The triumphalist tone of the Conservative meeting in Ottawa was to be expected. But Liberals should listen carefully to the strategy and language coming out of the meeting.
It confirms what anyone watching politics in North America and around the world knows only too well. The Conservatives and Republicans are running “permanent campaigns” – their discipline and focus are admirable, their goals not so much.
Liberals have to understand that the campaign for the election in the fall of 2015 starts now. An election campaign no longer begins five weeks before e-day. It began on May 3rd. A campaign is about persuading people, identifying people, and then making sure they actually vote. The last step alone happens during the writ period. Everything else happens now.
The key to the Conservatives’s success has been organization, focus, money, and a ruthless willingness to campaign all day and night. We know they have the money to advertise and launch artillery fire against our leaders. Not enough of us are aware of the Conservative call centre which even now is reaching out to potential supporters, raising money, and identifying levels and depths of support.
In our re-building work we have the opportunity to become a permanent campaign ourselves. Our goals are different, we shall have to depend on an army of volunteers, but we shall have to learn how to be better focused and better organised.
The days of “titleitis” are over. The days of waiting for the election itself to start the campaign are over. The election of 2015 starts now.
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