According to the Vancouver Sun, Green Party of Canada leader Elizabeth May will run in the riding of Saanich-Gulf Islands. (NB. I have confirmed that indeed Saanich-Gulf Islands is where Elizabeth will run)

Campaigns need both a media/message component (an “air” campaign) and a local operation to identify support, organize and ultimately deliver votes (a “ground” campaign). It’s probably safe to say that there is some angst within the Green party about the relative weight currently between the two — i.e. between a top-down media campaign revolving around the leader vs. efforts to build local, grassroots organizations (EDAs) that are the backbone of effective ground campaigns. While Elizabeth May certainly relishes the former, past experience suggests that she may not fully grasp the importance of the latter, even if she gets it in theory. Moreover, since air campaigns are portable — May can be a media darling anywhere — the strength of the local organization should be of paramount importance when deciding where she should run.

Unfortunately, the choice of Saanich-Gulf Islands suggests the Greens are destined to repeat past mistakes, namely believing that a top-down media campaign revolving around May can compensate for a lack of organizational capacity on the ground. Let’s take a look at some basic numbers to see why that’s the case — for example, the number of local members, how many people voted Green last time, the gap between the GPC vote and the winner, and how many Green supporters have been identified in the riding. Feel free to add other metrics — how much of the riding has been canvassed, recent riding polls, etc.

INDEX SHOWING POTENTIAL OF GREEN PARTY RIDINGS

Note: Update: I’ve removed the “Members” and “ID” index numbers above in order to protect the GPC.

Saanich-Gulf Islands is 8th on the list. It’s fairly safe to say that virtually no work has been done to ID Green support in the riding — which is the backbone of an effective ground campaign. So they will be starting from scratch. That might be fine if you have the time and resources to build it up slowly, but with an election potentially just weeks away, there is simply no way to build a robust ground operation in time. Although to be fair, there are only a handful ridings in the entire country where the local Green organization has canvassed even a small percentage of the riding, so clearly the Greens have much to learn about ground campaigns. If you understand the important of the local team, then it’s clear that the leader should run in one of those ridings that are ahead of the curve. Saanich isn’t one of them.

By contrast, the riding that scores highest on these basic measures is Guelph, followed by Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound (BGOS). However, BGOS scores poorly on one important (probably the most important) metric: the gap between GPC and the winner. Even with a strong local organization, some gaps are too great to close in such a short period of time, so despite a solid 27% last time, BGOS was still 20% behind the Conservatives, and likely remains out of reach for the immediate future. Guelph on the other hand was won last time with just 32%, among the lowest thresholds in the country.

Not only was Guelph the riding where the Green candidate came closest to winning last time (about 10% behind the Liberal winner), but it has also IDed the most Green supporters. That bears repeating: the riding that came closest to winning last time was the riding that had done the most canvassing. That should give other Green campaigns a pretty good idea as to what they need to do to be successful. The Guelph team had worked for months in preparation for a by-election, that was canceled when Harper called the general election. Guelph’s impressive numbers were driven by a strong core team that included its affable candidate Mike Nagy and campaign manager Stan Kozak, among many others, and was possibly the most fun, innovative Green campaign in the country (I’m sure many Guelphites remember seeing trains of bicycles riding by with green Nagy signs!). And despite many months of work, Guelph still has three-quarters of the riding yet to contact, so there remains plenty of growth potential (but it also tells you just how far in advance of an election you need to begin ground operations).

