the victory in the US.

Who knows who is really in the lead? An old political saying notes there’s only one poll that counts. It’s on the 28th of this month.

How are the Conservatives doing? If you are on social media, it appears Pollievre has huge rallies everywhere he goes. The mainstream media doesn’t tend to report this.

Media aside, I have no sense of how the two parties are actually doing on the ground. I have inklings, but that’s all.

Years ago, I worked on a provincial election campaign overseen by (and it’s a term I don’t use lightly) a political genius brought in from Ontario to run the whole shebang. We were doing well in the polls(well for us in any case) and it looked like we might have historic wins.

Late one evening we were called into his office to hear his new plan. For the rest of the election (I believe it was two weeks) he told us we were going to run silent, run deep.

For the duration of our campaign, we were going to ground. Bang on doors and phone voters – that’s it. My job (our job) from that moment till the polls closed was to make sure none of our candidates said anything to the media. Nothing that could shag things up, blow the gains we’d made.

I thought it contradicted what we should have been doing but deferred to his wisdom. He saw we were doing very well, and he didn’t want to risk that. He told everyone to shut up and campaign hard. Work on getting the vote out on election day. Run silent, run deep. He felt we would cruise to historic wins – which we did.

Is this what the Conservatives are doing? With very few friends in the mainstream media are they just working on their support? Running silent and running deep?

Or have the Liberals been successful in turning the page and rallying Canadians?

We shall see. The endless speculation is fascinating (well, to me anyway) but what’s important, regardless of who you support, is to vote.

It makes me sad that there are people who don’t vote.

Every vote is precious. Popular thinking is the NDP is in big trouble. You support them? Go vote for them. Love Mark Carney, think he is new and fresh and the answer to Canada’s problems? He needs your vote. Tired of Liberal rule? See Poilievre as the future? Mark that X. Everyone’s vote matters. Don’t let people in your life think their vote doesn’t matter. We all know them. Do everyone a favour on polling day and drag them along. Everyone’s vote matters.

After every election we all see a third or more of the electorate didn’t vote. I always wonder what this country would be like had all those people voted when they had the chance.

Ivan Morgan can be reached at ivan.morgan@gmail.com