By 'Hamishmac'
On the campaign trail 05.
This is the quiet time in election campaigns. The first week people are interested and take a wee bit of notice, and then in week final week everyone is fired up and excited.But now in these two weeks, no one can be arsed.
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The public aren't interested, your members aren't interested. In fact it's amazing how much of a life our members have outside politics.
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They can't leaflet those tenements at 9am because they're, "supposed to be in the office". You ask them to stick posters in their windows, or garden stake flag things in their garden and looking slyly up and down the road they say, "I'll put it up on the 3rd".
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So what have I learned in the two weeks of my first proper go on a campaign team? Well Peter Hain is absolutely charming; nobody knows who the Ministers in the Scottish Executive are; people who vote Tory don't say "no thank you" when you try to give them a leaflet at a street stall, they tend to say "I'd rather stick needles in my eyes" or "you're having a laugh; pensioners have a hell of a lot of power; people with serious mental problems go out of their way to know everything about their MPs and candidates; washing dishes and cleaning your flat just doesn't happen; Lib Dems have absolutely no qualms about lying on their focus magazines; Charles Kennedy only allows local media four minutes to interview him; Tories have the rudest members but the friendliest candidates; children love balloons; flags and stickers; Alistair Darling really is the most boring politician I have ever met; most people just couldn't give a toss.
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More of 'Hamishmac' on http://hamishmac.blogspot.com
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