First, he deserves credit for writing this book, period. There are lots of kitchen table and bar-room conversations underway about how progressives can rebuild and undo much of the damage that the Conservatives are doing to our country and planet. But, we need more. We need to air ideas and strategies, to nominate, debate, discard and to choose. And, we’ll not get there without more public efforts like Kinsella’s.

Second, he is absolutely on the money regarding the need for the Liberals and the NDP to embrace math and to realize that as long as they divide the progressive vote, the Conservatives will build a dynasty. I say this as one who doesn’t have a home party, but for a true Grit like Kinsella to say it gives you a sense that it’s really just common sense. Every time Mulcair or Trudeau disavows inter-party cooperation, Harper does a happy dance because he’s been there, fixed that, and knows it’s why he’s PM.

Finally, Kinsella’s book is at its best when it does what he does best — giving specific election advice. He runs through the political truths that progressive parties and candidates often run afoul of — be authentic, keep it simple, and speak to the heart. He also calls for aggressively pushing out a renewed progressive narrative, or fall victim to being defined by our opponents. While he doesn’t fully flesh out such a narrative, he looks to the Occupy message of inequality, the one per cent vs. the 99 per cent, as showing the way. (The Broadbent Institute seems to agree).

There’s much more, including a lengthy detour through attempting to understand the conservative mind and the conservative message, with interviews with thought leaders like George Lakoff on this, and for those interested in that topic, the book is well worth picking up.

There are some big things, though, that Fight the Right leaves out.

The saying that “to a guy with a hammer, everything looks like a nail” would seem to apply. As a master of the war room, Kinsella gravitates to the rough and tumble of everyday political messaging, but says almost nothing about the long term infrastructure building that underpins it. He briefly acknowledges that his own Liberal party has lost many of its organizers, while the Conservative party is not only united behind Harper but has one of the most advanced databases about Canadians in the country.

Much more can be said about the political infrastructure the Right has built in Canada, or you can just read what the Manning Centre says about it, since it broadcasts it loud and proud. There is nothing that comes close on the progressive side, no solid foundation from which to project power.

Kinsella also begins to expose a key progressive conundrum, without calling it out so we can grapple with it properly. He correctly notes that youth don’t vote at the same rates as older Canadians, and that if they did we’d likely have more progressive governments. At the same time, he’s unapologetic about the kind of negative political campaigning that turns so many youth off from politics. Some go even further on this point, arguing that negative campaigning by its very nature reinforces conservative political framing (eg. cynicism). Yet, it’s a conundrum, since at the same time we cannot simply cede the field and let others walk all over us.

I do think there’s a common answer to both this conundrum and to the infrastructure deficit, but it’s not an easy one. While the right will always have big money on its side, progressives can and should have people power on their side, but this doesn’t happen by itself. People need to be given pathways for political engagement on terms that work for them, and for the vast majority this will not be through a political party.

Kinsella notes that the Occupy movement, while directly engaging a segment of the public, has so far shunned electoral politics. Labour has traditionally been a vehicle for engaging its members in progressive politics, although with a declining share of the population being unionized, it may need to innovate by giving non-members pathways for engagement, as some unions in the U.S. have been doing successfully. NGOs can provide another engagement pathway, as groups like Lead Now are now doing. Much more is needed.

By directly engaging citizens, this kind of progressive infrastructure building can itself be an antidote to the cynicism of day-to-day Ottawa (and provincial capitals), while also providing direct channels of communication with ever greater numbers of Canadians that don’t rely on the conflict-driven traditional media.

It’s not a shortcut, but I don’t think there is one. Yes, progressive politicians should take Kinsella’s advice about authenticity, simplicity and speaking to the heart. Yes, we need a new progressive narrative as a counterweight to the one that is currently trashing our country and our planet. But, we shouldn’t fool ourselves into thinking that we don’t have a lot of hard work to do, a lot of one-on-one relationships to build, and a lot of alliances to forge if we are to succeed.

You can find it here.

Indeed, at this clinic you won’t need to work very hard at all to achieve “results.”

