Mismanaged

Stephen Maher at least partially answers the question of why Elizabeth May's campaign in Central Nova fell well short of the applicable spending limit. But neither the explanation nor some other financial moves by the Greens look to reflect well on May's leadership:

In his blog on Monday, Mark Taylor, an Alberta Green who left the party’s national council after a conflict with Ms. May, criticized her comments.

"Money was funnelled into the riding to open two campaign offices," he wrote. "Staff was hired to run these offices. I know, from a personal contact, that requests were made of the Guelph team to turn their focus from (get out the vote) efforts in Guelph to (get out the vote) efforts in Central Nova."...

Ms. May said Mr. Taylor and Mr. Ogilvie are longtime critics and their facts are wrong. The party didn’t give her campaign $80,000, she said.

"That’s false," she said. "You can check the Elections Canada website."

The site does show $80,000 in transfers from the central party but Ms. May said that’s deceptive, as $40,000 was "repayment from London North Centre," where she ran in a byelection in 2006, and the other $40,000 was a loan that will be paid back.

She reiterated that there was a "lack of focus" on winning Central Nova.

"In fact, unlike any other candidate of the Green Party of Canada, I had to be out of my riding more than half the time," she said. "If they’d had the kind of attention that they think went to my riding, we wouldn’t have had miscommunication from national office that led to us underspending."

Taken at face value, the last line would seem to explain the fact that May's campaign didn't spend to the limit. But it's hardly a ringing endorsement of May's management if her riding campaign was out of touch with the central office. And for that matter, it's not entirely clear why the national office would have any role in monitoring or influencing how much a particular riding campaign would spend.

That is, unless the national office and the riding campaign were seen as basically one and the same entity. And the earlier part of May's statement signals that may have been the case.

Keep in mind that the Greens' Central Nova riding association didn't even exist before May decided to run there. From that starting point, it would defy belief to suggest that Central Nova had $40,000 to loan to London North Centre for May's byelection run there - let alone that by sheer coincidence the one riding able to do so would be the one where May later ran. Which means that "repayment" is hardly the right term for any transfer from London North Centre to Central Nova.

Instead, it seems more likely that the $40,000 roughly reflects the Greens' rebate for the London North Centre by-election (update: or the repayment of a similar loan from the riding association to the central party). But since (to my recollection) that spending was itself largely party-funded, May can't then accurately claim that the money put into Central Nova didn't originate with the party. And indeed it might seem problematic that May has exercised enough control over two riding associations and the central party simultaneously to push the London North Centre rebate entirely into her next riding.

Mind you, there's probably a case to be made that May's strategy was at least a reasonable one for her party as well as herself. But the evidence seems to favour the unhappy Greens concerned with top-down control and a lack of responsibility, not her argument in defence that the problem was somehow an insufficient focus on her personally. And the more effort May spends trying to fight against the current, the less likely she'll be to have much of a party left to run the next time she tries to win a seat for herself.

Left on the vine

Alice at the Pundits' Guide makes an interesting discovery about the federal leaders' riding expenses from the 2008 election:

The surprise for me was Green Party Leader Elizabeth May's return, inasmuch as ... for all the effort that was reportedly going in to getting her a seat in the Commons ... her campaign spent only 69% of the limit, in spite of having $80K (nearly the full amount of the spending limit) transferred to the campaign by the central party office, and of raising more than the other 3 party leaders during the campaign itself. Doing a quick eyeball comparison of her return to Layton's and Duceppe's, her campaign reported significantly less on salary costs than the other two. Her campaign account wound up with a considerable surplus, which will have to be transferred either to the Central Nova Green Party riding association or to the central party...

Now, there may be a few possible theories as to why May might have spent significantly less than the limit.

Remember during the campaign that the Libs mooted the possibility of cancelling some of their planned national ad buys as a "save the furniture" move if the campaign wasn't going their way. It would seem entirely possible that May's riding campaign may have done effectively the same thing on a riding level if they figured that the seat was likely out of reach anyway. (Though it's worth noting that the same incentives which would have made that decision questionable for the Libs would seem even stronger for a party pushing to win an all-important first elected seat in the House of Commons.)

Alternatively, it could be that May's campaign didn't focus on finding a way of making use of anything close to the maximum amount. That could be generously explained in part as a matter of her having enough volunteer support or central staff at her disposal to reduce the riding's staffing costs compared to those of most other leaders. But it's hard to see how an extra $25,000 couldn't have been of at least some use - which would suggest at least some failure in May's planning for the riding.

Meanwhile, it may bear watching what gets done with the surplus which the Greens managed to amass for May's riding campaign. If May is focused on taking another shot at Central Nova, then it would make sense for the money to stay within the riding. But if she plans to take another crack at any remotely promising by-elections or run elsewhere in the next election, then the funds would figure to go to the Greens' central office to support that effort and/or pay down general campaign debt. Which means that how the Central Nova surplus is handled may offer a strong hint as to the next step in the Greens' continued attempts to win a seat in the House of Commons.

Update: One more note which I forgot to mention earlier: note that even while she spent the least money overall among the party leaders, May nonetheless ended up spending the most per vote received. Which would appear to be another nail in the coffin of the theory that the Greens are particularly efficient in their electoral return on investment.