In a slightly ironic twist...
...the Tory push to do away with public financing presents a golden fundraising opportunity to the other parties. Issues like this probably don't resonate much at all with the general public, but to party members? I would imagine that Liberals might be willing to dish out $20, if they think it will help stall Tom Flanagan's plan to destroy the Liberal Party of Canada.
But, lo and behold, it’s the Greens, of all people, who appear to be taking advantage of it, sending out a fundraising e-mail today asking for donations in light of Harper's proposals. Now that's how you run a political party.
As for the LPC? Well, there's nothing from the party yet (surprise surprise), although the BC Young Liberals have started a facebook campaign encouraging people to donate to the LPC to fight this.
For anyone so inclined, the online donation page can be found here.
UPDATE: I'll give credit where credit is due and, second only to the Green Party in terms of speed, is the Michael Ignatieff campaign, who sent out an e-mail tonight asking for donations to Michael's campaign (and the victory fund) to stop Harper's plan "to undermine the democratic underpinnings of Canada's fair and open political system". Well played.
But, lo and behold, it’s the Greens, of all people, who appear to be taking advantage of it, sending out a fundraising e-mail today asking for donations in light of Harper's proposals. Now that's how you run a political party.
As for the LPC? Well, there's nothing from the party yet (surprise surprise), although the BC Young Liberals have started a facebook campaign encouraging people to donate to the LPC to fight this.
For anyone so inclined, the online donation page can be found here.
UPDATE: I'll give credit where credit is due and, second only to the Green Party in terms of speed, is the Michael Ignatieff campaign, who sent out an e-mail tonight asking for donations to Michael's campaign (and the victory fund) to stop Harper's plan "to undermine the democratic underpinnings of Canada's fair and open political system". Well played.
posted by calgarygrit at
6:36 p.m.
22 Comments:
Ha!
You just motivated me to give $100.00 to the Conservative Party.
Keep up the good work CG!
By
Anonymous, at 6:41 p.m.
Also don't forget to join the "I Support The Liberal Victory Fund" Facebook Group! For Victory Fund Members, of course...
As you can see from my previous posts, I agree fully, that this is a glorious opportunity... Reminds me of my corporate days... We have no "problems", only opportunities.
By
WesternGrit, at 6:47 p.m.
In all honesty, it boggles my mind that the LPC hasn't hired you yet. Then I see that they haven't even used this maneuver to fundraise, and I realize - oh, that's right... they're just a bunch of dumb old fuddy-duddies. Well, your day will come, Mr. Arnold - and I look forward to it.
By
Ashley_Wilkes-Booth, at 6:49 p.m.
Did anyone else get an email from Michael Ignatieff tonight making financial hay out of the financial statement?
Why the sweet living fuck didn't such a thing come from the PARTY itself?
By
Anonymous, at 8:51 p.m.
The Greens aren't the only one, Dan.
This afternoon, shortly after Deficit Jim's announcements, I received an email from Michael Ignatieff's campaign asking me to donate to the Victory Fund or to his campaign (a portion of which goes to the Liberal Party), with links to the party website and to Michael's website. I received it at both my work email and my private email addresses.
Now that's how you run a leadership campaign and a political party.
By
Ted Betts, at 9:18 p.m.
...Why doesn't the party send emails? I guess it would help if they had email addresses to send to...
I got the email from Ignatieff, directly addressing Flaherty's goombah announcement. The email included a soliciting option to donate to the overall Liberal 'victory fund'. The general gift would automatically trigger a donation to his personal fund.
I've also had emails from Martha HF, GK and others in the Liberal party on the matter of fundraising donations to the party, even before this, so I'm not sure how the Liberals are behind the curve on this.
By
Niles, at 9:58 p.m.
Dear LPC HQ:
You people are a big bunch of doo-doo heads. Justify your existence.
By
Anonymous, at 10:00 p.m.
Of course, Michael Ignatieff could have sent out a list urging people to donate to the Liberal Party. Now that would have been a nice selfless gesture.
(yes, there was a link to the victory fund, but only after 3 mentions urging you to give him the money)
By
Anonymous, at 11:01 p.m.
It makes me very angry when someone makes a post that puts the Greens in a good light......and I agree with it....
By
Anonymous, at 12:56 a.m.
This comment has been removed by the author.
By
Ashley_Wilkes-Booth, at 1:32 a.m.
It's time that the people in charge start to crack the whip. The opportunity isn't about capitalizing on this fear/anger, but about mobilizing support and utilizing technology.
Ignatieff's got it. However, at a moment like this I hope all 3 candidates can put their separate aspirations aside and work together. Send their best ideas on raising funds to the head office and let them sculpt some kind of forceful, simple plea that reaches all members and past members.
