User:Btrower/ShawnSuggests

Meta-Policy Suggestion: The Aye-Aye Strategy
Here is my election strategy for policy selection. Working draft. I call it: "The aye-aye strategy"

It's designed to make the biggest impact possible with the fewest opportunities for conflict. "Aye-aye" represents everyone being on board. That is my hope. It is a strategy about how we present our platform, but it is also a strategy for how we refine our election platform from the pool of suggestions we currently have.

Key "Planks"
I think that from a public relations perspective, we must choose a clear focus. We cannot weigh in on everything as a party, it would be an excercise in tedium, time-consuming, ultimately to alienate people with strong views that were not decided upon.

I suggest that the heart of our platform be 3-5 "Planks" that are a combination between Essential/Central, Unusual/Interesting, and Original (ie. Not Found Anywhere Else in CdnPoli)

I have ideas for what these should be, but I think we should work it out. Our campaign as a party should focus on maxmizing these ideas specifically.

We should also understand the principle of the overton window here. We should also for a little more than we hope to get. We can stretch public perceptions with our shortlist.

Pirate Principles
Leftovers should be consolidated into principles. What we believe and what will guide our other policy positions and candidate selection. So say, if free post-secondary is not one of the key planks, then we can replace that with a promise to "assure maximum quality education to all Canadians, and at every chance, affirm that access to information is a human right."

We can have unlimited principles, and they can be used to guide the rhetoric of our key planks also. They should also be considered good and broad enough for all potential candidates to disagree with.

Autonomous Candidates
Candidates should be autonomous to determine their personal platform which is free to have a different focus than the party platform. However, it would be considered extremely bad form to contradict the party platform directly.

Say for example our party platform is to change copyright terms to 15 years. Just an example.

Good platform dissent:

"I support changing copyright laws because X, X, and X problems with the system. Our party has called to reduce these terms. In my personal view, we will need to work together with other parties and industry to come to a solution that everyone agrees on."

Bad platform dissent:

"Copyright is good. Filesharers should go to jail."

What is important here is that we empower our candidates to represent *their version* of the pirate party as best as they can, without having them impede on our core messaging. We want to make candidates feel like they can run with other parties in the future also, that they are building a political career of authenticity, etc.