Change You Can Count On....To Not Offend Anyone

The Liberal Party's Renewal Committee is presenting their report to the National Executive today, and I managed to get my hands on a copy. Since I know few will read this entire post, I'll give you my synopsis up front.

The committee shied away from many of the more radical suggestions floating around - this ensures their recommendations will pass, but it also makes you wonder just how much they will actually change things. Still, the recommendations are generally sensible and would be a step in the right direction. After reading the document, I'd certainly vote for them, under the assumption that a lot of the real change with respect to fundraising and membership engagement will come out of the change commission (and, judging from the en famille debate, it's clear that Carolyn Bennett is reading the suggestions being proposed, so I'm cautiously optimistic about what they'll say).

Among the recommendations:

1. Moving to a weighted one member one vote
2. Keeping the status quo with respect to the commissions
3. Keeping the PTAs in place, but centralizing administrative and financial responsibilities
4. Adopting a 308 riding strategy

Now, for a bit more detail...


Context

The report is surprisingly frank and certainly shows that the committee members understand the problems facing the party:

In the past twenty-four months, the Conservatives have raised $28 million more than the Liberal Party, or over one million dollars more in gross revenues per month. This magnitude of gap affects the operations of the Party at every level. Among the serious competitive disadvantages we face are the following:

· needed investments in database technologies;
· fundraising list development;
· political field organization;
· pre-writ advertising;
· grassroots policy development;
· outreach to cultural communities, community groups, and issue-based organizations;
· volunteer outreach; and
· training.

There's also a recognition that the party has been far too slow at implementing a national membership and a central database. To remedy this "technology gap", they suggest the following:

1. Streamline the membership process and standardize the way revenue is shared.
2. Priority investment in modern database technology.
3. The Council of Presidents will become the central forum for "Liberal University" and volunteer training.
4. Harmonization of party constitutions (they may want to avoid that word in Ontario...).
5. A reduction in the number of delegates from each riding who can attend conventions from 20 to 14.

All good suggestions (especially the database!), although I'm not sure I see the need to cut back the delegates per riding if the party does go to one-member-one-vote.


The PTAs...Soon to be PTSs

There's some acknowledgement that the PTAs haven't been doing their job but "it is for historical, cultural and practical reasons that we do not believe that provincial and territorial structures should be abandoned". However, the central party will take over many administrative and financial matters, while still giving some spending power to the PTAs themselves. Only they won't be PTAs anymore - the party would no longer be a federation, and the "associations" would become "sections".

I think this is a positive step - my experience with the Liberal Party of Canada in Alberta is that the board was often too fixated on administrative matters to focus on issues like fundraising or membership engagement. You need to give the PTAs the resources to function properly and grow the party, but there are many things that can simply be done better centrally.


Liberal 308

As long time readers know, I'm a big fan of a 308 riding strategy, and it's encouraging to see the party taking real steps to address this. The Renewal Committee recognizes the need to have 308 ridings that at least meet the bare minimum requirements to function properly and they've recommended hiring field workers to achieve this. Fantastic! Hands down, this is the best recommendation to come out of this report!


Commissions (recapped in 35 words)

The youth have started raising money so they're not completely useless anymore. But most of the other commissions are. We'd like to disband them, but it would never pass, so we'll keep the status quo.


Policy and Member Engagement (recapped in 9 words)

Important...but we'll let the Change Commission handle it...


One Member, One Vote

Fortunately, a cost-effective and truly democratic method is readily available. The principle of democratic representation can be extended to its ultimate limit by providing a direct vote to every member of the party using currently available technology.

True...although it is somewhat amusing that many of the members of the Renewal Committee were arguing that this technology wasn't available back when Rae suggested doing something similar to this to pick the next leader...

But enough about that. The recommendation is to go to a weighted OMOV, similar to the Tories, where every riding would get the same number of points. By my reading of the document, it would be a "clean" vote, so no point quotas for women, youth or red haired seniors. Personally, I think there are better ways and cooler acronyms to use when picking a leader than WOMOV, but it would be a fairer (albeit less exciting) system than we currently use. And given we don't always use our current system, I think I can live with this.


Other Ideas (Taken from the US)

The committee is intrigued by the idea of a "Liberals abroad" which would let Liberals living outside of Canada become involved with the party (in ways besides just becoming the leader...). They also like the idea of "registered Liberals", similar to "registered Democrats" in the states, but these two suggestions are just floated as long term ideas to consider.


In Conclusion

I put my conclusions at the top, so I don't have much to add here. I was ready to trash this report if it came back deserving to be trashed. And while it's not the exact report I would have written, it makes some good recommendations that, most importantly, can probably gather the support required to pass.

I hope they move ahead with these changes rather than watering them down, because a lot of these structural changes are desperately needed and long overdue.

Rebuilding the Big Red Machine

The Liberal Party has a problem. And the first step (or twelfth?) in solving any problem is to admit you have a problem. And the biggest problem right now is that too many Liberals won’t admit there’s a problem. So here are a few inconvenient truths:

-The Conservatives raised 12 million dollars more than the Liberals last year. Sure, it may not always be well spent, but it pretty much guarantees that, come May, whoever emerges from the Liberal leadership bloodbath is going to face a relentless barrage of negative ads.

