The blogging dippers
ridenrain @ Wed Dec 20, 2006 9:12 am
What follows is a quite funny example of how the NDP fail to appreciate their supporters, and the power of communication.
$1:
Turning on their own
With their party sinking in the polls, New Democrat bloggers are starting to get crankyKady O'Malley, Macleans.ca | Updated Tuesday, December 19, 2006, at 22:45 EST
OTTAWA - It started over the weekend with a single post from "Northern BC Dipper," a self-described "proud New Democrat" in northern British Columbia.
"Most of the time I don't like to blame party staff for party setbacks, but I've gotten to the conclusion that Brad Lavigne, Director of Communications for the NDP, should be fired," he began. The blogger then proceeded to blame Lavigne for what he saw as a series of media misjudgements on everything from the party's position on Afghanistan to its treatment of newly elected Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion.
Within hours, the initial post was followed up by the ringleader of the unofficial NDP blogroll, Robert McClelland, who made his feeliings clear in a post titled "Bring Me the Head of Brad Lavigne." McClelland's complaint was that, unlike the two main federal parties, the NDP is at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to getting its message out - and it was failing to take advantage of people like him.
"The NDP’s complete disregard for bloggers - something that Mr. Lavigne was only too happy to point out during the last election campaign - has put them even further behind than they already were when it comes to media messaging," McClelland wrote. "If any party desperately needs bloggers, it’s the NDP. They have no one going to bat for them in the mainstream media. The Conservatives have their stable of Ezra Levants and the Liberals have their Warren Kinsellas. Who does the NDP have? Right, nobody."
From there, the debate spread throughout the Canadian blogosphere. And while not everyone is echoing the call for Lavigne to be tossed overboard, there is a strong consensus that the party's web presence, to put it kindly, leaves a little to be desired.
Among the critics is James Laxer, the author and professor who ran for the NDP's leadership and served as its research director. "Bloggers do not want pre-digested ad-style copy handed to them from on high," he told Macleans.ca in an e-mail exchange. "They want to participate in the process.
"I receive NDP releases on-line. But they're laughable. One tells me that the NDP has made a deal with Harper on the clean air bill that will result in noticeable environmental benefits for Canadians. Another boasts that the NDP childcare bill, at long last, delivers what Canadians have wanted for years ... All this is hot air, of course. And to bloggers, this stuff has the aroma of road kill about it. The Liberal leadership candidates had blogs where campaign central didn't control everything. They were far from wide-open. But they were refreshing. The NDP ought to try it."
For what it's worth, Lavigne apparently no longer has anything to do with his party's online strategy. Now that he's handling caucus communications, that falls to fellow communications official Joanne Deer, who's busy trying to appease the disgruntled (with limited success).
But for all the complaints about party officials' alleged indifference toward online strategies, the bloggers' discontent speaks to something much deeper.
If recent polls are any indication, the NDP may already be caught in an existential crisis that should make everyone on the party payroll nervous - up to and including Lavigne, Deer and anyone else involved in communications strategy. With the newly energized Liberals enjoying a post-convention bounce and the Green Party inching toward double digits in popular support, the NDP is moored in the low teens - far below the vote share that the party got in the last election.
More ominously, no one in the party seems to have recognized that its current tactic - one that might be termed "A Plague on All Your Houses, Especially The Liberals" - doesn't quite seem to be cutting it.
No one, that is, except NDP bloggers - some of whom seem to have keener political instincts than the people running the party itself.
On Aghanistan, for instance, the bloggers complain that the NDP has gotten hopelessly muddled between thought and expression.
"That issue has been constantly miscommunicated by the NDP," Northern BC Dipper has complained . "Remember the first announcement? That was as clear as mud ... Even now, people are still unsure if the NDP wants to totally withdraw from Afghanistan or just change the mission to focus on nation building rather than Taliban-bombing at the expense of the Afghan people (by the way, it's the latter)."
