Stories by Gerry Nicholls
The Conservative Party’s competence problem
The problem with this ongoing train wreck for the Conservatives is it undermines their chief political comparative advantage, i.e., the belief that they’re more competent managers than the Liberals.
How the ongoing battle against COVID-19 will impact on Canadian politics.
I’m viewing this crisis much differently than I’ve viewed others in the past, when I could be analytical, detached, and dispassionate when judging politicians on the skill with which they communicated. Now I'm worried.
So if you’re working for a politician who is gauging public opinion, tell him or her to stick to scientific polling research. In short, leave the self-selecting surveys to radio talk show hosts.
Our members want better engagement and collaboration with industry, and industry wants better engagement with us.
Yet it won’t be easy for Justin Trudeau to turn this dismal public attitude around, even if Scott Gilmore’s rosy assessment about the state of Canada is totally accurate and realistic.
Any political strategist who wants to craft persuasive message should realize that Homo politicus doesn’t really exist. It’s emotional appeals which persuade; aim for their hearts, not for their minds.
Every leadership campaign needs a sense of vitality, a sense of excitement, a sense of destiny; anything that mobilizes followers, wins over converts, turns doubters into donors, undecideds into boosters, and skeptics.Author
The job of a political strategist is not just to manage a campaign; it’s also to manage the candidate.
The Conservatives might be in 'identity crisis' therapy right now, but the NDP and Liberals might soon join them on that couch.
Simply put, to succeed in politics you have to have a thick skin.
What’s driving this 'Harpermania' are two opposing emotional sentiments: nostalgia and anti-nostalgia.
Why when you put up a political billboard, the real target isn’t people driving by in their cars; it’s reporters with cameras.
It’s this ever-changing nature of our psychological landscape which poses a real challenge to the Conservative Party as it prepares to choose its next leader.
Here’s 'My Predictions For Next Year' column, since I’m sure 2020 will be jam-packed with a ton of unexpected twists and turns that not even the Amazing Kreskin could foresee.
Canada’s main federal parties are going to find fundraising to be an extremely difficult challenge next year.
Despite all the negative stories, Andrew Scheer has it within his power to look less like a lame duck and more like a soaring eagle.
It might be just a regional and third place party, but in a minority Parliament it has a chance to play a key and unpredictable role in the ongoing drama of Canadian politics. Basically the Bloc is a wild card.
Conservatives are playing in a rough neighbourhood and they must be assertive, they must play offence, they must know how to sell their message.
The NDP ended up finishing in fourth place behind the Bloc Québécois. And in an odd sort of ironic way, the low expectations for Jagmeet Singh actually might have saved his job as NDP leader.
Whoever leads the Conservative Party needs to display a little bit of swagger and a whole lot of toughness.
Divisive rhetoric that inevitably occurs during hard-fought election campaigns, might sting us, but they won’t destroy us.
Anyway, what’s happened in this election should be a cautionary tale for anyone thinking about making a career in politics. Mistakes you make now in 2019 could hurt you in 2030.
The campaign will ultimately come down to which is more formidable, Conservative cash or Justin Trudeau’s cachet.
It might make perfect political sense for Andrew Scheer to skip the climate change parades; let the Liberals, Greens and NDP split up that part of the voting pie which wants to pay higher carbon taxes. 
Sec. 91 has been re-designed to cast a wider net; it’s so wide, in fact, it will now catch individuals who post 'false' news, even if those individuals who posted that news did so in good faith, believing it was true.
Rather than airing TV ads featuring Andrew Scheer talking to the camera for 30 seconds about his plan to cut taxes, the Conservatives should run TV ads attacking Trudeau for his plan to raise taxes. 
The bottom line is a smart communication strategy goes with the media flow. So if journalists want politics of politics, oblige them.
When trying to gauge the true power and intent of a political communication strategy, sometimes you need to look past the words which are spoken and focus instead on the message’s subtext.
The Conservative leader needs to show Canadians the big picture of what his party hopes to achieve, and convince them that no one faction of the Conservative base will dominate the party's policies. 
It's no surprise people told Forum Research they weren't affected by political advertising, but that doesn't mean it's the truth.
Let's do ourselves a favour, and stay off Twitter during this election campaign. Politics This Morning
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