anti-harper direct action strategy...

you don't need to be a big media outlet to do this. you just need some way to draw attention to yourself, which is not hard nowadays. i won't be doing this myself - i want to get back to work and would neither enjoy this nor truly know what to look for - but it's something you can do in the short run that could make a difference.

i got the idea while looking at 2011 election results in cowichan-malahat-langford, which is in british columbia. this is a new riding, but if it were redistributed the outcomes in 2011 would be:

ndp: 44
cons: 43
grn: 7
lib: 6

now, let's imagine the liberal candidate were removed. current polling suggests that roughly 50% of the support would go to the ndp, 25% to the conservatives and 25% to the greens. new results:

ndp: 47
cons: 44.5
grn: 8.5

minor difference. but, potentially deciding, depending on turnout.

it turns out that the liberal candidate has actually resigned. she said something that somebody found upsetting, or something. in fact, there have been a lot of candidates removed for that reason over the last two months.

this is where the idea comes in. the ndp & liberals will not merge, and i don't even want them to merge, but in a situation like the above, where one party is 40 points out of competing? candidates should be dropped. it would be nice to see the green candidate dropped in a situation like that, too; the ndp would gain a plurality. but, they won't even do this.

i think that we can make this happen in some circumstances. we just need to identify ridings like the above (where the race is close and a third (and/or fourth) candidate is clearly not in contention, and is merely splitting the vote), use our collective technological capacities to dig up dirt on them (specifically things they said that some people may think is upsetting) and get that to the proper media outlets. these candidates will get dropped, which will hopefully break the splitting.

go forth, and let it be done.