Over at Le Revue Gauche, blogger Eugene Plawiuk claimed that he has done a better job of getting out the party's position on Afghanistan than Lavigne. "Lavigne has missed defining the mission in debates with his Conservative and Liberal counterparts," Plawiuk wrote. "And the NDP really blew it with ther messaging on Dion on Afghanistan. Instead they engaged in cheap shots one expects from the Western Standard."
Indeed, the NDP's response to Dion's election as Liberal leader has sparked nearly as much criticism as the mixed messages on Afghanistan - starting with the e-mail sent out by NDP headquarters immediately after Dion's victory. "While there is plenty to attack Dion on, calling him an out of touch academic is not one of them, especially if your leader happens to be a political science professor himself," Northern BC Dipper complained. "If something like the e-mail went out during an election campaign, it would be poisonous to the NDP campaign."
Blogger Audra Williams' response to the e-mail was even more visceral.
"'Out of touch academic'? 'Spent 10 years in a scandal ridden cabinet'? What are they even saying? That is what I'm trying to suss out here," she wrote. "They are saying things as if we are supposed to knee-jerkedly tut tut, but wtf? He was a prof. Isn't that good? Isn't it good to have smart people in office? And a lot of his colleagues were on the take? Are they saying he should have known that? [...] God I am so irritated with these creeps I vote for right now."
On that note, if there's one thing a quick tour of NDP blogs reveals, it's an increasing frustration with the party's preference for taking cheap shots at the Liberals rather than going after the governing Conservatives. "By all means, hammer away at the Liberals, too, when they do something arrogant or misguided," blogger Idealistic Pragmatist wrote. "But why not wait until there's actually something to criticize before you join the Conservatives in their Dion-bashing?"
Laxer shares that analysis. "The real 'crise' from which the NDP is suffering is its unwillingness to play straight with Canadians," he told Macleans.ca. "Claiming that there is no essential difference between the politics of Stephane Dion's Liberals and Stephen Harper's Conservatives is like claiming that the earth is flat. No one who is not on the NDP payroll believes it. But if you phone NDP headquarters in Ottawa, that's the line they peddle to you. When a party insists on denying obvious truths for a long period of time, it suffers."
Perhaps the greatest sign of frustration with their party is that bloggers are no longer prepared to write off the NDP's woes as solely the fault of a hostile media. In that same incendiary post, Northern BC Dipper noted that during a recent conference call with NDP youth, Lavigne responded to a question on how to better communicate the party's position on Afghanistan by blaming a pro-Liberal, pro-Conservative media.
"Well, excuse me for saying this," he wrote, "but that's that kind of thing that the grassroots and bloggers of the NDP are supposed to be saying. What the Director of Communications is supposed to be doing is working to ensure that the media does not do that. The Director of Communications is supposed to make media contacts and ensure that the media likes the NDP's message."
For the record, Lavigne no longer holds the title of director of communications; that would be Deer. So the blogosphere, perhaps, does not have all the answers. But with the NDP having surrendered the momentum it worked so hard to achieve before the last election, it's not as though party officials have many more.
With their party sinking in the polls, New Democrat bloggers are starting to get crankyKady O'Malley, Macleans.ca | Updated Tuesday, December 19, 2006, at 22:45 EST
OTTAWA - It started over the weekend with a single post from "Northern BC Dipper," a self-described "proud New Democrat" in northern British Columbia.
"Most of the time I don't like to blame party staff for party setbacks, but I've gotten to the conclusion that Brad Lavigne, Director of Communications for the NDP, should be fired," he began. The blogger then proceeded to blame Lavigne for what he saw as a series of media misjudgements on everything from the party's position on Afghanistan to its treatment of newly elected Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion.
Within hours, the initial post was followed up by the ringleader of the unofficial NDP blogroll, Robert McClelland, who made his feeliings clear in a post titled "Bring Me the Head of Brad Lavigne." McClelland's complaint was that, unlike the two main federal parties, the NDP is at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to getting its message out - and it was failing to take advantage of people like him.
