Comments on: Some free advice for Greens candidates

By: Oz

Oz — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 07:59:01 +0000

On the other hand, you have to have a look at what they actually say.

The guy in QLD pretty much just defended the right to free speech, but he was dropped because they were worried his comments could be misconstrued as defending sexism.

By: JamesD

JamesD — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 12:49:04 +0000

blockquote cite=#commentbody-1336
stronga href=#comment-1336 rel=nofollowRebecca/a :/strong
Theres a hell of a lot of examples of would-be candidates from most parties whove fallen on their arse because they said something ..
/blockquote

I reckon if would be candidates say something dumb and it costs them then thats great. After all who wants actual candidates or MPs who are prone to to mis-speaking?

Pre-selection processes that are accurate tests of the skills required to make a successful candidates yield good candidates. Politics is tough stuff and if you make a dumb enougn f***up it can cost bigtime. We dont want fools sitting in the big chairs.

By: Ben Raue

Ben Raue — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 04:04:08 +0000

Austin, I don’t see online organising, blogging, twittering etc, as primarily about convincing voters. It’s an organising tool. There’s a lot of non-aligned progressive tech-nerds out there in the blogosphere. If you can get them onside (and the net filter has certainly helped) then they can help you organise better and develop your strength on the ground.

Also, if we assume that our membership is now too large for members to know all the candidates personally in preselections, you need another method of campaigning to the voters in a preselection. The mainstream media is too expensive and too scattershot to be effective, but setting up a blog and twittering early can reach Greens members and help you in your preselection. If all the candidates do that, it will result in a more informed membership and a better process.

By: Ben Raue

Ben Raue — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 04:01:47 +0000

GhostWhoVotes, thanks. Fixed it. That’s happened to me before and didn’t realise. I guess the “read more” thing got stuck in the middle of a section that was bolded.

By: Ben Raue

Ben Raue — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 03:56:59 +0000

Rebecca, I think if you are aware that you plan to run for office some day soon, and bear that in mind when blogging and twittering, then you’ll be fine. The cases of people getting caught out are usually either idiots or people running for unwinnable seats who obviously weren’t planning to run. I remember in my first election in 2004, the Liberal candidate in my seat of Werriwa got caught out in some way (can’t remember the details). But he was a 25-year-old Liberal running against the Labor leader, he probably got drafted at the last minute.

By: Austin

Austin — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 03:42:50 +0000

@Oz I’m not sure about the ‘a lot’ part. Knowing the QLD Greens website stats from the state election, the number of so called unique visitors to the website over the whole campaign was less than 1/2 the number of enrolled voters in the smallest electorate. So I can imagine it having some effect, but not an earth-shattering one.

By: GhostWhoVotes

GhostWhoVotes — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 03:02:14 +0000

On the main page, the ‘Read more…’ link has a ‘strong’ tag in front but is missing the ‘/strong’ tag after. Everything on the front page after this post is in bold text as a result.

By: Max Phillips

Max Phillips — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 02:54:43 +0000

Just dont publish (identifiable) photos of your genitals on the internet. Although this will not stop you being preselected for Family First.

Remember? Thats not my penis

http://www.smh.com.au/news/federalelection2007news/family-firsts-member-for-nowhere/2007/10/28/1193555533377.html

I cried with amusement at the time.

By: Oz

Oz — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 23:36:53 +0000

“If it turns out that a large proportion of the people in your particular electorate gather information that way, then great. But if not, then you will be wasting your time.”

When we’re talking about seats in inner-city Sydney and Melbourne then you’ll find that being online helps a lot.

By: Austin

Austin — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 22:43:05 +0000

A very large portion of the Australian population do not gather political information from the internet. Internet based communications should be applied to broad scale campaigns like the senate. HoR seats and state electorates need to be more targeted. If it turns out that a large proportion of the people in your particular electorate gather information that way, then great. But if not, then you will be wasting your time.