First off, let’s assume that you’ll be at least 50 pounds heavier in eight years’ time. Oh, don’t worry, we’re trying to make you feel better, not worse.

After all, if 2020 comes around and you’re not 50 pounds heavier, we’ll claim that as a huge weight loss!

Second, if you are already doing anything — walking, breathing, jiggling that video game joystick vigorously — then the Peter Kent clinic claims credit.

It may have been your cousin who got you off the couch, or working harder while being on it, but you wouldn’t be getting your money’s worth if somebody else took the credit, would you?

Third, we have really good news. An international committee has determined that bodyscaping counts! Yes, that’s right, if you clearcut your various hairy bits in a certain way, then you get to say you are losing weight.

Now it’s true that we’re going to let that double chocolate peanut butter fudge sundae habit of yours grow exponentially.

After all, it’s a shaky economy and we don’t want to fan the flames of regional conflict by putting any sundae bar-ristas out of work, so instead we’ll consider whether to sometime release draft consultation guidelines on limiting sprinkles on those sundaes to best practices.

Maybe. Or, maybe we’ll just call that an “aspirational goal.”

And, when you leave here, we’ll give you a certified piece of paper saying you’re halfway towards your weight loss goal (the one we made up for you for 2020).

Sure, despite our numbers you may actually still feel heavier, but when you get outside, you’ll start to perspire naturally. For some strange reason, the weather has been much hotter lately.

The growth of the social change sector from the 70’s onwards involved a sort of division of labour between feminists, environmentalists, pacifists, anti-poverty activists, international development activists, and more. We specialized and hung out shingles that said so.

The model lent itself well to the times. We saw ourselves as children of the Enlightenment, where the truth would set us free and would shape policy. Ideas seemed to matter to politicians too (to varying degrees), and some things got done. We made progress.

But, times change. Politics itself has hardened as power tactics have trumped ideas, relegating the latter to hooks into specific constituencies needed at election time. Power beats truth, making good policy much harder to come by.

The issues themselves have become more complicated, transcending our –isms, with climate change staring us in the face as the greatest challenge our species has ever faced, so far resisting a response that even remotely measures up.

And perhaps due to a combination these reasons and others, young people inclined to get involved in social change don’t seem to identify with our old labels, perhaps sensing that they no longer adequately capture our current reality, or the need to change it.

Times change – so do we change with them?

In part we are already. There is now a proliferation of social change groups with more malleable and less issue-specific brands, from MoveOn to LeadNow, from SomeOfUs to the Dogwood Initiative. Many of these groups are growing fast, and attracting the energy of younger activists.

In part, though, we still have a long way to go to adapt to new realities, and in particular with regards to being relevant to decision-makers in a much more competitive political environment.

It is no longer enough to have the right ideas without the right support. Can we tangibly demonstrate that the public is supportive of a change we are promoting? Put another way, can we turn out enough voters on the right side of the issue in the right places when it matters most?

A more malleable brand can help in this equation, since geographic critical mass matters. Frankly, a thousand supporters in one political district is more useful to advancing an issue than ten thousand supporters nationwide, and the chances of cultivating a thousand supporters in once place goes up when your brand is less specialized. Odds are, most of our potential supporters don’t see themselves as an –ist, and maybe never will, even if they support the same things as us.

A risk, though, is shallowness. To win today, it is not that we need to give up issue expertise in favour of sheer numbers of supporters everywhere, but rather that we need to complement issue expertise with enough supporters active in the right places.

That means that focus still matters, perhaps more than ever, just in different ways.

But, in addition to Parliamentary smarts, in an electoral context she has the power to change the game entirely. As the leader of Canada’s fourth party – or fifth if you count the Bloc – her power lies not in her ability to run candidates, but rather in her ability not to.

Canada’s progressive vote remains fatally divided. Anyone thinking the federal NDP will simply eclipse the Liberals hasn’t spent enough time in Ontario’s suburbs – the linchpin of Harper’s majority and a place where the NDP brand does badly. This is why Harper cares less for national polls, but also why he goes ballistic whenever there’s a whiff of a “coalition” – the true threat to his power.

