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Campaign Similarities Demonstrate Unity of Purpose
By Wizard Ferret
Last month’s cabinet election saw five of the six positions contested, the joint most since the current cabinet structure was implemented. There is however a difference between an election being physically contested, with multiple candidates running, and for lack of a better term, intellectually contested. Anyone reading the campaign statements or candidate debates would likely be hard pressed to point to distinct differences in goals and promises made by candidates for their potential ministry (with the usual exception of the abolish/don’t abolish Ministry of Media). If candidates typically hold the same views on what to try and accomplish in a ministry what does that say about our region’s political culture?
To demonstrate the point let’s turn to the Prime Minister candidacies of HumanSanity and Witchcraft and Sorcery. Both of course were extremely qualified, having served as Ministers and Prime Ministers before. The difference in content of their campaigns though came down merely to a difference in leadership styles, all the other intentions stated were mirror images of each other. Both campaigns mention MoFA completing the current projects it is already handling. Both mention needing changes in the Tidal Force of the SPSF. Both advocate continuing the Ministry of Media, WS more so by pledging to counter a potential abolishment effort but the point remains. Both say Culture needs a focus on events beyond the simple games that have become the norm; OWL needs better discussions; Engagement needs to maintain its current course.
The similarities in campaigns aren’t limited to the Prime Minister race. Both MoFA candidates in their debate explicitly acknowledged the similarity of their positions. The Culture campaigns were almost identical, with Eshia’s being slightly more flushed out. Voters are faced with deciding on which person, not which platform, is best; certainly this is a part of any election but a lack of campaign diversity has to be of some concern, or does it?
Campaign monocultures are not actually indicative of a problem, instead I’m tempted to call them a strength of the community. It demonstrates a clear general regional consensus across and in all Ministries (again excepting Media). Having a mostly uniform understanding of what is expected out of the cabinet, no matter its composition, indicates a regional unity of purpose that allows us to put a strong foot forward interregionally. We have a sense of where we want to go and what we want to be as a region, it’s just a matter of getting there and that’s why we’re seeing echoes across campaigns.
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![[Image: 1G8yomW.png]](https://i.imgur.com/1G8yomW.png)
