Strategist says Pallister was PC campaign’s ‘best asset’

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This article was published 04/11/2016 (3259 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

BRANDON — The chief architect of the Progressive Conservatives’ victory in April’s provincial election says Brian Pallister was the party’s “best asset.”

Addressing the PC party’s annual general meeting in Brandon, campaign manager David McLaughlin challenged a theory advanced by some suggesting Manitobans cast their ballots more for the party than the leader.

“Our leader was an asset to the campaign from the start to the finish,” McLaughlin told party members.

“He led every metric (for measuring voter appeal) that we needed him to lead on. He delivered the goods each time, and that’s why we featured him in commercials…

“He had such an edge (over other leaders), such an advantage, that it would have made zero sense not to use him.”

McLaughlin, who has since been hired by the province as a senior adviser on climate change policy, took PC members on a walk down memory lane, emphasizing the campaign strategies that worked, including a big effort to get advance voters to the polls and winning the battle for supremacy on social media.

“We had a relentless focus on winning target seats. We didn’t take our eye off the ball once,” he said.

While McLaughlin is given a lot of credit for masterminding the campaign that resulted in a 40-seat majority government, he said Pallister laid the groundwork for victory before he arrived on the scene by successfully raising money, relentlessly building a team attitude (including having PC MLAs working outside their constituencies to build the party base) and waging a non-stop attack on the NDP’s decision to raise the provincial sales tax.

Before the campaign began, the party employed some subtle tactics to broaden its appeal, including updating its logo to make the words “Progressive” and “Conservative” equal in size.

McLaughlin played several campaign ads, explaining the thinking behind each of them. He showed a TV ad the party didn’t use, featuring Esther Pallister talking about her husband, intertwined with video showing the future premier with his adult daughters when they were children.

Esther Pallister says her husband got from his parents the sense of trying to leave the world a better place for those who follow. Then she says: “But I love him even more for the kind of father he’s been to our daughters.”

Said McLaughlin after playing the ad: “Didn’t need the secret weapon.”

larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca