NDP to double election chest to $12-million

NDP to double election chest to $12-million
Buoyed by Layton's popularity, party preparing splashy cross-country campaign

OTTAWA -- The federal NDP is expecting to spend up to $12-million in the coming election -- twice as much as in the last campaign and the most the party has ever budgeted.

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"Our individual donors have become far more generous than they have been in the past," said Eric Hebert, the NDP's assistant federal secretary. "We're growing so fast it's hard to keep up.".... Membership has nearly doubled to 100,000 since Mr. Layton was chosen as leader more than a year ago, he said. "The momentum in the party is really remarkable."

New election financing laws that came into effect in January restrict campaign donations, barring corporate and union donations over $1,000 and individual donations over $5,000. Federal parties now get election campaign funds from public coffers, according to a new formula based on voter support in the last election.

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"The change is very beneficial to us," Mr. Hebert said, noting the NDP relies heavily on individual donations as opposed to corporate donations.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20040209/NDP09/TPNational/Canada

12 million? Isn't that even less in US dollars? I'm amazed that a national campaign could be waged on this budget. In my state, a candidate can spend twice or three times that, or more.

• a couple of hundred lawn signs
  
• one leaflet per household
  
• a couple of TV ads
  
• a couple of radio spots
  

Our campaigns tend to get fought in the media, with endless interviews and the occasional no-holds-barred, no-rules, duke-em-out debate.

The last televised debate between party leaders was a falling down laughing hoot. The presenter would ask a question, then the candidates would spend the next 10 minutes trying to outshout each other. The closed caption guy would type the first couple of words, then give up and type "everybody talking at once".

Given that the media pays for everything, a campaign can be run fairly cheaply.

In the US prior to the dismantling of the Fairness Doctrine under the Reagan regime, it was possible to get fair coverage without buying the media lock, stock, and barrel.

Instead, huge amounts of cash go to a mediadriven campaign. Who wins?

Media.

US-style politics have infiltrated many places in the world. Unfortunately, they appear to work.

Remember that Canada has a population of 30 million... also, and blessedly, there's MUCH less political media advertising, i.e. television ads, which I suspect soak up huge amounts of cash.

by the news media. And the campaigns are only about a month long.

The travel budgets, though, must be somewhat comparable to American campaigns, since the distances in Canada are even greater than those in the US.

I shudder to think.

Sounds like effective campaign financing.

is more like $100 million (still $75m US). Not bad for the perennial underdog party, not bad at all.

By soaking the taxpayer the advantage goes to the ruling party. Bacause the allocation of federal funds is based on the vote count in the previous election, the Liberals will get as much as the other three parties combined.

that's only part of it. The NDP stand to benefit by having a great many active, individual donors, who compensate for the reduction of permitted union contributions. The Liberals and the Conservatives relied heavily upon corporate funding, whereas the NDP had a policy to not accept contributions from large corporations.

Have the Conservatives even paid off their debt yet from the last election?