On outreach

It hasn't received much public attention due to the steady stream of other political news. But Ontario's NDP leadership race is coming up to an important deadline in the form of the January 5 cutoff for membership in order to vote in the contest - and it's worth pointing out an interesting step the provincial party has taken.

As best I can tell based on discussion surrounding past leadership races, the normal expectation seems to be that recruitment during a leadership race is left to the contestants. And it's not hard to see some reasons for that choice: it saves resources at a time when much of a party's support base is aimed toward the leadership contest, and in principle could be seen as favouring candidates who are better able to sign up supporters rather than persuade undecideds if that's seen as a party's priority.

The Ontario NDP looks to be applying an entirely different strategy. While the party has obviously stayed neutral in the leadership race, it hasn't stayed silent. Instead, visitors to sites such as babble have been treated to banner ads taken out not by any single leadership contestant, but by the party looking to attract members generally by pointing to the leadership race.

And it's an added bonus that the ads focus on a member-based election as opposed to back-room appointments - which helps to highlight one of the NDP's most important principles while tying into current events going on federally.

Now, it's not clear how many more members the NDP will be able to sign up with their general membership drive who wouldn't be reached by the leadership candidates. But the move would seem to be a recipe to attract potential members who are interested in the party generally more than any individual contestant - which should be exactly the pool of potential supporters the party most needs to connect with in the long run. And whoever wins the leadership will surely be glad for the effort.