"The NDP’s complete disregard for bloggers - something that Mr. Lavigne was only too happy to point out during the last election campaign - has put them even further behind than they already were when it comes to media messaging," McClelland wrote. "If any party desperately needs bloggers, it’s the NDP. They have no one going to bat for them in the mainstream media. The Conservatives have their stable of Ezra Levants and the Liberals have their Warren Kinsellas. Who does the NDP have? Right, nobody."
From there, the debate spread throughout the Canadian blogosphere. And while not everyone is echoing the call for Lavigne to be tossed overboard, there is a strong consensus that the party's web presence, to put it kindly, leaves a little to be desired.
Among the critics is James Laxer, the author and professor who ran for the NDP's leadership and served as its research director. "Bloggers do not want pre-digested ad-style copy handed to them from on high," he told Macleans.ca in an e-mail exchange. "They want to participate in the process.
"I receive NDP releases on-line. But they're laughable. One tells me that the NDP has made a deal with Harper on the clean air bill that will result in noticeable environmental benefits for Canadians. Another boasts that the NDP childcare bill, at long last, delivers what Canadians have wanted for years ... All this is hot air, of course. And to bloggers, this stuff has the aroma of road kill about it. The Liberal leadership candidates had blogs where campaign central didn't control everything. They were far from wide-open. But they were refreshing. The NDP ought to try it."
For what it's worth, Lavigne apparently no longer has anything to do with his party's online strategy. Now that he's handling caucus communications, that falls to fellow communications official Joanne Deer, who's busy trying to appease the disgruntled (with limited success).
But for all the complaints about party officials' alleged indifference toward online strategies, the bloggers' discontent speaks to something much deeper.
If recent polls are any indication, the NDP may already be caught in an existential crisis that should make everyone on the party payroll nervous - up to and including Lavigne, Deer and anyone else involved in communications strategy. With the newly energized Liberals enjoying a post-convention bounce and the Green Party inching toward double digits in popular support, the NDP is moored in the low teens - far below the vote share that the party got in the last election.
More ominously, no one in the party seems to have recognized that its current tactic - one that might be termed "A Plague on All Your Houses, Especially The Liberals" - doesn't quite seem to be cutting it.
No one, that is, except NDP bloggers - some of whom seem to have keener political instincts than the people running the party itself.
On Aghanistan, for instance, the bloggers complain that the NDP has gotten hopelessly muddled between thought and expression.
"That issue has been constantly miscommunicated by the NDP," Northern BC Dipper has complained . "Remember the first announcement? That was as clear as mud ... Even now, people are still unsure if the NDP wants to totally withdraw from Afghanistan or just change the mission to focus on nation building rather than Taliban-bombing at the expense of the Afghan people (by the way, it's the latter)."
Over at Le Revue Gauche, blogger Eugene Plawiuk claimed that he has done a better job of getting out the party's position on Afghanistan than Lavigne. "Lavigne has missed defining the mission in debates with his Conservative and Liberal counterparts," Plawiuk wrote. "And the NDP really blew it with ther messaging on Dion on Afghanistan. Instead they engaged in cheap shots one expects from the Western Standard."
Indeed, the NDP's response to Dion's election as Liberal leader has sparked nearly as much criticism as the mixed messages on Afghanistan - starting with the e-mail sent out by NDP headquarters immediately after Dion's victory. "While there is plenty to attack Dion on, calling him an out of touch academic is not one of them, especially if your leader happens to be a political science professor himself," Northern BC Dipper complained. "If something like the e-mail went out during an election campaign, it would be poisonous to the NDP campaign."
Blogger Audra Williams' response to the e-mail was even more visceral.
"'Out of touch academic'? 'Spent 10 years in a scandal ridden cabinet'? What are they even saying? That is what I'm trying to suss out here," she wrote. "They are saying things as if we are supposed to knee-jerkedly tut tut, but wtf? He was a prof. Isn't that good? Isn't it good to have smart people in office? And a lot of his colleagues were on the take? Are they saying he should have known that? [...] God I am so irritated with these creeps I vote for right now."
