Mayor Ma Ying-jeou and DPP candidate Lee Ying-yuan go for youth, Hakka votes

After the two televised debates and weeks of hard campaigning, Taipei City voters are beginning to grasp the election strategies of incumbent Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and DPP candidate Lee Ying-yuan (李應元).

Indeed, from campaigning rallies, TV commercials, policy outlines to personal Web sites and campaign literature, it's easy to assess the campaign styles and strategies adopted by both candidates as they vie for the job of "Taipei city mayor" in the Dec. 7 election.

One obvious similarity shared by both camps is the use of popular culture to appeal to voters, especially younger voters, in new ways.

Not only do both camps have their own Web sites, both Ma's and Lee's feature chat rooms and rich visual effects such as flash and phat-animated designs to attract visitor's attention.

Aside from regular text that features press releases, campaigning schedules, policies and ideas, Ma's Web site enables visitors to download his campaign songs as well as clips of his TV spots while Lee's allows visitors to play interactive games, view his TV spots on-line and his campaign rallies live on the Web.

"Through images, we hope the Web site will give visitors an understanding of Taipei's multi-faceted culture," King Pu-tsung (金溥聰), Ma's campaign spokesperson, was quoted as saying at the launch of the Web site as he pointed out the numerous photos of Ma at work and play on display at the site. "We want to convey to the public an image that's full of energy," he said.

To connect better with voters, both camps have adopted informal strategies such as setting up outdoor coffee shops for the public to enjoy while staging small gatherings at the shops. Ma's camp has organized some diners where professional musicians play for the audience. Lee's campaign has held vision presentations and a Pala Pala dance at his coffee shop.

"Through these kinds of small, informal gatherings, we hope to strengthen interaction with the public and make politics more real and digestible to them while introducing our candidate's vision of Taipei," said Peng Tien-haw (彭天豪), a spokesperson for Lee's campaign.

Both candidates are attempting to woo support and votes from the city's Hakka minority as both candidates make frequent appearances at Hakka events and have outlined policies on the preservation of Hakka culture and language in their campaign pledges.

But there the similarities end.

Lee's campaign rallies have all the trappings of a rock concert, with air horns blaring and people screaming dong suan -- meaning "get elected" in Taiwanese -- while Ma opts for non-conventional rallies, which feature folk, Hakka and other forms of music before he makes his appearance.

"We [DPP] are skilled at conducting conventional campaign rallies," Peng told the Taipei Times.

"In order to boost Lee's candidacy in a given period of time, as his face is relatively new to Taipei residents, we've chosen to stage this kind of campaign rally, which is a great way to centralize support and enhance the candidate's confidence and popularity," Peng said.

Wu An-wen (吳恩文), chief of the news section for Ma's campaign, talked about Ma's non-conventional, laid-back approach to campaigning.

"It has been [Mayor] Ma's wish to give Taipei residents an elegant kind of campaign setting where the emotions of the crowd will stay rational," Wu said.