Nathan Cullen made a popular run at this issue in his leadership bid, and Bob Rae now says it’s up to the next Liberal leader.

While NDP and Liberal party officials wrap their heads around the math, Elizabeth could decide to emerge as chief broker.  She could not only voluntarily decide to split the progressive vote in fewer ways in ridings that will be close races by not running candidates there, but could even go one step further and send voters who want to defeat Harper a strong signal by endorsing candidates from other progressive parties, particularly individuals that hold values similar to those of the Green Party.

This might be heresy to party purists, but hold the outrage for a minute and consider other factors.

First, the Green Party’s breakthrough in winning a seat last year came when it decided to concentrate resources on a winnable riding. The lessons of this strategy still hold true, meaning that the Greens could mount meaningful efforts with a view to winning in only a handful more ridings in 2015. This leaves open other strategies in other ridings.

Second, when Harper did away with the per vote subsidy, he took away the financial incentive to run a Green candidate in every riding in order to maximize the financial payoff. For a small party like the Greens, it is very challenging to field 308, and soon to be 338, quality candidates in an election. Now that the financial incentive is gone, it’s better to focus both good candidates and scarce bandwidth on fewer races.

Third, in every election there are various efforts by third parties to endorse and support the strongest progressive challenger to beat the Conservative candidate in various ridings, so why shouldn’t the Green Party harness this energy and become the main go-to place where it takes place? It could even become the fiscal agent for those willing to donate to that strategy, and organize volunteers who want to do that. This would be tapping directly into the same enthusiasm that Nathan Cullen did.

If Elizabeth announced tomorrow that the Green Party will only run in x number of ridings in 2015 and is willing to talk to other parties about where those candidates run, it wouldn’t take long for the other parties to come to her to begin to talk, even if it was quietly. She could also make known that endorsements could be in the works if other parties identify and run candidates who have similar values to the Green Party.

Would this result in reciprocity from the other parties, like she achieved in one riding with Stephan Dion? Perhaps. But, even if not, it would still be more than worth it. For the reasons laid out above, this could be the Green Party’s strongest play regardless, and would position Elizabeth as the de facto broker of progressive forces in Canada, cementing her role as a pivotal leader.

Meanwhile, it would also help push along the math vs. tribalism debate that is hobbling a progressive alternative in Canada, one that is desperately needed as our country and our planet are increasingly eroded, against the will of the majority of Canadians.

Which is why I get excited when I come across examples of groups who are prioritizing getting out there in a systematic way. I’ve written in the past about Dogwood, Lead Now and UBCc350, but also want to add to that list Ecology Ottawa.

That Canadians are still dumping raw sewage into our waterways is, in this millennium, a travesty, but because of that, a great issue to campaign on. Also, the potential to push out potty humour is hard to resist. (Remember Mr. Floatie?).

So, Ecology Ottawa is running a petition drive to stop the dumping of raw sewage into the Ottawa River, and this includes organizing community door-knocking so that it goes beyond the online converted and builds lists of new supporters.

Ecology Ottawa has also started to use Nation Builder, an affordable out-of-the-box integrated website and database that has features allowing you to facilitate offline organizing and to maintain relationships with your contacts. This is the kind of powerful tool that well-funded political parties used to have a monopoly on.

Overall, this is a great example to watch and to learn from – and if you are in Ottawa, to get involved with.

Given Canada’s media concentration and the political leanings of the companies in control, I’m not optimistic that this situation will be fixed anytime soon. But, perhaps we can take a baby step by creating an award for the nationally-oriented Canadian newspaper columnist writing in English who has done the most to raise awareness about climate change. Ideally it would be annual, but until that time, just based on recent history, who would it be?

Canada doesn’t have its version of the Guardian’s George Monbiot, perhaps the preeminent English language columnist who truly gets climate change and writes about it with any regularity and passion.

But who do we have? Well, who we have mostly falls into four general categories:

1) Deniers

Not surprisingly, Canada’s most ideology-driven media outlets still employ columnists who regurgitate the reality-challenged talking points of U.S. think tanks funded by fossil fuel interests to cast doubt on the very fact of climate change – that it is happening, and that it is caused by human activity.

