‘That other time a woman took over a poll campaign from an older man’
I recently heard a podcast that featured a Democratic Party political strategist with a noteworthy professional interest: Charting the election campaign of a woman who quickly and unexpectedly rose to the top of the ticket after an older man stood aside.
Not Kamala Harris.
Jacinda Ardern.
Anat Shenker-Osorio, an American communications researcher and campaign advisor, has knowledge of progressive political wins in different parts of the world, as detailed on the website of her podcast Words to Win By.
- New Zealand’s generational change in politics in 2017, with Ms Ardern becoming her country’s youngest leader since 1856.
- Ireland’s 2018 repeal of its national ban on abortion.
- And as, the website says, Ms Shenker-Osorio also knows about beating back right-wing race-baiting in Minnesota, in the US Midwest.
Ms Shenker-Osorio recently made note of the similarities thus far between Ms Ardern’s campaign and that of Ms Harris.
She went on a podcast hosted by Jon Favreau, Barack Obama’s former speechwriter, and said it was striking to observe the sudden momentum for a female politician unexpectedly propelled to the top of the ticket because an older man had stood aside.
For Ms Harris, it was Joe Biden. She’s 20 years younger than him.
For Ms Ardern, it was Labour Party leader Andrew Little. He was brought low by historically poor opinion polls and decided it was best to give a chance to his deputy, who at 37 was astonishingly young. She was quickly elected the youngest leader of the Labour Party.
There are other similarities.
Ms Ardern had just seven weeks of campaign time left until election day.
Ms Harris had a scant 17 weeks until November 5 when Mr Biden announced he would not seek re-election and endorsed his vice-president instead. Arguably, she has a bigger lift by far than Ms Ardern. The US is a vast and populous country. As Ms Shenker-Osorio drily noted, while it was a big task for Ms Ardern too, but New Zealand does have “more sheep than people”.
Ms Ardern’s campaign, which focussed on relentless positivity, environmental issues, housing, health care and the future, ran on the slogan “Let’s do this”.
The slogan favoured by Ms Harris is somewhat similar: “Let’s WIN this”. And she too offers a hopeful vision for the future.
There’s lots to compare in the Ardern-Harris campaigns and almost all the similarities are good. But the one thing Ms Harris would probably not want to parallel from the Ardern 2017 campaign, is the reality she was forced to lead a coalition government!
Fortunately, within three years, Ms Ardern was able to lead Labour to an historic landslide win.