So the numbers suggest that Guelph is a better riding than Saanich-Gulf Islands. But the intangibles also work in Guelph’s favour. It is located within the GPC’s best region, which opens up the possibility for regional synergies — over 1 in 7 people in the region from Barrie to Owen Sound to Kitchener-Waterloo to Guelph voted for the Greens in 2008, more than double the national average. Likewise, Guelph would allow May to be both a local candidate (covered by a strong local paper) and a national figure, being located at the edge of the country’s #1 media market (the Greater Toronto Area). Moreover, Guelph is right next to Pearson Airport, which has more connections to the rest of the country than anywhere. And it’s also on the VIA rail Windsor/Quebec City corridor, and sits in a triangle between 3 of Ontario’s largest cities — Toronto, Hamilton and Kitchener-Waterloo. And it is roughly in the middle of the country, reducing travel time. And better yet, more than 50% of the GPC’s members live in Southern Ontario, so the potential to flood the riding with volunteers in the closing weeks and days of the campaign are significant. As the nation’s 4th fastest growing city, it is also confronting issues at the core of the Greens’ mission: sprawl, destruction of valuable farmland, water quality, etc. And it also has a lot of young people, the Greens best demographic.

On the flip side, beyond the absence of a strong local organization, Saanich-Gulf Islands has other disadvantages. First, it’s actually two rather distinct ridings — Saanich, the more populous part, which is largely suburbia (where the Greens tend to do poorly) and the Gulf Islands, which are distinctly more granola (and more Green friendly). Needless to say, it’s a lot easier to canvass Saanich than rummage around all the Islands. Obviously, being literally the furthest most point west in Canada (let alone being on an island) makes going anywhere else especially lengthy and costly, particularly to the most populous regions in Central Canada (let along furthest away from May’s family in Nova Scotia). That will impact May’s visibility as a national figure — and she’s on record as saying she won’t leave her riding during the election — which will no doubt drag down the Green vote elsewhere, but it also dampens prospects of receiving help from volunteers outside the riding (a problem that Central Nova had due to its isolation).

Saanich-Gulf Islands also has the 3rd highest senior population riding in Canada, which helps explain why the Conservatives traditionally win. It is widely known that the Green vote is inversely proportional to the age demographic (they have 26.9% support with young people under 25, the tops among the 4 national parties, vs. only 5.8% with seniors 65+, lowest of the 4 national parties; see recent EKOS poll). That doesn’t bode well for May’s prospects in the riding.

So why choose Saanich over Guelph? Internal politics and May’s personal motivations. First, May wants the Liberals to form the government and, as she mused in the Sun article, she’d gladly serve as Environment Minister in a Liberal government (continuing her flirtation with the Liberals that she began the last election). So whether she’s just more aligned with the Liberals ideologically or doesn’t want to hurt her chances of receiving a future position in a Liberal government, she simply won’t run against a Liberal. And the incumbent in Guelph is a Liberal. She also has an unhealthy hatred for Stephen Harper and the Conservatives, so will only run against a member of the Harper team.

But Guelph is also a no-go because fallout over strategic voting last time opened up a rift between May and the Guelph team. The Guelph team felt their could finish second, ahead of the Conservatives, but ended up third, about 10 points back of the Liberals. Many people also believe that May hasn’t treated Nagy with a great deal of respect. But the history goes back even further, to the 2006 leadership convention when the Guelph EDA backed David Chernushenko over May (although Nagy did support her). Given May’s tendency to surround herself with friends, she no doubt she views Guelph as hostile territory, and given the history, she’s probably correct.

So there you have it. The best Green riding in the country is also a riding where the leader won’t run for personal and political reasons. It’s a very unfortunate situation for the Greens because they do not have the luxury of letting petty internal battles prevent them from running their best candidate (and May is their best candidate) in their best riding. May’s best chance of getting elected would be to eat a piece of humble pie, make nice with the locals to win over their support — and run in Guelph, building upon the substantial work that has already been done to build up a riding that is closest to winning.

So is Saanich-Gulf Islands a better choice than Central Nova? Absolutely. Is it the best choice? No. In fact, May appears to be repeating the same mistake she made in Central Nova by hoping that a media-driven campaign revolving around her can overcome a non-existent ground operation. So it appears that if Saanich is indeed the riding of choice (it’s confirmed) since Saanich is the riding of choice, history may well repeat itself. And if May loses, her political career is probably over, and Greens will once again have to decide what direction they want their party to take — a leader who runs a media-driven operation or a leader who understands that the key to electoral success lies in building a network of strong local organizations to win the ground war.