In November 2oo8, I got quite irate about the fallout from the 2008 election. Like many other GPC activists, I had become disenchanted with the candidate I had worked so hard to help make leader of the Green Party of Canada. I had lived with my mistake, and quietly withdrawn my services. Having been at the centre of the Leadership team, I had a fair idea that they really didn’t understand politics outside the realm of communications, and media relations. No huhu I thought, they don’t want my help, and they’ll eventually find their own way.
As an interested outside observer, the 2008 general election was a real eye opener. They hadn’t learned anything! Running Elizabeth in Central Nova? What hubris! David Chernushenko was making dark and gloomy public statements, and the Green Party leadership was in complete denial about the failings of the National Campaign. My blood had boiled when I heard Elizabeth May encouraging strategic voting, which was a gut blow to hundreds of hard working candidates across the country. The very grudging, and half hearted retractions and clarifications from Elizabeth convinced me that the Party was in the hands of the wrong people.
To my thinking, the key missing ingredient was a lack of training, support, and resources dedicated to building the organisational strength at the grassroots level of the Party. At that time, I had no inkling of anything except to share my experience, and hard won expertise in the actual nuts and bolts mechanics of succesful campaigning. There would be a leadership race in 2010, and in all likelihood, the Party membership would repay the lack of administrative capability, and perceived betrayal by the leadership by replacing it. The important thing would be that the potential candidates, and GPC activists should have some real organisational objectives, strategies, and initiatives to focus on as leadership campaign issues. I frankly don’t remember what conversation, or news report it was that decided me to start blogging on the Green Party of Canada, and political organisation in a Green Party of Canada context, but on November 28, 2008 I trotted off to WordPress, and set up a free blog, which you are patiently struggling through now.
I was, and still am proud of my earliest efforts on this blog. I have extensive experience building my own business, and my 25 years of Sales and Marketing experience has been invaluable in informing me about systematic presentation of a succesful message to a target audience. All the varied initiatives, and tasks I have performed on a volunteer basis since my initiation into the world of Canadian p0litics have taught me what works, and what fails in the real world of politics. There are some commonalities between political activism, and the world of commerce, but it took a lot of partial successes, and sometimes glaring failures to internalise the differences.
So here I am, one week short of 1 year, and this little blog just passed the milestone of 20,000 unique visitors. Many of the most useful lessons I had to present were dealt with in my first 30 posts or so. I have digressed, and faded a bit, (a lot actually) in recent months. Firstly, because I earn my living in a seas0nal marketplace, and I’ve been too busy. Secondly, much of the best advice I have to offer has already been written up as posts. I am seeking the advice of my readers now. Please go back to my December 08 – March 09 archived posts, and check them out. Contrast them with recent posts. I am puzzled about what direction to go in. Should I simply start re-posting past blogs, with a little editing? There is the possibility of re-formatting, and compiling this into a comprehensive ‘Campaign and Organising Manual’. I could dish a ton of scanadlous dirt on the GPC, or I could turn to my policy interests of Tax Policy, and Urban Transportation( a.k.a. location and urban economics). Another option would be to seek more input from some of the gifted organisers and campaigners within Green Party ranks. I for one would love to interview Bill Hulet about the Guelph experience in community organising, or get a complete Obama campaign field manual review with Rob Routledge. What do YOU think? (I just edited to read Bill Hulet, not Bill Hewitt. I make this mistake very often, and I sincerely apologise to both the Bill’s for my own impending senility)
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Filed under: Internal Green Politics, Organizing, Political Strategy | Tagged: green party canada, Green Party of Canada, green party organizing, internal green party politics, political organizing | 1 Comment »



















I am often pretty critical of current practices in the GPC. I hope that my readership understands that the criticism is seldom meant to denigrate, it’s intended to promote positive change. When it comes to fundraising, the GPC has done a couple of things pretty well since Elizabeth May took over. First and foremost, the Party has worked out that emails are free, can be deployed in a matter of hours, and are a pretty good tool to gather in resources. In the past, (pre-2006), fundraising efforts were sporadic, and had an ad-hoc nature. “It looks like an election is coming, set up something to go and get $250k from the membership.” A temporary phone bank would get set up, a small group of people would learn on the job, and just when everybody had it figured out, Jim Harris would pull out his magic rolodex, and raise the other $200k in an afternoon or two. The website was the primary fundraiser, and relied pretty much on passive traffic to leave a present as it visited the website. It was a pretty good website, and with the kind of traffic it generated during an election, it was capable of raising some pretty impressive $.