TAICHUNG (Taiwan News) — As things are shaping up, Taichung is going to be a blowout win for incumbent Kuomintang (KMT) Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕). Remarkably, the campaign of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate, current deputy speaker of the legislature and Taichung legislator Tsai Chi-chang (蔡其昌), has barely registered
Defying normal political gravity, Tsai’s fairly low support when it became clear he was going to be the party’s candidate actually dropped as his campaign got into high gear. Normally, political campaigns increase name recognition, visibility, familiarity and rally the voters who lean towards that party, leading to at least some tightening in support levels between the campaigns … but not with Tsai.
Even Tsai has acknowledged this election campaign has been “cold,” meaning lacking in enthusiasm. While I expect there will in the end be some tightening as independents and undecideds finally make up their minds, all indications are it would be a massive upset if he even came close to winning Taichung.
Good on paper
On paper, he should be a good candidate. He’s the #2 in the legislature, a political heavyweight, widely acknowledged to be a knowledgeable local boy. And he’s even the baseball commissioner in a city whose team has just won back-to-back championships (go Brothers!).
Part of it, perhaps, is the current political headwinds. Commentators and politicians across the country have called this election cycle “cold” and the KMT has a lot of advantages going for it.
Another is that his campaign has yet to really make any issue really resonate with voters, nor has his attacks on Lu gained much traction. For example, he’s probably most heavily leaned into Lu’s record on air pollution, which she campaigned on in 2016. He repeated the accusation that Taichung’s air quality is worse than before, and that Taichung’s ranking nationally has dropped.
This is a huge strategic mistake. While he might be right about dropping one place, the mayor has been very publicly and vigorously fighting against the central government and Taipower over the massive Taichung Power Plant, doing what she can to fix the air in other ways. Most crucially, all the data backs her up that it has improved significantly over her term (as it did under her two predecessors as well).
The biggest reason, however, for Tsai's failing campaign is he’s hopelessly outclassed by Lu, and this comes as a surprise. Her start in the mayor’s office was abysmal, but somehow she’s totally turned things around.
The mayor few expected
Pretty much everyone, including myself, expected her to lose to DPP incumbent Mayor Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍). When she won, there was widespread shock.
There were reports of Taichungers coming up to Lin after the election apologizing and saying how much they were going to miss him. Six months after Lu took office, it turned out that if the election were re-held, Lin would win by a decent margin.
What appears to have happened was that an unexpectedly large number of voters were either caught up in that year’s “Han wave” or voting as a protest against the administration of Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) — which was at its low point in popularity, assuming that Lin was just going to win anyway. It appears they weren’t voting to turf out Lin, or because of any preference for Lu.
She also got off to a bad start, getting plenty of bad publicity for a stunt at her inauguration bringing vials marked “Guguan air” and then putting a bunch of KMT patronage faction figures in her administration. She made things worse by blaming anything and everything on the central government, which gave off a very negative tone.
Early on, she was consistently ranked as one of the least-liked local leaders in the country. Then she turned it all around and staged a remarkable political comeback, and is now a national political heavyweight.
All around the country, KMT candidates are using her image on their campaign materials to associate with her. Her followers and the adoring pan-blue (pro-KMT) media have dubbed her “Mama Mayor.”
Probably the first thing that helped turn the tide was she appeared to realize that constantly being on the attack against the Tsai administration works for a lawmaker, but not a mayor. She began emphasizing the positive efforts of her administration, her team’s hard work to make things better, her concern for her constituents, and her love for the Brother’s baseball team. She left high-profile battles with the central government to issues where she knew the city’s public would back her, like air pollution.
'Mama Mayor' engineers comeback
Her early experience as a television news reporter and anchor probably helped. I also suspect she learned some things from New Taipei Mayor Hou Yu-ih (侯友宜), who has been ranked the most popular politician in the country for years.
Her husband, a former city councilor, and his KMT patronage faction background may also have helped her with handling local politics and city council. She’s also recently made some interesting moves that show political savvy.
Knowing the public’s suspicions about her connections to the local patronage factions, her lack of enthusiasm and muted campaigning for Yen Kuan-hung (顏寬恆) of the Black Faction during the Taichung 2 by-election was notable. The top figure in the Black Faction, the notorious Yen Ching-piao (顏寬恆), was reportedly furious.
She’s also from a 49er family, that fled the Chinese civil war. I had assumed she would be very deep blue on issues related to China. There is no doubt she is a Republic of China (ROC) nationalist, festooning the city’s thoroughfares with national flags and clearly enjoying the flag-raising ceremony on Double Ten national day, unlike her DPP predecessor.
So it came as quite a shock when, after the Nancy Pelosi visit, China was conducting hostile war games off Taiwan and shooting missiles overhead, she said: “Resisting China and protecting Taiwan is, for every citizen, every leader, including the central government and local leaders, a common responsibility.” This type of thinking is associated with the DPP, and she’s the only KMT politician to have embraced it.
Strategic snubs and embraces
That kind of talk appeals to younger and more mainstream voters, and sets her apart from her KMT peers. And that’s not all she’s done to widen her voter appeal.
She recently appeared on stage with Ann Kao (高虹安) of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), whose support is strong among younger and more independent voters. She didn’t formally endorse her, but it was a nod and a wink.
Although she campaigned heavily with him in 2018, she has so far refused to share a stage with Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), even when both were stumping for candidates in Taichung. She claimed “there were too many events” to attend, but the snub was clearly intended to put distance between herself and the KMT presidential candidate who lost the 2020 race in a landslide.
She’s also been tepid on appearing on stage with KMT Chair Eric Chu (朱立倫). She has, however, gone out of her way to associate herself with the more popular Hou Yu-ih and Taipei mayoral candidate Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安).
Lu is now a politician to watch. She’s a skilled operator, popular, and clearly ambitious. If this year’s elections go as well as I expect for the KMT, then the frontrunners to be the party’s presidential nominee for 2024 will be Hou Yu-ih and Eric Chu. They have problems, however.
While Hou is very popular with the public, he isn’t so much so inside his own party, who in some quarters outright distrust him. If this election goes well, then Eric Chu will likely be viewed as an election winner, have some backing inside the party and his hand on the levers controlling the primary process — but he’s not very popular with the public.
Lu Shiow-yen could emerge as a dark horse compromise candidate, acceptable within the party and fairly popular with the public. If Chu or Hou manage to somehow best the other and come out on top, you can be certain Lu will be high on their list of vice presidential picks.
