Macro and Micro

The wonderful blogger, Calgary Grit, has a good post up about riding analysis. It's a great example of the micro analysis that the party needs to be doing both for the short and long-term viability of the party.

When it comes to specific riding analysis, especially for attempts to take ridings that you don't already hold, long-term planning is tough. Most candidates don't want to go down in defeat two or more times before they might see a win. This is especially true of anyone who might be considered a serious candidate with a professional reputation to maintain.

The best way to go about it is to have a strong sacrificial candidate as another candidate is groomed and works to establish the base of support needed to make a legitimate run. But that takes a lot of planning, money and foresight. It also takes luck and the hope that there's no internal party conflict over a nomination. I say this because if you're taking about becoming the only Liberal MP in all of Alberta, it means instant power.

And so while Dan has a point with his post, I think it's important to also look at a larger scale strategy.

As was written in another post on this blog, the voting trends among Canadians are pretty clear. What the Liberal Party needs to do is find a way to reconnect and draw in 'progressive' voters. That's a more widely used term now because of it's expediency, but it applies here. What we need to be doing is coming up with a platform that is economical viable and responsible, but also one that draws in Green Party, marginal NDP, and Red Tory support.

Where as Calgary Grit looked at specific riding chances, one thing that any or all of those ridings would need beyond the long-term effort and the strong candidate that he described, is MOMENTUM....

And right now the Liberal Party is about as stagnant and sedentary as a rock.

With some momentum, with some strong PR and strong policy that might expand and base of support and boost our poll numbers, then we can start targeting specific ridings. But until we can get things right on a larger scale, the aspirations we might have for the ridings mentioned will be stuck on hold for a very long time.