Seeding the grassroots

Having commented earlier this week on the evolution of the NDP's website over the course of the election campaign, I'll also take a moment now to point out one element of the site which I hadn't noticed until after the campaign - and which may offer the foundation for some strong mutual reinforcement between the blogosphere and the party.

Until doing research for the earlier post, I'd been under the assumption that the donation links on the NDP website and associated templates went solely to the New Democrats' national campaign. But fortunately, the party has made it easy to contribute to riding associations as well.

Take for example the candidate page for Stephen Moore, the New Democrat contender in my riding of Wascana. Rather than merely offering another conduit for donations to the party's central fund, the "donate" link on the left goes to the Wascana constituency association. Which means that anybody wanting to support a particular NDP candidate or riding can do so easily.

So how can that knowledge be applied? Consider what happened in the U.S. when Republican Michelle Bachmann called Barack Obama "anti-American". Rather than simply blogging about the incident and moving on, or trying to make a tenuous link between Bachmann and national funding efforts, the netroots were able to raise $700,000 for Bachmann's opponent. Which ensured that one moment's outrage was converted into action which could turn the tide in an election.

So far, I haven't seen much to the same effect in the Canadian blogosophere. But any time someone like Gerry Ritz or Tom Lukiwski does or says something asinine, it'll only take a link and a click to help give a real boost to their closest opponent. And likewise, when a New Democrat candidate does something particularly praiseworthy, it'll be a snap to turn that fact into substantial action.

And the benefit doesn't figure to run only one way. If riding associations begin to see boosts to their bottom line based on blog efforts, then it'll only make sense for them to encourage people to find out what's motivated the action.

In closing, then, there's one more way to help your favourite NDP candidate - or take a bite out of your least favourite opponent - than most bloggers have seemingly used so far. And both the NDP and the blogosphere have plenty to gain if that opportunity is put to good use.