Elections are emotional things, but voters love a winner

By Richard Foot
Canwest News Service

Liberal leader Stephane Dion, greeting voters at a coffee shop in Oakville, Ontario, October 10, grew stronger as the campaign progressed. (Shaun Best/Reuters)

For Sir Isaac Newton, momentum was a simple concept with a precise definition - the product of mass and velocity.     

For politicians, it is a confounding mystery of the democratic process, an elusive, invisible force with the power to make or a break a campaign. George Bush Sr. called it the "Big Mo," and just as he once did, politicians everywhere still seek its magic.     

Is the Big Mo at work in the Canadian election? Has the quickening of support for the opposition parties, as suggested by opinion polls - and the sinking of Conservative support back into minority territory - been the result of momentum shifting in the closing weeks of the campaign?     

"There's little question there's been a shift of momentum away from the Conservatives toward the other parties, including the Liberals," says Don Mills, president of Corporate Research Associates, a Halifax polling firm.     

"It's quite unusual to have in the midst of a campaign the kind of shift that's happened here. Usually a party enters the beginning of a campaign with momentum and builds on it. But in this case, the Liberals entered the campaign without any momentum, and now they've suddenly found some."     

Darrell Bricker, a Toronto pollster and president of Ipsos Reid Public Affairs, is less certain about a shift away from the Conservatives.     

The Liberals are still fetching less than 30 per cent support in most polls, short of the 31 per cent of votes the party received in the 2006 election. That hardly amounts to momentum, says Bricker.     

"It doesn't look like anybody's had any real momentum in this campaign," he says. "The Tories came out of the blocks really well - looking organized, looking like they were winners - and then they hit a wall. They weren't able to get real momentum going. They had a really good start and then just faded away."     

Bricker says true momentum happens when a political leader or campaign "catches the mood of the moment, when there's a sympathetic connection between what the campaign is saying and what people want to hear.     

"It's not a rational thing, like voting for a candidate on a certain issue. It's more emotional, like responding to a call for action."     

Consider 1984, when Brian Mulroney won the largest landslide in Canadian history.

"There was a bandwagon effect in '84," says Bricker. "There was an overwhelming sense there needed to be change in the country. Mulroney and his young family were just in touch with the times. He seemed like the guy who represented what Canada wanted to be."     

Momentum works, says Jay Cost, a blogger on the popular American website Real Clear Politics, because of "voter inattention and ignorance."     

Knowledgeable voters tend to support candidates whose policies they like - or if they're voting strategically, who have a good chance of defeating someone whose policies they dislike.     

But most people tend to know little about policy and politics, and the moment they begin hearing positive messages about a candidate - through the media, from friends and neighbours, or simply via a televised debate - they in turn form positive images about that person.     

If enough people develop and pass on those images, you have momentum.

Voters also like winners.     

In U.S. presidential elections, the early Iowa and New Hampshire nomination contests are considered important because they give the victors a winning record from which to begin their long run for the White House.     

The same is true in Canadian elections. Incumbent prime ministers have a huge psychological advantage over opponents who have never won a federal election before. Success breeds more success.     

Of the 12 prime ministers elected into high office since the turn of the 20th century (not including Stephen Harper), all but three - Paul Martin, Joe Clark and R.B. Bennett - managed to win re-election.     

Norman Hillmer, one of Canada's foremost political historians, also recites "Hillmer's law of Canadian politics: once you are in power for a year, you're in power for a long time. We have a very stable political culture (and) sitting leaders have a huge advantage."     

When momentum shifts, as it sometimes does in campaigns, it's usually because a candidate has outperformed a common perception - or a media storyline - of low expectations.     

"The media loves electoral surprises and covers successful insurgents as though they walk on water," writes Jay Cost.

   John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential running mate surprised the country and gave the McCain campaign a large, if temporary, bounce in the polls.

Stephane Dion, whose entire political career has been defined by low expectations, almost certainly benefited from his surprisingly competent performance against Harper in the televised debates.     

"Momentum has a lot to do with expectations," says Hillmer.

"The media set Harper up as a great strategist. He was `the man' and Dion was just this pathetic little figure. But Dion turned out to be a better campaigner than many expected. He grew stronger as the campaign progressed. He performed well the debates. It gave him, if not a momentum shift, at least the power to stop the bleeding."     

Mills says the financial crisis now shaking the world also contributed to a momentum shift away from the Conservatives.     

"Pocketbook issues and fears are momentum killers," says Mills. "Without this crisis, I think the results would be quite different.     

"The lack of empathy of the prime minister towards people's fears has worked against him. And once voters lose confidence in somebody, it takes a long time to build that up again."