2014 Liberal biennial photo album

A few shots from last weekend's Liberal Party of Canada biennial convention in Montreal.

2014 Liberal Biennial, a set on Flickr.

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#SelfiesWithBroadhurst -- The definitive retrospective from #lib14

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Lessons from Stephen McNeil’s landslide Liberal victory in Nova Scotia

As part of the Liberal Party of Canada biennial session this afternoon on provincial and municipal best practices, we got an inside look at how the Nova Scotia Liberals won a historic majority government from campaign director (and federal Liberal VP English) Chris MacInnes. And Premier Stephen McNeil was in the room, just to keep him honest.

The work leading to last year’s victory was years in the making, said MacInnes. There’ a lot of windshield time when you’re Nova Scotia premier, from Darthmouth to Meat Cove. McNeill was on the road constantly for years.

The party made the decision after a tough loss in 2009 to build to a victory in 2013, and took definitive steps to see through the challenges and meet that goal.

One key step was the caucus office establishing an outreach team to reach out to communities they hadn’t traditionally reached out to. Partly because of that, they won with a strong slate of female candidates who now hold key positions in the government, electing a House of Assembly much more a reflection of a modern Nova Scotia.

They made a conscious decision to have research-based communications, instead of just shoot from the hip priorities. They did deep research to identify priorities, and focus caucus like a laser on those. They’d still hold the government to account, but the research helped to focus their priorities and they saw a direct correlation between their poll numbers going up and their focus on research-identified issues.

They did heavy pre-writ advertising for the first time, beginning one year from the election. The fundraising system was modernized – you couldn’t even donate on their web site until four years ago. They invested in the federal party’s Liberalist voter identification and management system, which MacInnes said fundamentally changed the way they fight elections in Nova Scotia, and will for years to come.

By bringing the call centre in-house for voter ID, training volunteers, Liberalist, polling and volunteers at the doors, MacInnes said they had four to five data points on where their support was during the campaign. The senior campaign team had confidence in the outcome – although they didn’t tell the leader – because of those data-points. Liberalist also helped the central campaign hold campaigns accountable – they knew if candidates were knocking on doors, and teams entering activist codes correctly.

Finally, MacInnes said the level of cooperation from the national party and different provincial wings was like he had never seen before. Volunteers came from as far away as BC to help. New Brunswick Liberal leader Brian Gallant campaigned in five ridings, and federal MP Dominic LeBlanc campaigned as well. Everyone was eager to join the campaign, and he said the cooperation between the federal and provincial campaigns was seamless, and they were always there with help on training, information and advice.

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Five keys to political success from Mayor Naheed Nenshi’s chief of staff, Chima Nkemdirim

I attended a panel on political best practices this afternoon at the Liberal Party of Canada 2014 biennial in Montreal, and one of the speakers was Chima Nkemdirim, chief of staff to Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi.

Describing himself to cheers as a Calgary Liberal, which isn’t always an easy thing to be (I speak from experience as a Liberal BCer), Nkemdirim shared best practices, tips and lessons from Nenshi’s two successful campaigns for mayor – the first of which began with the candidate literally polling at 0 – including these five keys to political success.

All Politics is Local

Most people don’t know what level of government does what. They care about issues. If you want to run, you must spend timing learning what people care about locally, and tailor what you want to talk about in your campaign to the issues people actually care about in your community.

Networking is more powerful then door knocking

While Nkemdirim isn’t saying don’t door knock, he says it’s an incredibly inefficient way to reach people. While everyone thinks Nenshi tweeted his way to victory, at its centre he says Nenshi’s first campaign was built on word of mouth. It was designed around getting people to talk to their friends and neighbours and explain why they’re supporting Nenshi. They trained our volunteers to talk about Nenshi. They found out that people are really nervous to talk about politics, and they need help. Their advice was to identify why you’re passionate about a candidate, and if you’re passionate for that reason your friends might be as well – you don’t need to know the whole platform. Coffee parties were a key part of the Nenshi campaigns. If your friend invites you to a coffee party to meet the candidate, you’re more likely to actually come.

The more data the better

You really need to have all the information about your constituency, said Nkemdirim. Understand what happened in past federal, provincial and municipal elections. What are the key issues in the area? What keeps people up at night? Understanding those issues will help you build your platform. Do a lot of research on the incumbent. Read everything they’ve ever written and said, understand why their values aren’t in line with the community’s, and why your candidate is better.

