OTTAWA — An exciting party should have both blondes and brunettes, said Pierre Trudeau in 1968, leaving it ambiguous whether he meant festive gatherings or political organizations.
His son seems to agree – fully one third of the Liberal Party’s new candidates are female. Now we know why. Far from being an exercise in tokenism, recruiting women as candidates is enlightened self-interest.
New research by Abacus Data suggests two-thirds of voters will pick a woman over a man, if they are the only two candidates running and all respondents have to go on is their picture.
Bruce Anderson and David Coletto at Abacus are experienced practitioners and got their disclaimers out of the way early – voters vote for leaders, campaigns and issues, not just local candidates.
But when respondents were asked who they would vote for – Jane or Perry – 67% said Jane and 33% said Perry. (Both people whose photos were used in the survey work for the pollster.)
If gender and looks didn’t matter, that result would have been a 50/50 split.
Jane won among all age groups and both genders, although her winning margin was significantly larger among women (74%-26%).
The results appear to confirm what party operatives have long suspected: that the electorate’s tastes have shifted and voters now favour female candidates over males.
And it appears that the result holds regardless of whether Jane is representing a conservative party or a more progressive/liberal one. Abacus created two three-point platforms for Jane and Perry, one emphasizing tax cuts, expanded trade and safe communities; the other advocating affordable childcare, environmental protection and help for the middle class. Jane won by over 10 points, regardless of which platform she embraced.
(link: http://abacusdata.ca/looks-gender-and-ideas-do-these-matter/)/pws
Perhaps most telling for the future orientation of the political game was that Jane outpolled Perry 2:1 when the candidates were ranked on their capability of “getting things done” – which may reflect frustration with the stalemate of male-dominated modern politics.
“The results suggest that gender stereotyping is very much alive, but may be adopting different forms today than would have been the case in past decades,” said Mr. Anderson.
Catherine McKenna, the Liberal candidate in Ottawa Centre, who is running against NDP MP Paul Dewar, said she is encouraged by the suggestion that local candidates do matter.
She said she is also happy to see the trend of male candidates being favoured by voters may be over.
“This could be related to voters being less cynical about women candidates,” she said.
All parties are busy recruiting and vetting candidates for the forthcoming election.
The Abacus research, coupled with new data from the U.K., suggests that the influence of the local candidate on the final outcome may be stronger than ever.
In Ottawa Centre, Mr. Dewar is likely to benefit from other attributes that voters say are increasingly important – deep roots in the riding he represents.
U.K. pollster Ipsos MORI said trust in MPs in general in Britain has declined but trust in “my local MP” has risen over the past decade. Two political scientists commissioned by pollsters YouGov told respondents about two candidates and asked them to choose between them. Telling them that “George” had moved to the area just two years earlier added 12 points to the lead of his rival “John.” Telling them that George lived 120 miles away added 30.
Parties in the U.K. have already cottoned on to this fact — two-thirds of candidates across all parties in Britain are now local.
I haven’t found any similar statistics for Canada but there’s no reason to think voters here are any more tolerant of parachute candidates than the British.
Certainly, one of the criticisms of Andrew Leslie, the Liberal candidate in Ottawa Orleans, at his recent nomination meeting is that he lives in tony Rockcliffe, rather than the commuter belt riding. His defence – that he is “an Ottawa East boy” – may not prove entirely convincing.
While Mr. Leslie has an impressive resume as a soldier, he’s not female and he’s not local.
National Post
Source:: National Post