On that note, if there's one thing a quick tour of NDP blogs reveals, it's an increasing frustration with the party's preference for taking cheap shots at the Liberals rather than going after the governing Conservatives. "By all means, hammer away at the Liberals, too, when they do something arrogant or misguided," blogger Idealistic Pragmatist wrote. "But why not wait until there's actually something to criticize before you join the Conservatives in their Dion-bashing?"
Laxer shares that analysis. "The real 'crise' from which the NDP is suffering is its unwillingness to play straight with Canadians," he told Macleans.ca. "Claiming that there is no essential difference between the politics of Stephane Dion's Liberals and Stephen Harper's Conservatives is like claiming that the earth is flat. No one who is not on the NDP payroll believes it. But if you phone NDP headquarters in Ottawa, that's the line they peddle to you. When a party insists on denying obvious truths for a long period of time, it suffers."
Perhaps the greatest sign of frustration with their party is that bloggers are no longer prepared to write off the NDP's woes as solely the fault of a hostile media. In that same incendiary post, Northern BC Dipper noted that during a recent conference call with NDP youth, Lavigne responded to a question on how to better communicate the party's position on Afghanistan by blaming a pro-Liberal, pro-Conservative media.
"Well, excuse me for saying this," he wrote, "but that's that kind of thing that the grassroots and bloggers of the NDP are supposed to be saying. What the Director of Communications is supposed to be doing is working to ensure that the media does not do that. The Director of Communications is supposed to make media contacts and ensure that the media likes the NDP's message."
For the record, Lavigne no longer holds the title of director of communications; that would be Deer. So the blogosphere, perhaps, does not have all the answers. But with the NDP having surrendered the momentum it worked so hard to achieve before the last election, it's not as though party officials have many more.
Firecat @ Wed Dec 20, 2006 9:21 am
ridenrain ridenrain:
What follows is a quite funny example of how the NDP fail to appreciate their supporters, and the power of communication.
$1:
Turning on their own
With their party sinking in the polls, New Democrat bloggers are starting to get crankyKady O'Malley, Macleans.ca | Updated Tuesday, December 19, 2006, at 22:45 EST
OTTAWA - It started over the weekend with a single post from "Northern BC Dipper," a self-described "proud New Democrat" in northern British Columbia.
"Most of the time I don't like to blame party staff for party setbacks, but I've gotten to the conclusion that Brad Lavigne, Director of Communications for the NDP, should be fired," he began. The blogger then proceeded to blame Lavigne for what he saw as a series of media misjudgements on everything from the party's position on Afghanistan to its treatment of newly elected Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion.
Within hours, the initial post was followed up by the ringleader of the unofficial NDP blogroll, Robert McClelland, who made his feeliings clear in a post titled "Bring Me the Head of Brad Lavigne." McClelland's complaint was that, unlike the two main federal parties, the NDP is at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to getting its message out - and it was failing to take advantage of people like him.
"The NDP’s complete disregard for bloggers - something that Mr. Lavigne was only too happy to point out during the last election campaign - has put them even further behind than they already were when it comes to media messaging," McClelland wrote. "If any party desperately needs bloggers, it’s the NDP. They have no one going to bat for them in the mainstream media. The Conservatives have their stable of Ezra Levants and the Liberals have their Warren Kinsellas. Who does the NDP have? Right, nobody."
From there, the debate spread throughout the Canadian blogosphere. And while not everyone is echoing the call for Lavigne to be tossed overboard, there is a strong consensus that the party's web presence, to put it kindly, leaves a little to be desired.
Among the critics is James Laxer, the author and professor who ran for the NDP's leadership and served as its research director. "Bloggers do not want pre-digested ad-style copy handed to them from on high," he told Macleans.ca in an e-mail exchange. "They want to participate in the process.
