We're going to live better
That is Eduardo Frei's new slogan. It is about as non-catchy as you can get. Better than what? Than all the previous years of Concertación governments, which included your own?
Frei needs help. A recent CERC poll has Sebastián Piñera at 37 percent, Frei at 22.3, and Enríquez-Ominami at 14.6. But there are still over three months to go.
2 comments:
I realize every pollster is telling Frei that the electorate is in the mood for "change." However, he's negating his strongest message which is continuity of strong policies and prosperity. He's not a credible "change" candidate and running on that message simply hurts his campaign. He should run where he's strongest, continuity and stability, and live or die by that message. He'd probably be surprised to find Chilean voters would respect that honest strategy more, in spite of telling pollsters they want something different.
I think his main problem is that he will be constantly reminded of his past failures as head of state.
Also, Frei seems to be captured by the least open members of his campaign brain trust. This has resulted in an increasingly static candidate that has lost a lot of his rejuvenated flair. Now he just seems like this really gray, boring person who can't show excitement about the possibilities of maintaining a Concertación government.
But in the end, I think Frei's main problem is that he's been unable to clearly differentiate his proposals from those of Piñera. That in turn just makes the average voter think that things won't change too much with a right-wing government, except that the bureocratic machine will be cleansed from political operators that have given Chile's administration a bad rep because of corruption.
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