Election is simply a formal process by which people chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office. To participate meaningfully and secure victory, parties/contestants in elections depend on the campaign as a strategy. A campaign in democratic politics is an organized course of action to achieve a goal.
To achieve the set goal, the political campaign should combine both strategy and implementation. However, resources is expected to be allotted more to implementation than strategy. That said, there are factors to put in place when planning or conducting any campaign. It includes the type and concept of the office in the contest, the size, culture, and socialization of the people covering the area.
Understanding the political landscape is critical to any campaign plan. It is the knowledge of who the people are, their education, civilization, the extent of their complexity, and essentially the timing the election will be fought-in and how all these implicates the party/contestants in the contest that majorly determines the chances of winning election.
For example, is it a time of reactionary politics in which studying the people revealed they wanted a change in government? In such a case, conservative ideas that encourage stability will not be well received?
Also, the information for the campaign is necessarily dependent on the hot-button topic dominating the area. Be in the know that information for election is often manipulated. In a situation where the hot-button topic can indict the campaign team, they employ varied strategies, mostly by contracting opinion molders to rationalize them. If otherwise, they stimulate, compound, and exaggerate the issue to embarrass and further put the opponent at a great disadvantage.
Meanwhile, there is a need to know the campaign target, subjects, outreach and funding capacity. The target, whether it is a primary election campaign that primarily targets party members within the political jurisdiction of the contestants. The outreach and campaign subjects is also determined by the mode of primaries. Is it direct, indirect, or consensus modalities? If it is a general election, the campaign subjects are the general populace.
The campaign promises should be simplistic, concise, realistic as much as innovative. Special considerations should be to the youths and women. In Nigeria, women paradoxically are cheaply mobilized, often dependable than the male folks. Therefore, there must be an independent campaign evaluation committee that will measure the performance of the campaign so far. Importantly, information should be as inspiring as possible and presented in simple, plain, and unambiguous language. Efforts should be made to also pass this information across in indigenous languages to attract parochial voters. The means to disseminate information include Television, Radio, Door-To-Door, Propaganda, and importantly Social Media.
In conclusion, there are two models to consider to aid a successful campaign plan.
(1) Get-Your -Voters-Card
(2) Get-Out-To-Vote.
Of course, every campaign is set out to win elections but the performance evaluation of a campaign is not necessarily determined by victory but the prospect and chances it has set for the party and candidate in a subsequent election year.