All politics are local

There's been plenty of coverage of the Cons' efforts to trample on their grassroots in order to protect Rob Anders. But since many commentators have linked Stephen Harper's actions and the Libs' track record under Jean Chretien in an effort to create a narrative of "they all do it", let's note that there's at least one national party making a concerted effort to strengthen its riding associations:

Last election, virtually every New Democrat candidate who spent the local legal limit won, and almost every candidate who nearly spent the legal limit, nearly won.

To help build your local break through and grow the number of local campaigns that can spend the legal maximum, the Party has launched a new fundraising incentive program – the Local Victories Challenge.

While many of the details haven't yet been released, the NDP's plan looks to include a couple of noteworthy components.

First, there's the incentives themselves which will reflect a direct investment in riding associations by the national party. And while it might seem surprising to see the NDP funding a direct benefit for its riding associations at a time when the Cons are trying to slash party-level funding, the NDP may be able to expect an immediate electoral payoff as well as a party-building opportunity out of the expense.

After all, there's an important flip side to the NDP's observation that candidates who spent at or near the limit for a riding have tended to succeed at the polls. While the party as a whole spent close to the limit for its national campaign, NDP candidates used up only a small part of their available spending room in 2008 - presumably due less to a conscious choice than the fact that the NDP's riding structures hadn't yet caught up to the national party's development.

As a result of that gap, even a relatively small proportion of the money actually spent at the national level could make a huge incremental difference in what individual candidates can do to improve their chances of winning. And the fact that election reimbursements are greater at the candidate level than the national level provides an extra reason to work on being able to spend more on local campaigns.

As an added bonus, the NDP's challenge will also include a concerted effort to share fund-raising expertise between ridings. Which should help ensure that the campaign will help to build organizational capacity in the longer term as well as raising money in the short term - in addition to reflecting the NDP's recognition that it's a plus for riding associations to act on ideas of their own.

In sum, the Local Victories Challenge signals that at least one national party recognizes the importance of having effective riding-level organizations rather than looking to centralize its operations at every opportunity. And anybody wondering whether their riding-level contributions - financial or otherwise - are actually valued should be glad to see the NDP not only speaking up about the importance of local organizations, but also putting its money where its mouth is.

(Edit: fixed wording.)