2004 Federal Election Diary An Insight in to the Minds of Voters

26th September, 2004  - Richard Farmer 
Lord Beaverbrook knew how to run a campaign. Keep the message simple and repeat it over and over again. He told the editors of his Daily Express that it was only when they were totally sick and embarrassed about a slogan that it was beginning to get through to the readers. So it is with Mark Latham’s "Ease the Squeeze". The political journalists began wincing after hearing it three or four times but out there in the audience of voters the evidence is that they have hardly heard it at all. In a focus group of swinging voters in the seat of Parramatta organised by the Sydney Morning Herald the campaign catchcry - "ease the squeeze" - was brought up by only one of the 24 voters. The others gave no sign of recognition.
The difficulty of getting a message through to ordinary people was the most striking finiding of this attempt by AC Neilsen to duplicate for the SMH the kind of research that is the foundation of campaigning for the two major parties. Consider this extract from the report on the focus group:
These voters, uncommitted to either Labor or the Liberals, in general had a poor grasp of the policy offerings of the two parties. Quite often, when the facilitator in the focus groups asked voters what they knew about the two parties' promises in a particular policy area - health, for example, or the environment - there was a long and awkward silence. The answer, usually, was nothing at all. Sometimes the correct policy was attributed to the wrong party.
AC Neilsen’s John Stirton summarised thus: "Uncommitted voters are characterised by a low level of awareness - they don't know much and they rely very heavily on impressions and feelings."
Summarising their impressions and feelings about the leaders, Stirton said: "They think Mark Latham is an unknown quantity - a few people used the word erratic - but they also think he's interested in the issues they're interested in, health and education. He's the right guy, but he's a risk. John Howard, on the other hand, has a mix of positives and negatives. But the word track record came up quite a few times. He's the safer option, at least among these voters."

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