NOW!
By
burlivespipe, at 4:07 a.m.
I threw $25 into the pot via the BC Facebook campaign.
I think this is going to backfire in the Conservative Party's face. They may think they are kicking the Liberal Party while they are down. They are in fact energizing the Liberal base to do something they are not in the habit of doing: donating to a political party.
The CPC would have been better off with a LPC dependent on vote subsidies for survival. This move will only accelerate Liberal renewal processes.
By
Independent, at 8:19 a.m.
Dear LPC HQ:
You people are a big bunch of doo-doo heads. Justify your existence.
Seriously. I'm card-carrying Liberal, and I'm a little pissed off they haven't used this as an opportunity for fundraising. I mean, I know they want to avoid making it look like they're just angry about the subsidy cut, and I know that Liberal Party members are less activist by nature...but honestly, if you can't capitalize on something like this to generate money, how useless are you? Whoever takes over the Party's leadership should fire substantial chunks of the fundraising department, because it clearly has no idea what it's doing.
By
Anonymous, at 9:56 a.m.
The Liberals should bring down the government and force an election with Jean Chretien as interim leader, and use this as an opportunity to build a grassroots fundraising operation.
Harper has delivered the Liberal Party a gift, a la Joe Clark delivered one 30 years ago.
By
whyshouldIsellyourwheat, at 10:41 a.m.
Yeah, LPC should have had an e-mail asking for donations right away. I mean, during the last part of the US election, I think I was getting e-mails about donating to Obama every 2 days, and whenever anything happened ("Sarah Palin made another mistake. We can't let that happen with her in the White House. Donate 25 dollars now.")
It may not raise a lot of money, but even if it got the Liberals an extra 300 dollars, how long does it take someone to write an e-mail and click "Send All"?
By
UWHabs, at 11:36 a.m.
I got an email from Scott Brison ten minutes ago saying:
I asked for this chance to write to our Party’s key supporters – because late yesterday, Stephen Harper acted so disreputably as to make any decent person feel sick to the stomach. We need your help to raise the money to stop this little man. In the face of the worst economic problems since the Great Depression, Harper’s very first measure in the new Parliament is legislation to destroy the Liberal Party financially.
We must put money in the bank to deal with Harper’s disingenuous operations.
Around the world, governments and opposition parties are rallying together to face the economic crisis. Barack Obama and George Bush can work together, but that’s not the Harper way.
Harper vowed there would be no deficit on his watch – never. And now, he has brought Canada a huge deficit. Harper said there would be no recession. And now, we have entered the worst recession in living memory. Harper is either an economic fool or a morally deficient cynic, but either way, thousands of Canadians are losing their jobs every day, home prices are falling, retirement savings are evaporating and Christmas is looking so sad for many Canadians.
Rather than acting forcefully on the economic crisis, Harper prefers to move to ensure his fundraising advantage from his core of extreme right wing contributors – and to hell with democracy.
We need to demonstrate that the Liberal Party can and will compete financially. We need donations now to stop Stephen Harper and his desire to be the butcher of democracy.
Sincerely,
Scott Brison
Finance Critic
Liberal Party of Canada
By
Reality Bites, at 3:59 p.m.
Wow. That email from Brison is way more strongly worded than the one I got today from Ferguson.
I have a feeling that this thing is really truly ON.
By
Ted Betts, at 4:08 p.m.
Bout g.d. time.
By
Anonymous, at 4:13 p.m.
Could someone please clarify again what has the Liberals so upset? Brison says that it's because Harper has put the government into deficit. And apparently Iggy says that it's because Harper is currently refusing to put the government into deficit.
And under what legal basis is Ignatieff collecting campaign funds? There are laws about such things, so I'd like to understand how the Liberals are fitting this into the law.
After that, I hardly even want to ask what is "democratic" about taking money from taxpayers who don't choose to give, and giving it to a private entity. Much more democratic to encourage individuals to choose how to allocate their money to political parties.
By
Paul, at 4:51 p.m.
Money is regularly taken through taxes and given to only a few. Think of all of the subsidies that go to farmers for example or transfer payments or infrastructure investments or healthcare.
It is democratic because a democratically elected government passed a law with the support of the House of Commons, after multiple readings, then was passed by the Senate and then was given Royal Asset. That's as basic a lesson in Canadian democracy as you can get.
By
Ted Betts, at 6:20 p.m.
Yeah...there seems to be a bit of a lack of consistency on whether or not the Liberals want the Tories to go into deficit or not...
By
calgarygrit, at 6:39 p.m.
It cannot have effect in reality, that is what I consider.
By
www.tabletpc-shop.info, at 5:24 a.m.
Post a Comment
<< Home