-The Conservatives have well over four times as many donors as the Liberal Party. Think about that for a second. More than anything, this shows how the Liberal Party has been unable to connect with Canadians.

-And the lowly NDP? Oh yeah, they have more donors than the Liberals too.

-If you give the Liberals every riding they finished second, within 10% of winning, that gives them a whooping 109 seats. Even if you give them every riding they finished second, within 20% of winning, that still only leaves you with 137 ridings where they are mildly competitive.

-Want a different definition of competitive? Let's say 25% of the vote. Well, then the Tories lead the Liberals 218 to 144. If you consider anything less than 15% a “dead riding”, then there are 80 dead Liberal ridings and 27 dead Tory ridings.

-Over a third of all Liberal-held seats are in Toronto. They hold 7 seats in Western Canada and did not crack 20% of the vote in any of the four Western Provinces. Of those 137 mildly competitive ridings I mentioned, 17 are in Western Canada, leaving them as a non-factor in 77 seats west of Ontario. That's a lot of seats to write off, especially when you consider it isn't going much better in rural Quebec, or rural Ontario.

-The Liberals are losing ground with one of their traditional voter blocks – new Canadians.

So what’s the solution? Well, these guys have some good ideas – I’ve stolen the best ones they put forward for this post and I encourage everyone to steal any of my own I toss up. I also need to offer a giant hat tip to tGPOitHotW, as he was smart enough to suggest a lot of these things long before the results of the last election woke other people up.

So, in my humble opinion, here’s what the party needs to fix, and a few ways we can go about fixing it:


Growing the Membership

Admittedly, holding leadership races every two years is one way to grow the membership but I strongly doubt that’s the best way to do it. An obvious strategy is to just phone blitz old membership lists and identified Liberals, and ask them to sign up. Another is to hold more public events. Use the few MPs we do have – force them to hold at least 6 town halls a year if you must. And remember that people who generally feel strongly about issues are more likely to donate their time and money, so build connections with activists and recruit them in to the party. Find a local issue and latch onto it - if it gets you 20 new committed Liberals in an unheld riding, then it's worth the effort.


Rebuilding the Ridings

Another way to build the party is by doing it riding by riding, door by door. Ideally, you’d put a 308 riding strategy in place, but maybe we leave the Crowfoots of the world for a few years down the line and focus first on making the party competitive in 200 ridings, which is what you need to be if you want to ever form a majority government again.

So you hire 20 field workers and assign them each to 8 ridings. These field workers should be young and energetic and they should be people who would work for cheap, knowing that this is a golden chance to make connections and move up in the party. Have them make fundraising phone calls Monday to Thursday night – that’d more than pay for their salary.

Then every Saturday and Sunday, they’d be tasked to organize a door knocking blitz in one of their 8 ridings. Even if there are only four Liberals in the whole riding who give a damn, then the five of them can spend the afternoon going door to door. Even if they each only find one person willing to buy a membership, then that’s 5 new Liberals a month, 60 new Liberals a year, and couple thousand people who know the party exists and what it’s 15 second doorstep message is (oh, and as another piece of advice, find a 15 second doorstep message for what this party stands for). And you know what? I’m willing to bet at least 5 of those 60 sign-ups will join the monthly door knock next year and suddenly the riding is twice as strong as it used to be.


Engaging the Membership

So what do we do with do with all these new members? How do we make them give a damn about the Liberal Party? The next step is to engage them.

Some people like policy. For them, set up policy weekends and float discussion papers. Implement a rule where the party MUST adopt two of the top five policies passed at policy conventions – I used to be a huge policy nut but I barely have the energy to go to the policy workshops at the conventions anymore because I know the party will just ignore whatever is passed.

But policy isn’t for everyone. So hold barbeques, social events, and pancake breakfasts. Set up a book club. Hold podcasts and online chats. Create an online community – the sexy centristes did a great job of that in France. Again, scan the world and find the best ideas others have used.

You just need to do something to make people feel like they’re really a part of something. We’ve got 75 MPs. Why not force each of them, including the leader, to randomly call 10 average run of the mill party members every month to thank them for being a member and asking them what they think the party should be doing? We’d reach 9,000 Liberals a year – 9,000 people who would be genuinely excited to know an MP cares what they think. You know what? I bet this would motivate a lot of casual Liberals to get more involved or donate to the party.


Finding the Coalition

Anyone who has read any of the “behind the scenes” books on the Harper Conservatives knows about the brilliant use of micro-targeting they’ve employed. They found their target demographics and they’ve relentlessly gone after them, through direct mail, advertisements, and policies. The Liberals need to find their “winning coalition” and then shamelessly pander to them (luckily we are experience at this). Maybe it’s immigrants, working women, and seniors. Maybe it’s young voters, single parents, and commuters. I’ll leave finding that coalition to people who are a lot smarter than me.