The candidate does matter

Even in a party system where conventional wisdom says 80 per cent of people vote for the leader, Nkemdirim said he really believes the candidate does matter. There are three Alberta Liberal MLAs, and he said he believes each got elected because they were the best candidate. The campaign should be approached like a job interview.

You’ve got to stand for something

Nenshi and Edmonton Mayor Don Inveson talk about politics in full sentence – a phrase Nkemdirim said they borrowed from The West Wing. People aren’t stupid. They want you to get into detail about why you’re running, what you’re about, and why you’re the best candidate. They want to trust you’re the best candidate for the community; trust them with detailed answers.

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The bloggers meet Broadhurst: On the economy, 3000+ attendees and #selfieswithbroadhurst

Our contingent of bloggers had a wide-ranging briefing this morning in with Liberal Party of Canada national director Jeremy Broadhurst – you may know him from the popular new Twitter meme, #SelfiesWithBroadhurst.

Lets start with a few stats. About eight or nine bloggers have been accredited to the 2014 biennial – its unknown how many are Conservative spies. Some six Senators registered, so watch out for them, NDP spies. There were 2500 delegates pre-registered when online registration was closed, and more will register on site. As off last night, over 2000 were on site. For last night only, local Liberals were invited to join for the Lawrence Summers/Chrystia Freeland interview, and Justin Trudeau’s opening speech. Broadhurst expects many of them will purchase a delegate or observer pass and stick around.

“All of them were signing contact cards to get in,” said Broradhurst “We’ve got to get into the mindset in this party that it’s great to have an event and get the message out to a good crowd, but you’re only doing ¼ of your job unless you get their information and engage with them in a two-way relationship after the event.”

Speaking of spies, the NDP has sent staffers Karl Belanger and Anne McGrath and MP Alexandre Boulerice. From the Conservatives, Pierre Poilievre, Lisa Raitt and a staffer from their party office. The Greens have one person, and the BQ didn’t take an observer pass.

One question going in was how the party would handle Senators in the party constitution, following Trudeau’s decision to remove Senators from the parliamentary caucus and exclude them from party organizational roles. Logistically a constitutional amendment can’t be considered at this biennial, but Broadhurst said the national board has decided to put a “sense of the convention” resolution to the delegates.

It will have three elements – that the convention supports the call of the leader, that it calls on the board to prepare necessary amendments for the next biennial, and that in the interim the constitution be interpreted as best as possible to reflect the new parliamentary reality.

“The constitution says the highest authority of the party is Liberals gathered at convention, and that this is the group with the greatest weight in the interpretation of the constitution. So it was decided this would have weight; it’s not a meaningless thing,” said Broadhurst.

Nominations for the next election are getting underway. A meeting has been called for Outremont, for example, as well as several others in Quebec and British Columbia. It’s the decision of the provincial co-chairs to call a nomination, and Broadhurst said a number of factors are considered: are there approved contestants, has there been a candidate search at the riding level, is redistribution complete, and is the riding healthy and strong

Nominations will happen effectively in three tranches, with about 1/3 going this spring, 1/3 in the fall and 1/3 next spring. While held ridings are more likely to go in the first tranche, it will not be limited to held ridings.

“Obviously held ridings are more likely to have a candidate ready to go, and I know a lot of MPs are working to get their forms in and go through the green light process to go in the spring,” said Broadhurst.

While media access was greatly restricted at the recent Conservative convention, Broadhurst said all but a small handful of sessions will be open to the press at the Liberal biennial this weekend

“We do this stuff out in the open,” said Broadhurst. “We’re going to have debates on policy at this convention, whether it’s the right thing to do or not on any resolution, and that’s good. If we came in with 160 resolutions and 160 resolutions passed, what the hell’s the point of that?”

And what they’ll hear across many of the sessions are discussions focused around a core theme of the economy.

“We’ll talk about a lot of important resolutions this weekend, and not to diminish any of them at all, but the next election will be fought on economic grounds. So let’s have a robust discussion about it,” said Broadhurst. “So that’s why we wanted to start with a discussion on the economy with Summers and Freeland, and we’ll come back to that theme throughout the weekend.”

As for the popular #selfieswithbroadhurst meme that has popped up on Twitter that got a bump Thursday when Trudeau joined in for a pic, Broadhurst was bashful

“I’m trying to limit the selfies,” said Broadhurst. “It’s fun though. I love my job, I love what I do, and it’s fun to be able to engage with members at an event like this.”

#selfieswithbroadhurst blogger edition

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