Best and worst of the Lisbon campaign
June 19th, 2008No, I don’t mean the absolute horrendous posters run by those in the No camp (collated here - this is my favourite for it’s sheer ridiculousness). I’m talking about two pieces of election literature put out by Fianna Fail to support a yes vote. This is a post purely about election literature - the various other elements of the campaign are being discussed in plenty of places online.
The first is awful; if anything, it’s harder to read than the actual treaty itself. Here’s an extract:
The European Council, the council of the Heads of State or Government, which drives EU policy making, becoms a full EU institution and will, in future, be chaired by a President, elected by the Council itself.
It was indicative of the early campaign. As a Yes camp, we never fully got to grips with the basic problem - that Lisbon was subject to widespread misinformation, and that the Yes side was failing to get our message across to voters.
The second flyer was very different. If anything - and I don’t say this lightly, trust me - it’s one of the best pieces of campaign literature I’ve ever seen.
It answers, directly, many of the claims of the various parts of the No campaign, and does so in straight forward terms. Importantly, it includes references to support the claims being made. Here’s an excerpt:
It ensures that the Irish people alone will decide on laws to protect the unborn. (Maastricht Protocol and Article 6)
These flyers appeared very late in the campaign, but were really well received by the people I campaigned with in the last few days. I’m not going to say that a better message for the Yes side would have swung the campaign, but the disarray of the early weeks certainly didn’t help.
I hope the lessons will be learned before the next campaign, whichever that is.
Update: Richard Delevan has a good take on another communications contribution to the Yes campaign
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2 Responses to “Best and worst of the Lisbon campaign”
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June 21st, 2008 at 1:16 pm
I think the second leaflet sums up the Yes Campaign - too little, too late - which is such a shame as the Lisbon Treaty has now soured Cowen’s honeymoon period.
June 21st, 2008 at 1:57 pm
Certainly true Piaras, but (ever the optimist) I like to hope that this is a sign that things may be changing in FF HQ and that future literature will take a lot more from the second leaflet than the first.
It’s substantially different to anything I’ve seen come out of HQ before, and answered the No campaign better than any other contribution I’ve yet seen.
Thanks for the comment, p. Your own blog always makes for interesting reading.