Park, Moon going head to head in slogan battle

Banners promoting presidential candidates hang in the street in Sinsa-dong, Seoul on Nov. 27. / Yonhap

By Jun Ji-hye

• Published Dec 9, 2012 4:53 PM KST
• Updated Dec 9, 2012 4:53 PM KST

Political pundits give Park

higher mark

but doubt plausibility

By Jun Ji-hye

Slogans are crucial ingredients to campaign success. U.S. President Barack Obama was re-elected on the back of his slogan “Forward.” With just nine days to Korea’s presidential election, who has done a better job in crafting a more compelling slogan between the two main candidates?

Would you pick a “Prepared Female President,” the main slogan of the ruling Saenuri Party’s presidential contender Park Geun-hye, or someone who is “People First,” from her rival Moon Jae-in of the main opposition Democratic United Party (DUP)?

Experts are giving higher marks to Park’s campaign slogan as it gives a stronger impression that she is ready to take the nation’s top job and has a vision. They gave Park higher ratings because in relative terms Park’s political experience literally dwarfs Moon’s.

Although the surveyed analysts agreed that Park’s slogan is more compelling than Moon’s, they were doubtful of her ability to live up to it.

“It has been more than a decade for Park to be involved in politics, while it has been just months for her rival Moon. Former presidential candidate Ahn Cheol-soo’s career as a politician is even shorter than that,” said Kim Neung-gu, head of Polinews.

“Amid growing concerns of a global economic crisis that is comparable with the Asian financial crisis 15 years ago, people think the nation needs a well-prepared president who can overcome it. Park’s slogan and her rich experience fit well with what voters want.”

Kim also highly assessed Park’s emphasis on a female president.

“Males are mostly said to be decided voters. But women are different. Many experts view women as swing voters because they are usually emotional and sometimes make impromptu decisions,” he said.

He added many of Park’s fans tend to be sentimental. “Old women regard Park as their own daughter because of nostalgic feelings for the late President Park Chung-hee. In this regard, Park can appeal through the concept of a female president.”

Regarding Moon’s slogan, Kim pointed out that the word “people” would remind voters of late President Roh Moo-hyun first, not Moon, so it fails to give a strong impression of the candidate himself.

“His slogan could make people think that Moon is staying within the framework of the late Roh, although many have said getting over Roh’s image is the most important task for Moon,” Kim said.

Chung Goon-gi, a professor at the Journalism and Media Department at Kyonggi University, echoed Kim’s view.

He said, “Moon’s slogan is not that tangible and the public seem to not really know what he wants to say. I would say Moon lags behind Park in terms of the slogan battle.”

However, it is a different story whether Park is really ready to do as her slogan says.

Kim noted that “prepared president” had been the slogan of the late President Kim Dae-jung.

“When the late Kim was running in the 1997 election, it was his fourth challenge and some people viewed his unsuccessful experiences as a weakness. But he changed it to a strength by stressing that he had made a lot of preparation coming through previous elections and could be elected thanks to that slogan.” he said.

The Polinews head said at that time the public was convinced of the late Kim’s preparedness especially when he appeared in televised debates.

“He came across as a walking dictionary and was never at a loss for words when answering questions. He exactly embodied his slogan,” he said.

However, he was skeptical of Park’s readiness.

“As you can notice from her nickname the Notebook Princess, she sometimes fails to deal with some questions that she has not prepared for in advance,” he said, adding that Park failed to appear a prepared president in TV debates.

However, Chung disagrees with this.

“I think prepared president is the right way to describe Park as she has been involved in presidential elections for a number of years. Through fierce competition with then candidate Lee Myung-bak in the 2007 primary, she already made enormous preparations,” Chung said.

“Many experts and voters already know that she is not a good debater but they don’t think it is significant,” he said.

“What’s more important is she is well-prepared in terms of her election pledges as she has accepted some policies that liberal politicians will adopt.”

Park also displayed great leadership to unify the conservative camp by bringing in such figures as Lee Hoi-chang, former chairman of the Liberty Forward Party, and Park Se-il who chairs the Hansun Foundation, the professor said.

