Issue-Based Strategies in Election Campaigns: The Case of Health Care in the 2000 Canadian Federal Election

This article contributes to the emerging literature on election campaign strategies by studying the strategy adopted by the Liberal government in the 2000 Canadian federal election. Two questions are addressed: Why did the Liberal government choose in that election to focus its campaign on health care in spite of its poor record with regard to this issue? And, even more surprisingly, how did the Liberals manage to win this election and get a parliamentary majority using such a seemingly counterintuitive strategy? This case study suggests that an incumbent with a bad record on an important issue not only can redirect voters' attention toward other topics but can also define the debate about that issue in a more advantageous way. These ideas are tested with qualitative and quantitative data from the 2000 Canadian election. Content analysis of party campaign material and media coverage demonstrates how the incumbent Liberals successfully framed the debate about the health care issue so as to undermine the credibility of the official opposition. Statistical analyses of individual vote choice show that the Liberal campaign strategy had a significant impact on the election outcome.