Image or substance? Candidate or campaign? A case study of a presidential election campaign in Finland

Abstract

This study examined reasons why Elisabeth Rehn – labelled by the media as the queen of the polls – lost her lead position a month before the presidential election. Rehn’s campaign had two approaches – traditional and marketing oriented. On one hand it represented a voter‐driven campaign with various non‐political and political professionals at its disposal but on the other hand the candidate was closer to the traditional party‐driven or ideology‐driven concept holding to traditional political themes. The main internal weaknesses of Rehn’s campaign were four factors: the weakness of the (civic) organisation, the lack of resources, the candidate’s credibility problems and the wrong themes. The relevant external factors were: the line‐up of the candidates with two strong right‐wing female candidates and overwhelming resources of the competitive organisations. The study provides evidence that most of the theoretical factors based on previous research to be relevant also in this campaign and emphasises the meaning of the candidate’s credibility. The indicators of the credibility were her competence and appearance (external credibility), and personality and commitment (internal credibility) even though in the very beginning the candidate was evaluated by the campaign workers as the most competent and experienced candidate. The polls and the media were considered to be factors that strengthened the result more than created it.