"I receive NDP releases on-line. But they're laughable. One tells me that the NDP has made a deal with Harper on the clean air bill that will result in noticeable environmental benefits for Canadians. Another boasts that the NDP childcare bill, at long last, delivers what Canadians have wanted for years ... All this is hot air, of course. And to bloggers, this stuff has the aroma of road kill about it. The Liberal leadership candidates had blogs where campaign central didn't control everything. They were far from wide-open. But they were refreshing. The NDP ought to try it."
For what it's worth, Lavigne apparently no longer has anything to do with his party's online strategy. Now that he's handling caucus communications, that falls to fellow communications official Joanne Deer, who's busy trying to appease the disgruntled (with limited success).
But for all the complaints about party officials' alleged indifference toward online strategies, the bloggers' discontent speaks to something much deeper.
If recent polls are any indication, the NDP may already be caught in an existential crisis that should make everyone on the party payroll nervous - up to and including Lavigne, Deer and anyone else involved in communications strategy. With the newly energized Liberals enjoying a post-convention bounce and the Green Party inching toward double digits in popular support, the NDP is moored in the low teens - far below the vote share that the party got in the last election.
More ominously, no one in the party seems to have recognized that its current tactic - one that might be termed "A Plague on All Your Houses, Especially The Liberals" - doesn't quite seem to be cutting it.
No one, that is, except NDP bloggers - some of whom seem to have keener political instincts than the people running the party itself.
On Aghanistan, for instance, the bloggers complain that the NDP has gotten hopelessly muddled between thought and expression.
"That issue has been constantly miscommunicated by the NDP," Northern BC Dipper has complained . "Remember the first announcement? That was as clear as mud ... Even now, people are still unsure if the NDP wants to totally withdraw from Afghanistan or just change the mission to focus on nation building rather than Taliban-bombing at the expense of the Afghan people (by the way, it's the latter)."
Over at Le Revue Gauche, blogger Eugene Plawiuk claimed that he has done a better job of getting out the party's position on Afghanistan than Lavigne. "Lavigne has missed defining the mission in debates with his Conservative and Liberal counterparts," Plawiuk wrote. "And the NDP really blew it with ther messaging on Dion on Afghanistan. Instead they engaged in cheap shots one expects from the Western Standard."
Indeed, the NDP's response to Dion's election as Liberal leader has sparked nearly as much criticism as the mixed messages on Afghanistan - starting with the e-mail sent out by NDP headquarters immediately after Dion's victory. "While there is plenty to attack Dion on, calling him an out of touch academic is not one of them, especially if your leader happens to be a political science professor himself," Northern BC Dipper complained. "If something like the e-mail went out during an election campaign, it would be poisonous to the NDP campaign."
Blogger Audra Williams' response to the e-mail was even more visceral.
"'Out of touch academic'? 'Spent 10 years in a scandal ridden cabinet'? What are they even saying? That is what I'm trying to suss out here," she wrote. "They are saying things as if we are supposed to knee-jerkedly tut tut, but wtf? He was a prof. Isn't that good? Isn't it good to have smart people in office? And a lot of his colleagues were on the take? Are they saying he should have known that? [...] God I am so irritated with these creeps I vote for right now."
On that note, if there's one thing a quick tour of NDP blogs reveals, it's an increasing frustration with the party's preference for taking cheap shots at the Liberals rather than going after the governing Conservatives. "By all means, hammer away at the Liberals, too, when they do something arrogant or misguided," blogger Idealistic Pragmatist wrote. "But why not wait until there's actually something to criticize before you join the Conservatives in their Dion-bashing?"
Laxer shares that analysis. "The real 'crise' from which the NDP is suffering is its unwillingness to play straight with Canadians," he told Macleans.ca. "Claiming that there is no essential difference between the politics of Stephane Dion's Liberals and Stephen Harper's Conservatives is like claiming that the earth is flat. No one who is not on the NDP payroll believes it. But if you phone NDP headquarters in Ottawa, that's the line they peddle to you. When a party insists on denying obvious truths for a long period of time, it suffers."
