gone, I asked the make-up artist who she was. The lady was called Hanna Birna Kristjánsdóttir, the incumbent mayor of Reykjavík. I clearly didn’t have much of a grasp on Icelandic politics.
Our campaign played out primarily on Facebook, YouTube, and Blogspot. I didn’t put in an appearance on any of the official candidates’ tours. I declared on my Facebook page that I did not intend to waste time on sterile let’s-get-our-sleeves-rolled-up conferences. When I was interviewed on TV, I tried to provide a large dollop of complete nonsense. When it came to unemployment, I suggested opening a Disneyland in Reykjavík. After all, it would create a lot of new jobs, and there would definitely be plenty of people who’d be willing to get into Disney costumes and sell cheap trinkets for a few krónur. And we could attract the unemployed with special offers—free admission on Mondays, for example, plus a personal photo with Mickey Mouse!
My friend and collaborator Heiða Kristín Helgadóttir took care of all the practical and organizational questions of Party work. I would have an idea—and she’d already implemented it. My sons also energetically joined it. We decided to create a homepage with the name bestiflokkurinn.is , and to make it the ugliest website that a party had ever put on the Internet. “Thumbs up,” the international symbol for friendship, approval, and recognition was to be our motto andtrademark. On the logo, the thumb was deliberately made a tad too long, which gave the gesture a somewhat racy look.
We chose the ugliest typography and most hideous color combinations that we could find. We unabashedly pilfered stuff from the websites of other parties. We copied fragments of text from their respective election manifestos and mixed it all up (in the proper surrealistic manner) into a unique cocktail, completely meaningless but totally positive. Early in the spring we moved our campaign office to the center of Reykjavík. We designed and sold buttons, stickers, and T-shirts, and tried to attract external sponsors. But no one wanted to give us any money, so we were more or less on our own.
As the election approached, poll numbers for the Best Party climbed inexorably higher. It was obvious that this was largely due to votes from the left-wing electorate: their loss was our gain. And the left-wing intelligentsia woke up too, and the movers and shakers in that camp came after me guns blazing. So I was reproached with, among other things, having formerlybeen a member of the Independents and the Association of Icelandic Libertarians. They also mentioned that I wanted to legalize cannabis. Some went so far as to put me on the same level as Silvio Berlusconi. Others went even further and compared me to Hitler. I myself was mainly amused—all this, after all, just proved that people now saw us as a serious threat.
The Independence Party initially seemed happy about our success, because it was at the expense of the Left. Otherwise, they didn’t appear all that worried; in any case they didn’t think we’d ever get serious. But when the poll numbers left no doubt that the Best Party was nibbling away at the Independents’ vote as well, they realized they couldn’t just stand idly by. The party dominates the executive suites of all the major media companies, and from those quarters the cry started to echo ever more loudly: the country’s problems weren’t going to be solved by silly antics. I responded with even more silly antics. Every time another party made any election promises, we sat down together and discussed how we could top them. The Left-Green Alliance promised children and teens free access to swimming pools—our response was to offer free admission for ALL—with free towels INCLUDED!
On the whole, all the parties kept their language politically correct. As soon as there was talk of immigrants or women’s equality, they all trotted out their standard formulations, and their waterproof,
Our campaign played out primarily on Facebook, YouTube, and Blogspot. I didn’t put in an appearance on any of the official candidates’ tours. I declared on my Facebook page that I did not intend to waste time on sterile let’s-get-our-sleeves-rolled-up conferences. When I was interviewed on TV, I tried to provide a large dollop of complete nonsense. When it came to unemployment, I suggested opening a Disneyland in Reykjavík. After all, it would create a lot of new jobs, and there would definitely be plenty of people who’d be willing to get into Disney costumes and sell cheap trinkets for a few krónur. And we could attract the unemployed with special offers—free admission on Mondays, for example, plus a personal photo with Mickey Mouse!
My friend and collaborator Heiða Kristín Helgadóttir took care of all the practical and organizational questions of Party work. I would have an idea—and she’d already implemented it. My sons also energetically joined it. We decided to create a homepage with the name bestiflokkurinn.is , and to make it the ugliest website that a party had ever put on the Internet. “Thumbs up,” the international symbol for friendship, approval, and recognition was to be our motto andtrademark. On the logo, the thumb was deliberately made a tad too long, which gave the gesture a somewhat racy look.
We chose the ugliest typography and most hideous color combinations that we could find. We unabashedly pilfered stuff from the websites of other parties. We copied fragments of text from their respective election manifestos and mixed it all up (in the proper surrealistic manner) into a unique cocktail, completely meaningless but totally positive. Early in the spring we moved our campaign office to the center of Reykjavík. We designed and sold buttons, stickers, and T-shirts, and tried to attract external sponsors. But no one wanted to give us any money, so we were more or less on our own.
As the election approached, poll numbers for the Best Party climbed inexorably higher. It was obvious that this was largely due to votes from the left-wing electorate: their loss was our gain. And the left-wing intelligentsia woke up too, and the movers and shakers in that camp came after me guns blazing. So I was reproached with, among other things, having formerlybeen a member of the Independents and the Association of Icelandic Libertarians. They also mentioned that I wanted to legalize cannabis. Some went so far as to put me on the same level as Silvio Berlusconi. Others went even further and compared me to Hitler. I myself was mainly amused—all this, after all, just proved that people now saw us as a serious threat.
The Independence Party initially seemed happy about our success, because it was at the expense of the Left. Otherwise, they didn’t appear all that worried; in any case they didn’t think we’d ever get serious. But when the poll numbers left no doubt that the Best Party was nibbling away at the Independents’ vote as well, they realized they couldn’t just stand idly by. The party dominates the executive suites of all the major media companies, and from those quarters the cry started to echo ever more loudly: the country’s problems weren’t going to be solved by silly antics. I responded with even more silly antics. Every time another party made any election promises, we sat down together and discussed how we could top them. The Left-Green Alliance promised children and teens free access to swimming pools—our response was to offer free admission for ALL—with free towels INCLUDED!
On the whole, all the parties kept their language politically correct. As soon as there was talk of immigrants or women’s equality, they all trotted out their standard formulations, and their waterproof,
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