As the Dylan anthem goes, the times they are a changing.
When it comes to political campaigning, change is coming fast and furious. This weekend, the BC NDP faithful are descending on Penticton for an intensive session of modern campaign training.
“More than 300 delegates are going to be at our Forward conference, looking at modernizing our techniques and becoming a party of the 21st Century when it comes to reaching out to the public and the tools of election campaigns,” said John Horgan, who took over leadership of the party 10 months ago. “We will have young people, senior campaigners, the whole gamut. People are stoked about it and everyone is always happy to come to Penticton.”
A political campaigner since his university days, Horgan is no stranger to canvassing a neighbourhood and knocking on doors for the NDP.
“Our techniques were groundbreaking at the time. We had passionate volunteers, The other parties, at that time the Socreds and now the Liberals, depend more on corporations for contributions. They tend to use the telephone more than they use face to face contact,” said Horgan.”That is changing. People are less receptive to people knocking on their door.”
Horgan said they need to find new ways to create lists of voters and contact them, and not do it in a way that becomes intrusive.
“These are the challenges of modern politics. It’s how you select where you are going to campaign and what tools you are going to use,” said Horgan.
To further his goal of modernizing the BC NDP campaign tactics, the weekend conference will include presentations by top Obama strategists Mitch Stewart and Lynda Tran and will focus on the latest tactics in grassroots organizing, data, and communications.
“The principles of how do you communicate, how do you get your message out to the broadest number of voters, that translates to any jurisdiction,” said Horgan.