Can Roh beat Park Chung-hee?

As for candidates’ tactics to attack each other’s ties with previous presidents _ Moon has criticized the late Park’s dictatorship, while Park has criticized the late Roh’s incompetence, most experts say the DUP candidate is at a disadvantage in this fight.

“Although some criticize late Park for his authoritarian regime, many people still regard him as the most respectable president in the nation’s history. His reputation is unassailable. So Moon could not take any advantages from such attack,” Kim said.

Chung agreed with Kim, saying, “For those in their 20s and 30s, late Park’s story and some of his wrongdoing is not realistic as it happened long time ago. But Roh’s regime was not many years ago. More people remember his office and talk about what went wrong as well as what was good.”

Hong Hyung-sik, director of Hangil Research and Consulting, says that Moon is till overconfident in Roh.

“But it is not like that. Even among liberal people, some don’t like Roh. Moon missed that point,” Hong said.

He claimed that Park’s responsibility about her father’s misdeeds is more about ethical, while Moon’s responsibility is more substantial as he was actually involved in Roh’s regime as chief of staff. “So, Moon could get a bigger blow,” he said.

When talking about Moon’s latest assertion that Park should share the blame for the failure of President Lee Myung-bak’s government, three commentators’ evaluation varies.

Chung and Hong echoed the same view, saying “It was not that effective either as such attacks suffered from counterblow from Park’s side that claimed Moon should take responsibility for the failure of Roh’s regime. Park played the right card.”

On the other hand, Kim stressed that the primary role of the presidential poll is to judge the current government.

“Lee’s regime has deeply hurt the public. That’s why over 50 percent of people responded they want power change in various surveys,” he said.

“There could be people who think Park is different from Lee among Park’s supporters. But, for swing voters in the middle and independent voters, Park and Lee are not that different as Lee has not left the party.”

Ahn’s support is big deal

All three experts concurred that Ahn’s support for Moon is one of the biggest variables for the election result.

Ahn’s declaration of his support for Moon on Thursday has helped boost Moon’s opinion poll ratings.

“Most of Ahn’s supporters are said to want an administration change. But some of them are not satisfied with Moon as the opposition candidate. These people have been turned into swing voters since Ahn’s withdrawal,” Kim said.

“They account for 5 to 10 percent of the whole eligible voters. Whether or not they give their votes to Moon totally depends on Ahn. If Moon successfully earns their support, he may win the race by a narrow margin.”

Hong agreed with Kim saying, “Ahn’s declaration of his support plays a role in changing the dynamics of the election to a neck and neck race between Park and Moon.”

“His move will also likely have a strong influence on the turnout of young voters, which can be one of the important factors to decide who will lead the nation,” he added.

However, Chung expressed skepticism on Ahn’s pursuit of ‘political renovation.’

“People already became tired of waiting for Ahn to make a decision through the long debate of single candidate talks between him and Moon. Indeed, his ratings fell to almost 20 percent about the time when he withdrew from the race. It is a sign that some supporters were disappointed about his hesitation,” he said.

“So I doubt if he could achieve his vision for new politics as he planned earlier.”

What else will affect campaigns?

Experts say the scheduled televised debates and the minor leftist Unified Progressive Party's Lee Jung-hee will affect the remainder of the campaigns.

Lee received attention after the first TV debate as she fiercely attacked Park, making controversial remarks such as, “I am here to let Park drop out of the race.”

“Lee probably thinks that she did her job well but consequently she put Moon in trouble because her harsh attack rather gave a chance for conservative supporters to further unify. Plus, Moon didn’t have a chance to present himself either. It only makes it harder to achieve the regime change that she is insisting on,” Kim said.

“As Lee’s behavior will likely continue in the other debates, all eyes will be on Moon to see if he shows proper leadership to embrace her as a leading candidate in the liberal camp,” he said.

Meanwhile, Hong said whether or not North Korea launches a long-range rocket ahead of the election will also affect the race as it could see conservative voters gather behind the ruling party.