The Canadian Press (CP)

:canadianpress:

Canada still the dark ages when it comes to politics on the web

BY DAN LETT

WINNIPEG (CP) _ At a time of dwindling turnout in elections and escalating cynicism about politics, where is Canada's Howard Dean?

Dean was the dynamic U.S. Democratic presidential hopeful who used the Internet to draw hundreds of thousands of new supporters to his campaign, and in the process raised tens of millions of dollars.

In Canada, the main political parties are virtual digital dinosaurs who are using the Internet to push their messages but not a whole lot more. The question arises: could Canada produce a Dean revolution of its own?

Political strategists are skeptical.

"The nature of this campaign argues against using the Internet in any big way,'' said Greg Lyle, a political strategist with Toronto-based Navigator Ltd.

"When people in this country decide they are going to make up their minds based on the information they get off the Internet ... it will become a more important tool. We're not there yet.''

The revolution started by Dean, whose campaign ultimately collapsed following a bizarre concession speech after the Iowa caucus, remains the rage among so-called "e-democracy'' experts.

These experts argue Dean has changed the whole strategy for political campaigns, from a top-down "war room'' approach to more of a grassroots digital uprising.

"There is a wave (of Internet-based campaigning) that is building in this country and it hasn't crested yet,'' said Dr. Kirstin Foot, an online democracy expert at the University of Washington.

"The Dean mobilization is the best indication to date of what this can be.''

The Dean online revolution started in early 2003, when campaign organizers discovered supporters were spontaneously gathering on Meetup.com, a website that facilitates face-to-face meetings between people with similar interests.

Dean organizers cultivated and encouraged online supporters. In less than a year, the Meetup model attracted tens of thousands of volunteers and tens of millions of dollars in campaign donations.

Critics have dismissed Dean's online activity, in large part because in the end he failed to win the Democratic presidential nomination.

However, Foot said those critics may be missing the point.

"Despite the fact Howard Dean didn't win the nomination, the evidence of this campaign was that tens of thousands of younger people were getting involved in politics when they had never been involved before,'' said Foot.

Lyle said the Canadian election is so volatile that most Canadian parties would be foolish to spend their money on so-called "quiet media'' like the Internet.

In a close race like this, politicians need to focus on using mass media, television and newspaper advertisements to reach a wider audience, he said.

The Dean experience demonstrated the limitation of relying largely on quiet media campaigning.

After using the Internet to rise to prominence, Dean failed to use mass media effectively, Lyle said.

The mass media approach is the norm for Canada's three major political parties. Although the parties' websites do contain volumes of information on platforms and news releases, and allow visitors to make online donations, they do not have links to, or host, forums for online discussion.

And none of the Canadian parties seem to have embraced the Meetup.com model of political mobilization.

While Meetup.com does contain postings for meetings for both the Conservative and NDP parties, they attract only a few dozen active members. A proposed meeting of an NDP Meetup in Winnipeg this month drew only two online votes on the location.

Treasury Board President Reg Alcock, Manitoba's senior Liberal MP, has long been an advocate of using the Internet to enhance democracy and elections.

In the mid-1990s, he launched the Digital Commons, an online conference for Canadians to discuss politics and policy.

Alcock said the Digital Commons turned out to be a better idea than reality. Although it was used heavily at times, it did not seem to mobilize large numbers of people to get involved, he said.

Using the Internet to cultivate supporters is still an evolving science and it's quite likely Canadian politicians are not quite ready to fully embrace it, he said.

The Liberal campaign has tried to make better use of tools such as BlackBerry pagers and their text-messaging capabilities, Alcock said.

Now, when confronted by a particularly difficult question on a constituent's doorstep, Alcock can request information from the Grit central campaign and receive a response on his BlackBerry right away.

"Right now, we still see it as a communication tool, rather than a recruitment or organizational tool,'' Alcock said.