Perhaps the greatest sign of frustration with their party is that bloggers are no longer prepared to write off the NDP's woes as solely the fault of a hostile media. In that same incendiary post, Northern BC Dipper noted that during a recent conference call with NDP youth, Lavigne responded to a question on how to better communicate the party's position on Afghanistan by blaming a pro-Liberal, pro-Conservative media.
"Well, excuse me for saying this," he wrote, "but that's that kind of thing that the grassroots and bloggers of the NDP are supposed to be saying. What the Director of Communications is supposed to be doing is working to ensure that the media does not do that. The Director of Communications is supposed to make media contacts and ensure that the media likes the NDP's message."
For the record, Lavigne no longer holds the title of director of communications; that would be Deer. So the blogosphere, perhaps, does not have all the answers. But with the NDP having surrendered the momentum it worked so hard to achieve before the last election, it's not as though party officials have many more.
With their party sinking in the polls, New Democrat bloggers are starting to get crankyKady O'Malley, Macleans.ca | Updated Tuesday, December 19, 2006, at 22:45 EST
OTTAWA - It started over the weekend with a single post from "Northern BC Dipper," a self-described "proud New Democrat" in northern British Columbia.
"Most of the time I don't like to blame party staff for party setbacks, but I've gotten to the conclusion that Brad Lavigne, Director of Communications for the NDP, should be fired," he began. The blogger then proceeded to blame Lavigne for what he saw as a series of media misjudgements on everything from the party's position on Afghanistan to its treatment of newly elected Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion.
Within hours, the initial post was followed up by the ringleader of the unofficial NDP blogroll, Robert McClelland, who made his feeliings clear in a post titled "Bring Me the Head of Brad Lavigne." McClelland's complaint was that, unlike the two main federal parties, the NDP is at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to getting its message out - and it was failing to take advantage of people like him.
"The NDP’s complete disregard for bloggers - something that Mr. Lavigne was only too happy to point out during the last election campaign - has put them even further behind than they already were when it comes to media messaging," McClelland wrote. "If any party desperately needs bloggers, it’s the NDP. They have no one going to bat for them in the mainstream media. The Conservatives have their stable of Ezra Levants and the Liberals have their Warren Kinsellas. Who does the NDP have? Right, nobody."
From there, the debate spread throughout the Canadian blogosphere. And while not everyone is echoing the call for Lavigne to be tossed overboard, there is a strong consensus that the party's web presence, to put it kindly, leaves a little to be desired.
Among the critics is James Laxer, the author and professor who ran for the NDP's leadership and served as its research director. "Bloggers do not want pre-digested ad-style copy handed to them from on high," he told Macleans.ca in an e-mail exchange. "They want to participate in the process.
"I receive NDP releases on-line. But they're laughable. One tells me that the NDP has made a deal with Harper on the clean air bill that will result in noticeable environmental benefits for Canadians. Another boasts that the NDP childcare bill, at long last, delivers what Canadians have wanted for years ... All this is hot air, of course. And to bloggers, this stuff has the aroma of road kill about it. The Liberal leadership candidates had blogs where campaign central didn't control everything. They were far from wide-open. But they were refreshing. The NDP ought to try it."
For what it's worth, Lavigne apparently no longer has anything to do with his party's online strategy. Now that he's handling caucus communications, that falls to fellow communications official Joanne Deer, who's busy trying to appease the disgruntled (with limited success).
But for all the complaints about party officials' alleged indifference toward online strategies, the bloggers' discontent speaks to something much deeper.
If recent polls are any indication, the NDP may already be caught in an existential crisis that should make everyone on the party payroll nervous - up to and including Lavigne, Deer and anyone else involved in communications strategy. With the newly energized Liberals enjoying a post-convention bounce and the Green Party inching toward double digits in popular support, the NDP is moored in the low teens - far below the vote share that the party got in the last election.
More ominously, no one in the party seems to have recognized that its current tactic - one that might be termed "A Plague on All Your Houses, Especially The Liberals" - doesn't quite seem to be cutting it.
