Campaigning in cyberspace

Two incidents came together and generated an enormous amount of traffic to Mandlaforsydney. Malcolm Duncan, an independent candidate for Sydney, was going around with a big pole with a hook on the end pulling other candidates’ posters down. Mandla confronted Malcolm Duncan who was in the process of pulling down one of Mandla’s posters. Malcolm Duncan went to the police claiming assault (later dismissed) and then to a two-hour photo shoot with the Daily Telegraph which reported the incident.

Before this incident, Mandla was donated a full-page advert in the Sydney Star Observer. Already disappointed with the state campaign and its rigidities, Mandla decided to do something completely different. He had a photo done of him in a singlet pumping iron at his local gym, the context being “Edward Mandla fighting fulltime for Sydney”.

When the Telegraph ran the story on the alleged stoush between Mandla and Duncan, they used the “pumping irons” shot and displayed it on the front page. However, many readers thought Mandla was campaigning on health and fitness, not bothering to read the article. A picture is truly worth a thousand words. As more and more media outlets including TV picked up on the story, so did our traffic on the website.

Some articles written about Mandla had the link to the website embedded into the online version. This is pure gold as it makes it easy for people to visit it. The Malcolm Duncan incident also had another favourable outcome. It endeared Mandla to the Greens as Duncan had already pulled down 200 of their posters. Mandla even got Green preferences.

It is still too early to see whether online campaigning will have much of an affect. It will grow in later years with the younger, more tech savvy, generation coming through and with better broadband access. Where it will help is making it easier for the electorate to get to know their candidate. People are more likely to vote for a candidate if they know something about them. Door knocking is time intensive and it is almost impossible to meet all 50,000 electors. By utilising a website to speak directly to constituents, candidates can begin to build a profile.

* Clover Moore received 20,364 first and second preference votes from a total of 42,094 cast or 48.4 per cent. However there were 50,053 enrolled voters so her real percentage of the electorate is 40.7 per cent. That means six out of ten electors did not vote for her in the first or second instance. These figures are common across many seats and indicate that if the electorate were to rise up and unite sitting candidates could be in real trouble. Source: Electoral Commission NSW.