The campaign platform

A political party is a group of politicians and their supporters who have similar views on how the country should be run.

A party’s platform is the policies that it says it will put into effect if elected. Individual policies are planks in the platform. Proposed policies may be outlined in a document known as a manifesto.

Speeches were traditionally made in Britain standing on a soapbox and in the United States on the stump, and these things are often referred to in connection with campaigning even if they are not now often actually used. People who shout out their disagreement when a politician makes a speech are hecklers, and what they do is heckle.

Politicians on the stump or at or on the hustings are electioneering. Electioneering can be used neutrally to talk about what candidates do during a campaign, but it can also be used to show disapproval of ‘unfair’ methods. In this case, electioneering may be described as cynical or blatant.

The King announced that he is ready to talk with the country’s political parties about political change.

The Democrats plan to capitalise on public frustration by making health one of the main planks in their platform.

The party’s manifesto was so full of generalisations that most South Africans have been amazed by the reforms the government has passed.

The rousing speech, the last of six soapbox addresses, came at the end of 10,000 miles on the battlebus and tours to more than 60 constituencies.

Dos Santos, Angola’s dour leader, is an unconvincing convert to democracy. On the stump in Huambo, he looked uncomfortable with the razzmatazz of electioneering.

With only days to go before elections in Pakistan, candidates are battling it out at the hustings.

Government ministers had a rough ride during their nationwide tour, heckled in some places, greeted with stony silence in others.

Belgrade television was even accused of using crude techniques to superimpose enthusiastic cheers over the sound of hecklers at one of Milosevic’s campaign rallies.

Electioneering in Mandalay has been more enthusiastic, with members of the opposition parties encouraging supporters to vote.

Labour accused Mr. King of blatant electioneering as he placed the crucial order for short range air-to-air missiles. Labour defence spokesman Martin O’Neill said, “It will come as a relief to the workforce of those companies. Whether it will come as a relief to the Conservative candidates in those seats, it will remain to election day to find out.”

Task 2. Electioneering clichés

Find combinations in the table that correspond to the definitions 1-8. Then use the combinations to complete the extracts a-h.

1. Trips that candidates go on.

2. Things that candidates say to get elected but that they don’t really mean.

3. Something that a candidate says they will do if elected.

4. Unoriginal things that candidates say and do.

5. An attack made by a candidate on others.

6. Methods, honest and dishonest, that are used by candidates to gain electoral advantage.

7. A government’s financial plan that is designed to win votes.

8. Violence that is encouraged by candidates.

tours promise clichés thuggery assault budget tactics rhetoric

a.…shaven-headed youths who combine football violence with electioneering ______________.

b. He did everything in the book of electioneering _______________ short of kissing babies.

c. He followed this up with an electioneering _____________ on Labour, claiming businessmen had no enthusiasm for a Labour government.

d. He has already been round the country three times on thinly veiled electioneering ____________.

e. Mr. Reagan’s great achievement of his second term – tax reform – was first aired as an electioneering __________ in his State of the Union speech in 1984.

f. The prospect of an electioneering _____________ and a cut in interest rates as an additional sweetener gave shares a welcome boost yesterday.

g. Voters complain about electioneering __________ that verge on the dishonest.

h. What the Soviets at first took to be electioneering ___________ they discovered to be theological conviction. ‘Evil empire’ meant what it said.