No one, that is, except NDP bloggers - some of whom seem to have keener political instincts than the people running the party itself.
On Aghanistan, for instance, the bloggers complain that the NDP has gotten hopelessly muddled between thought and expression.
"That issue has been constantly miscommunicated by the NDP," Northern BC Dipper has complained . "Remember the first announcement? That was as clear as mud ... Even now, people are still unsure if the NDP wants to totally withdraw from Afghanistan or just change the mission to focus on nation building rather than Taliban-bombing at the expense of the Afghan people (by the way, it's the latter)."
Over at Le Revue Gauche, blogger Eugene Plawiuk claimed that he has done a better job of getting out the party's position on Afghanistan than Lavigne. "Lavigne has missed defining the mission in debates with his Conservative and Liberal counterparts," Plawiuk wrote. "And the NDP really blew it with ther messaging on Dion on Afghanistan. Instead they engaged in cheap shots one expects from the Western Standard."
Indeed, the NDP's response to Dion's election as Liberal leader has sparked nearly as much criticism as the mixed messages on Afghanistan - starting with the e-mail sent out by NDP headquarters immediately after Dion's victory. "While there is plenty to attack Dion on, calling him an out of touch academic is not one of them, especially if your leader happens to be a political science professor himself," Northern BC Dipper complained. "If something like the e-mail went out during an election campaign, it would be poisonous to the NDP campaign."
Blogger Audra Williams' response to the e-mail was even more visceral.
"'Out of touch academic'? 'Spent 10 years in a scandal ridden cabinet'? What are they even saying? That is what I'm trying to suss out here," she wrote. "They are saying things as if we are supposed to knee-jerkedly tut tut, but wtf? He was a prof. Isn't that good? Isn't it good to have smart people in office? And a lot of his colleagues were on the take? Are they saying he should have known that? [...] God I am so irritated with these creeps I vote for right now."
On that note, if there's one thing a quick tour of NDP blogs reveals, it's an increasing frustration with the party's preference for taking cheap shots at the Liberals rather than going after the governing Conservatives. "By all means, hammer away at the Liberals, too, when they do something arrogant or misguided," blogger Idealistic Pragmatist wrote. "But why not wait until there's actually something to criticize before you join the Conservatives in their Dion-bashing?"
Laxer shares that analysis. "The real 'crise' from which the NDP is suffering is its unwillingness to play straight with Canadians," he told Macleans.ca. "Claiming that there is no essential difference between the politics of Stephane Dion's Liberals and Stephen Harper's Conservatives is like claiming that the earth is flat. No one who is not on the NDP payroll believes it. But if you phone NDP headquarters in Ottawa, that's the line they peddle to you. When a party insists on denying obvious truths for a long period of time, it suffers."
Perhaps the greatest sign of frustration with their party is that bloggers are no longer prepared to write off the NDP's woes as solely the fault of a hostile media. In that same incendiary post, Northern BC Dipper noted that during a recent conference call with NDP youth, Lavigne responded to a question on how to better communicate the party's position on Afghanistan by blaming a pro-Liberal, pro-Conservative media.
"Well, excuse me for saying this," he wrote, "but that's that kind of thing that the grassroots and bloggers of the NDP are supposed to be saying. What the Director of Communications is supposed to be doing is working to ensure that the media does not do that. The Director of Communications is supposed to make media contacts and ensure that the media likes the NDP's message."
For the record, Lavigne no longer holds the title of director of communications; that would be Deer. So the blogosphere, perhaps, does not have all the answers. But with the NDP having surrendered the momentum it worked so hard to achieve before the last election, it's not as though party officials have many more.
Good article and very accurately reflects my current disenchantment with the NDP.
Streaker @ Wed Dec 20, 2006 9:27 am
Indeed it is a good article. Why is it in the Conservative forum?
hwacker @ Wed Dec 20, 2006 9:29 am
so we can bash them 
RUEZ @ Wed Dec 20, 2006 9:31 am
hwacker hwacker:
so we can bash them
ridenrain @ Wed Dec 20, 2006 9:32 am
.. because I said I wouldn't post in other party forums.
