Twitter's real-time U.S. election feed

The micro-blogging site Twitter is filtering its users' messages to collect ones about the U.S. election candidates - creating a real-time feed of what Americans are saying (on Twitter) about the election. Check it out

Campaign 2.0 will check with Twitter to see if such a feed is planned for the Canadian election.

UPDATE: No answer from Twitter PR. I'll "nudge" them.

Anti-Harper groups organizing online

An online "Anyone but Harper" movement is underway on Facebook groups, left-leaning blogs and websites such as, wait for it, anyonebutharper.ca. In addition to creating and hosting satirical videos attacking Conservative Leader Stephen Harper, this site is attempting to coordinate strategic voting to defeat Conservative candidates - and has a widget on its site that tells you which party has the best chance to do that for a given postal code, based on the results of the previous election.

What's in a (domain) name?

Further to the previous post, the NDP is not the only party going beyond their main brands (conservative.ca, liberal.ca, ndp.ca and greenparty.ca) to create websites with separate domain names (web addresses) and specific goals.

In some cases, the separation from the main party sites gives some leeway to be a bit more, uh, creative in attacking one's rivals, and also to put forward different image in a key area. Here's a look at the other sites (so far):

Conservatives:
www.notaleader.ca - The satirical site poking fun at Liberal Leader Stephane Dion, which at one time offered tools to allow users to make their own satirical "ads."

Liberals:
www.thegreenshift.ca - The site that launched the party's environmental plan and a short spat with an environmental consultancy of the same name, since resovled.

www.scandalpedia.ca - The Libs' own satirical poke at the Conservatives.

www.thisisdion.ca - An image makeover for their leader.

UPDATE: www.bushharper.ca and www.bushharper.com - Liberals' attack ad site comparing Stephen Harper to George W. Bush on the economy and foreign policy. A late addition, probably won't be around for long...

Greens:
www.votefortomorrow.ca - The party's recently released platform.

NDP makes strides online

With two former candidates already done in by Internet posts and another under fire for comments posted earlier this year on Facebook, it might appear that the online campaign has been a disaster for the NDP. They've certainly been bitten by the "publish and perish" bug that thrives thanks to the low barrier to entry of the Internet, where everyone is free to say whatever they want and often do.

But from a party organizational point of view, the NDP's use of online tools and strategy has been very good, to this observer.

Leader Jack Layton early on in the campaign compared himself with Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama as an agent of change. Whatever one thinks of that comparison, the party has certainly taken a few pages from the Obama campaign's successful Internet strategy:

- Vistors to the party's main website (ndp.ca) are met with a fullscreen invitation to donate to the party, before clicking through to the main site. Obama set a new standard by raising millions from small contributors over the Internet during the U.S. primaries and used a similar splash page.

- Layton, like all the major parties' leaders, has a Facebook page - but unlike Prime Minister Stephen Harper, he didn't cut out comments on his site. That decision came back to haunt him briefly during the controversy over the Greens' exclusion from the TV debates, but made him look democratic and flexible when he responded to this negative reaction from his own "supporters" and dropped his opposition to Elizabeth May's participation.

- The NDP was quick to follow the Conservatives in using "micro-blogging" site Twitter to send out campaign updates - but the NDP has garnered more followers than the other party and has used the short-message service more effectively. They've incorporated a Twitter alert box on their website - and more importanly, are using Twitter to promote speeches and events carried live or archived on their multimedia site www.orangeroom.ca

- As a separate brand, orangeroom.ca it is clearly aimed at a younger, more Internet savvy audience. But beyond style, it gives supporters the tools to contribute their own blogs, videos and photos to the site - as the tagline says, "Create. Share. Be a part of it." Like the Conservatives' now discredited notaleader site, some of this is silly stuff, like a caption contest to put words in Stephen Harper's mouth - but mostly it looks like a sincere attempt to increase grassroots participation in the NDP campaign. Supporters can even sign up to be "rapid-responders" to combat attacks by rival parties - again, a page taken from the Obama campaign's handbook.

It's hard to know how all this will translate into votes on election day. Television ads still seem to reach the largest audience, and the televised leaders debate is still seen as the chance for a party to make a move or reverse a failing campaign. Various tracking polls have the NDP polling anywhere from 17 to 21 per cent of decided voters this week (it received 17% of the vote in the 2006 election).

But in the online arena, the NDP are out in front in terms of harnessing the democratizing tools of the Internet for their own advantage.

Video: Harper's 'bubble' campaign

A Liberal supporter (at the very least) has posted a satirical video take on the view that Prime Minister Stephen Harper is conducting a "bubble campaign" - that is, a tightly scripted and controlled campaign that keeps him from contact with regular people.

Free advice to politicians, part III

Whoops, they did it again. Another B.C. NDP candidate is done in by past behaviour.

Rumour control

The Green party issued this press release this afternoon:

Media Release
September 23, 2008

Elizabeth May clears the air

OTTAWA - Contrary to rumours circulating on the internet, Elizabeth May, Leader of the Green Party of Canada did not appear at a Hezbollah event two years ago.

August 12, 2006, Ms. May did speak at a peace rally in Toronto along with Jewish and Arab Canadians to call for an end to the violence then raging in the Middle East.

In her remarks she strongly condemned Hezbollah for launching rocket attacks in to Israel as well as Israel for the bombing of Lebanon.

The Green Party of Canada supports peaceful resolution acceptable to all parties in the Middle East.

Free advice to politicians, part II

Political journalists have long been accused of the "gotcha" - blindsiding a politician with an ambush question to get a sexy story. Whether that's a fair accusation or not, it hardly seems necessary these days: the politician are getting themselves, with a little help from partisan bloggers.

Week 3 of the campaign is just underway and past Internet musings have claimed two more candidates (a second one from the NDP and one from the Tories) and forced another (a Liberal) to defend herself for her onine essays. The Conservative and NDP candidates resigned before the mainstream press even had much of a chance to pounce, so that new candidates could take their place.

Things get a bit more serious now though. With the passing of the candidate nomination filing deadline, the parties are locked in to their current slate of candidates - they can drop out but can't be replaced.

P.S. HE'S BAAAACK: The former Conservative candidate, Chris Reid, has returned to the pologosphere following his exit from the campaign. His first return post puts to rest earlier claims that he quit the race because he didn't want to commit to four years in Ottawa:

This is where political correctness has gotten in this country - a Conservative Party that is affraid to proudly be conservative, and a media that can't be bothered to analyze anything. The media is simply focused on the "gaffe" this caused the campaign, with no analysis of what I actually said. So don't worry liberals, there is no hidden agenda to the Conservative Party, because it has sold it's soul to the MSM, you can freely vote Conservative and still have your ever expanding nanny state!