Once we have them, we need to connect with them by showing them that the Liberal Party will tangibly make their lives better and that the Liberal Party leader cares about them and their family.


Raising the Dough

I’ve left fundraising for the end because, in the end, it’s all about the money. The first fundraising tip I’ll offer is to call up a few people on the Barack Obama team come November 5th, and get their help. The Tories weren’t afraid to go to the other side of the globe for advice – we shouldn’t be afraid to look a lot closer than that.

Beyond that, fundraising dollars will flow from some of the other things I’ve talked about. Given the public financing rules, a 308 riding strategy can be legitimately classified as a fundraising tactic. Just look at Alberta. In 2008, the Liberal party got 144,000 votes there. In 2004 – at the height of Adscam – they got 279,000. At $1.95 a vote, that works out to an extra $263,000 a year, or a million bucks over a normal four year election cycle. Growing the party in places where we aren’t yet in a position to win seats means more money and, down the road, it will actually translate into substantial electoral gains.

If you have an engaged membership, they’re also more likely to donate – and to encourage others to donate. Obama has done a great job encouraging people to set up “personal fundraising pages” where supporters can set targets and encourage their friends and family to donate. He’s also managed to use the internet and web 2.0 technology as a fundraising tool – something all parties in Canada have yet to master.

But, regardless of the method, the main goal needs to be to just increase the number of donors. Once you get a $20 donation, it’s easy to talk that individual up to a $50, then a $100 donation. So hold smaller fundraisers with broader appeal. Even if you don’t make a ton off them, the important thing is to get your donors’ information into your database.

Which brings me to my next point – get an f’ing database. The Tories have pages upon pages (bytes upon bytes?) of information on donors, supporters, and voters – the Liberals have trouble sending out automatic renewals for party memberships. The Dave Taylor renewal document I linked to earlier this week made sense – every time a member signs up for the party you should find out what issues they care about and any other information about them you can. The more you know about voters, the easier it is to tailor your message to them. In the same vein, the more you know about your members, the easier it is to target fundraising messages to them.

Which brings me to my next point – get an f’ing message. When it comes to fundraising, pick an issue and fundraise on this issue. The Tories do this magnificently – hate the concept of man on man monogamy? Do those pinkos at the CBC make you want to puke? Worried about $8 a head lettuce? Well, send us $20. The Liberals need to do the same thing (with different issues, obviously).

Looking beyond fundraising, the party really does need to find out what it stands for in broader terms if it hopes to win over Canadians. Maybe another Kingston Conference is the solution. Maybe some deep soul searching will be enough. But, regardless of the path there, Liberals need to find out what they believe in and, more importantly, need to be able to communicate this to Canadians. That means understandable policies people can relate to and a clear message about our values.


In Conclusion

I’m sure there are better ideas than these out there – the important thing is to get people talking about party renewal. And by talking, I don’t just mean party officials saying “renewal” in every speech to pay lip service to the idea. I don’t just mean leadership candidates going to Alberta and giving the usual “Alberta Liberals are the best Liberals. I’m going to make winning seats here a priority!” spiel. I don’t mean confusing the hard work that needs to be done with short term fixes to win a handful of extra Ontario seats next election.

We need an honest discussion about what specific steps the party should take and then we need to actually take those steps. Hopefully the leadership candidates will initiate this conversation. Hopefully grassroots Liberal members will force them to if they don’t.

The Other Liberal Leadership Race

I got an advance copy of Dave Taylor's Alberta Liberal Party organization document, which is being released later this afternoon. Given that I've been talking a lot about grass roots reform for the federal Liberals lately, I figured I'd skim the 46 pages. And, you know what? There are probably some things in here the federal Liberals should consider doing, as icky as taking advice from Alberta seems. Among the highlights:

1. "Thorough" would be an understatement for this document. Taylor tackles every conceivable aspect of the ALP structure, from his headline-grabbing pledge to adopt a permanent plastic membership card, to his sexy promise to use html rather than pdf newsletters.

2. Taylor wisely takes a page from the federal Tories, putting an emphasis on information. Members would be asked for policy interests upon sign up, for the purposes of fundraising micro-targeting, and a central database of all voters would be set up.

3. Given the young web gurus Taylor has running his campaign, it's not surprising to see an emphasis placed on moving the party online. The plan is to shift away from paper wherever possible, and create as much two-way communication as possible online.

4. The best part of this document is a pledge to run membership drives on old lists, and to canvass between elections. In some cases, this would involve going into dying riding associations and building the party up one member at a time.

5. There's a promise for the leader to hold more town hall meetings.

6. There's a promise to create an Aboriginal People's Commission.

7. There's the controversial promise of allowing proxy votes at party AGMs.

8. And, most exciting of all...a new logo! And a plan to "review" the party colours.


I'll toss up a link once the document goes public later today. btw, I'm not getting involved in this race at all so I'll gladly post on Swann and Elsalhy's plans for party renewal if they send them my way. And, as for the federal Liberal leadership race? I think a condition of entry for all candidates should be a detailed plan for party renewal - I know I'd have a hard time supporting anyone who didn't release one.