As the Dylan anthem goes, the times they are a changing.
When it comes to political campaigning, change is coming fast and furious. This weekend, the BC NDP faithful descended on Penticton for an intensive session of modern campaign training.
More than 300 delegates were expected to attend the conference, according to John Horgan, who took over as leader of the BC NDP 10 months ago. He said the conference was to help modernize the party’s techniques and become a party of the 21st Century when it comes to reaching out to the public and the tools of election campaigns.
To further his goal of modernizing the BC NDP campaign tactics, the weekend conference will include presentations by top Obama strategists Mitch Stewart and Lynda Tran and will focus on the latest tactics in grassroots organizing, data and communications.
“The principles of how do you communicate, how do you get your message out to the broadest number of voters, that translates to any jurisdiction,” said Horgan. “We will have young people, senior campaigners, the whole gamut. People are stoked about it and everyone is always happy to come to Penticton.”
One of those young people was 29-year-old Coree Tull. She said the conference was a great opportunity to meet New Democrats from across the province and to learn new skills to connect with other British Columbians.
Tull said she left the Penticton conference feeling energized and excited to work on the next election campaign, in 2017.
A political campaigner since his university days, Horgan is no stranger to canvassing a neighbourhood and knocking on doors for the NDP.
“Our techniques were ground breaking at the time. We had passionate volunteers. The other parties, at that time the Scored and now the Liberals, depend more on corporations for contributions. They tend to use the telephone more than they use face-to-face contact,” said Horgan. “That is changing. People are less receptive to people knocking on their door.”
According to Horgan, the BC NDP needs to find new ways to create lists of voters and contact them, and not do it in a way that becomes intrusive.
“These are the challenges of modern politics. It’s how you select where you are going to campaign and what tools you are going to use,” said Horgan.
“This training weekend was the first step in a new direction for the NDP,” said BC NDP President Craig Keating in a release after the event. “John Horgan is committed to making the next campaign the smartest and most sophisticated in NDP history, and the cutting edge training our volunteers received this weekend brings us closer to that goal.”