How to recognize them quickly? They have been trained to use the labels “warmists” or “alarmists” to describe anyone who agrees with the vast majority of scientists around the globe or who can now see with their own eyes the impacts.

These guys – and they are mainly men now that Magaret Wente seems to now be wavering on hanging out with them too overtly – can be found at the Sun chain or the National Post. They include Lorrie Goldstein, Terence Corcoran, Lorne Gunter, Peter Foster, and Rex Murphy.

2) Dismissers

There is another category of columnists who can’t quite bring themselves to deny human-caused climate change and not feel embarrassed at parties, but who instead resort to other arguments to dismiss the issue, and especially to argue against new policies to reduce emissions.

It’s too expensive, too elite, too lefty, too complicated, too early, too late, too little, too much, too whatever. Best to just ignore the whole thing and let the oil industry make its billions. In this category are Barbara Yaffe, Margaret Wente, Michael den Tandt, and many Alberta columnists like CAPP PR maven Deborah Yedlin. (Graham Thomson, though, proves it’s not necessarily an Alberta thing).

3) Horse Racers

We have a whole category of columnists in Canada who seem to pride themselves on not taking positions on the issues, but only dissect what it means for the horse race in Ottawa or the provincial capitals. Ooh, look how it cost Dion. Or, see how Harper can’t bring himself to care?

In other words, the intrigue on the captain’s bridge is more important than the course of the Titanic, and talking about the latter may undermine my ability to be taken seriously talking about the intrigue, since I’d be, you know, committing to the issues.

In this category, think of the much respected Chantal Hebert, but also of John Ibbitson, Paul Wells, and Laurence Martin (although the latter does commit on issues of democracy).

4) Progressives

If a prize winner is to be chosen, you’d think he or she would come from the category of progressives – writers who generally fall on the left side of the political spectrum. Yet, you can’t help but feel that for some in this category, climate change ends up by default on the shopping list of things progressive columnists are supposed to write about from time to time, instead of truly grappling with it at a level matching its seriousness. This category includes Thomas Walkom, Susan Riley, and Tim Harper.

So, who is left? One good columnist who tries hard not to be categorized is Dan Gardner. Sometimes he tangles with deniers and sometimes he advocates for change, if for no other reason than we must get off oil anyway, not that he doesn’t also see climate change as a problem. Other times, though, he tips over the other way, tearing down David Suzuki and other environmentalists for what he sees as hyperbole. Overall, he battles himself into a bit of a “meh.”

Who, then, should win? Drum roll please.

In my opinion, Globe and Mail columnist Jeffrey Simpson deserves the award, if there was one. He not only wrote a book on climate change with Mark Jaccard and Nic Rivers, but has consistently used his column to inject climate considerations into Canada’s energy debate, unlike nearly all of his counterparts who fail to see that carbon fuels equal carbon pollution.

Simpson’s small-c conservative credentials also helps debunk the perception that climate change is a left-right debate, when it’s more about those laws of chemistry and physics and whether we are going to take them seriously.

So congratulations Jeffrey Simpson! Sorry there’s no statue for your mantelpiece, but know you are doing good work and that we need much more of it from you and from others if we’re going to make progress.

He notes that it can’t substitute for getting “in your face,” something the Occupy folks figured out and pressed home – literally.

The argument is reminiscent of a foundational piece by Malcolm Gladwell that can be found here, on the fact that “strong ties” are needed to drive big change, and that those are forged face to face. (Gladwell is supposed to expand on this in an upcoming book that I’m looking forward to).

At the same time, Ilyse Hogue reports from the U.S. Netroots Nation conference that she’s concerned with the apparent swing back to “Alinsky-style” organizing and says that “There’s no going back to the 90′s.”

I agree with her that there can be artificial distinctions between online and off-line organizing, but as far as Canada is concerned, we’re still way out of balance in NGOs’ relative investment between online and face to face organizing, with almost nobody doing the latter to any serious degree.