Has campus campaigning gone to far?
Last Wednesday afternoon, Greg Byrne painted the STU courtyard red.
The Liberal candidate in Fredericton-Lincoln parked a classic red Chevy truck, complete with a Byrne campaign sign in the flatbed, in the middle of the courtyard and lined the trees with cardboard Liberal signs.
Byrne and supporters were there handing out free hot dogs.
Third-year student Justin Cormier thought the Liberals’ free BBQ was only a way to win students’ votes.
“I find by doing this their whole campaign becomes less apparent and voters are focused on this BBQ or advertised ticket than their campaign,” he said.
“People are more naturally inclined to vote for the guy who gives more to them. I find students don’t focus on their campaign in the long run, just small acts that they did for them.”
And Byrne wasn’t the only candidate to flock to campus during the campaign.
Candidates from all party stripes attended debates and conversations on campus, while some parties had professors and students in the race.
Craig Leonard, who carried the Progressive Conservative banner in Fredericton-Lincoln, tried to incorporate “fresh thinking” in getting his message out to student voters.
Leonard’s camp put up posters around campus offering a chance to win free tickets to a local concert by Brooklyn rockers The Hold Steady. The posters, also available on the Students’ Union website, say that students simply have to go to Leonard’s website and fill out a form to be eligible to win tickets to the Oct. 23 concert.
Elections New Brunswick approved the ticket giveaway and thought it was a great idea, Leonard said.
“We knew that The Hold Steady was playing in October. We knew that political events are not exactly the most appealing to university kids,” Leonard said in a phone interview.
“[We] checked with Elections NB on it to see if we were even allowed to do something like that to try to … bring [students] to our website.”
Leonard said that it’s not a matter of “either or” when it comes to choosing to campaign in person on campus or opt for new methods of reaching young voters.
“There’s a place for everything,” he said. “We felt that this was one extra thing we could try to engage people.”
According to Byrne it’s important for candidates to have a physical presence on campus.
“It’s important to engage students one-on-one in a dialogue so that they have a chance to ask you about issues that are important to them,” he said.
But the value of using social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, to communicate with young voters wasn’t an idea lost on Byrne.
“Social media has really changed how we communicate. It can be a very effective communication tool and a very effective tool for two-way communication as well,” Byrne said.
Donald Savoie, Canada Research Chair in public administration and governance at the Universite de Moncton, said it’s a good thing for candidates to visit campuses because it’s part of an “educational process.”
“I’m all for candidates going on campus. It’s as good for candidates as it is for students and voters,” he said.
Savoie doesn’t have a problem with holding a BBQ to get to meet a candidate but says that he hopes the candidate “would be straightforward” about the event.
But Savoie has qualms with the idea of giving away concert tickets, saying that it “stretches the line” of what is acceptable.
“Voting is very serious in a representative democracy. You don’t belittle it by concert tickets or a bottle of rum.”
Jamie Gillies, a political science lecturer at STU, sees political messaging on campus as a part of the electoral process, as long as the messaging doesn’t “violate any election laws or university rules.” In fact, Gillies would have liked to see more political messaging on campus during the tight election race.
“In a close election like this one, the parties should not be taking the STU student vote for granted and they should not be ignoring the student vote even if university students vote in less numbers than full-time constituents,” Gillies said.
“If anything, there should be much more active student and community involvement in the campaign on campus.”
