Election Ready

At last week’s meeting of my public management course, I asked a group of students to do an analysis of the Conservative Party website (www.conservative.ca) and another group to analyze the Liberal Party site (www.liberal.ca). Two excellent student presentations reached the same conclusion: the Conservatives’ site is election-ready, and the Liberals’ isn’t.

The Conservative site is easy to use, with everything reachable in three clicks. It has lots of information about Stephen Harper and his family, about the Government’s policies and accomplishments, and about the Conservative Party’s history back to Sir John A. Wherever you go on, the right sidebar has action options: donate, join, help, and “my campaign.” The latter, which requires a membership, includes activities like sending a letter to a newspaper or calling talk radio, and recruiting friends. Interestingly, the home page reaches out to the Net Generation, exhorting them to “freak out your friends. Join the Conservatives” and offering a program of paid summer internships in Ottawa.

The Liberal site hasn’t quite come together yet. Today – January 15 – it still carries Michael Ignatieff’s New Year’s message. It links to Michael Ignatieff’s site (www.michaelignatieff.ca) – which contains a well-written blog and lots of information about Michael – but his site is not yet integrated into the Liberal Party site. Ignatieff’s persona still stands apart from the Liberal site, unlike Stephen Harper, whose identity is clearly as PM and Conservative Party leader. The Liberal site has no statement of party policy but lots of critiques of the Conservatives – some delivered by former leader Stephane Dion. The Liberals’ action agenda is much more limited, with nothing like “My Campaign” nor a Net Generation page.

I suggest three reasons why the Liberals are so far behind. First, they haven’t nearly as much money to spend on web development as the Conservatives. Second, the party is still in a state of transition (disarray?), which is reflected in the website. Perhaps Michael Ignatieff hasn’t had the time to think about how to integrate his very effective personal website with the party site. Third, the party may not want to tip its hand on policy, preferring the standard critical Opposition approach.

In my view, the Liberals will have more leverage over the Conservatives’ forthcoming budget if they can make a credible claim that they are ready to fight an election over the budget. One aspect of credible election readiness is the website. To become election ready will require some time from the party’s senior strategists and party leader Michael Ignatieff, some money, and some involvement on the part of the Young Liberals to match the Conservatives’ Net Generation initiative. Michael Ignatieff has already shown some evidence of being an astute leader, for example in his making the point that the Conservatives’ negative advertising contradicts their desire for a consensus on the budget, and the Conservatives seem to have gotten that message. The question now is whether his organizational skills extend to cyberspace.