Also because the Cons have a terrific internet presence, because their support base is grass roots, not just a number of weathy piggies or union commies.
Firecat @ Wed Dec 20, 2006 9:33 am
Streaker Streaker:
Indeed it is a good article. Why is it in the Conservative forum?
Aw heck I didn't notice it was in the Conservative forum. Sorry for commenting.
RUEZ @ Wed Dec 20, 2006 9:35 am
Firecat Firecat:
Streaker Streaker:
Indeed it is a good article. Why is it in the Conservative forum?
Aw heck I didn't notice it was in the Conservative forum. Sorry for commenting.
Streaker @ Wed Dec 20, 2006 9:37 am
ridenrain ridenrain:
.. because I said I wouldn't post in other party forums.
Also because the Cons have a terrific internet presence, because their support base is grass roots, not just a number of weathy piggies or union commies.
Also because the Cons have a terrific internet presence, because their support base is grass roots, not just a number of weathy piggies or union commies.
The article has nothing to do with the Cons, though. Would have made more sense to put it in the Canadian politics forum. It would have been fine in the NDP forum, too.
ridenrain @ Wed Dec 20, 2006 9:38 am
Cut & paste it there and I'll delete mine.
(as long as I get to comment... )
We should take these party posts out of the "recent post" list. That way, folks would have to search them out and they'd know that it was in a party section.
Streaker @ Wed Dec 20, 2006 9:44 am
Firecat Firecat:
Streaker Streaker:
Indeed it is a good article. Why is it in the Conservative forum?
Aw heck I didn't notice it was in the Conservative forum. Sorry for commenting.
No need to apologise, Firecat.
Clogeroo @ Wed Dec 20, 2006 9:48 am
Why can't you comment in all the party threads? I'm not a member of any political party and I still do.
Firecat @ Wed Dec 20, 2006 10:09 am
Clogeroo Clogeroo:
Why can't you comment in all the party threads? I'm not a member of any political party and I still do.
The way Trevor explained it he likened the Party subforums to be the Party caucus room where the respective Party supporters can debate without it erupting into flame wars between people approaching things from a fundamentally different ideology. The General Politics forum, he hopes, is the place where the partisan debates would take place. I can see the rationale - it's just for sorting the debates. Liberals aren't likely to discuss Conservative policy without sidetracking the discussion and vice versa. I for one am more comfortable addressing certain issues such as party unity within the ranks of party supporters or the debate goes off track and merely becomes a tool for the opposite party to derail the discussion.
as long as we have the general politics forum I'm happy with that for full cut and thrust with the opposing ideology. this really was of more importance to us during our leadership convention to keep threads on topic.
We disrupt each other's threads and tend to divert the discussion.
It's nice to have a subforum for like-minded ideologies as well as the opposites in the general Politics thread. Really I have nothing of value to contribute to discussions of people within the Tory caucus or how they ought to focus their campaign. I'd only start fighting the campaign instad of discussing tactics, if you know what I mean.
ridenrain @ Wed Dec 20, 2006 10:21 am
I put this in here because one of the strongest assets the CPC has is their membership base, and it's ability to communicate like minded views. This shows that the NDP and I suspect, the NLP, just don't get it.
(and so we could dump on them 
)
The party sections are fuzzy because the description also included provincial parties and there are a number of folks who fly no flags or too many. I'm going to try to not post in other party forums but I'm sure that stuff will come up, on both sides, that provokes a reaction.
Canadaka @ Wed Dec 20, 2006 3:04 pm
sometime in the next couple days I am going to make a change to better distinguish topics that are in the party forums, to avoid this confusion.
I think at this point, I am not going to stop people from posting in the forums, but make it so topics from party forums only show up on the recent topics list if you are a member of that group. I will also try to colour the text of the topic title.