By Giuseppe Valiante ,National Bureau
First posted: Friday, February 21, 2014 07:28 PM EST | Updated: Friday, February 21, 2014 07:37 PM EST
MONTREAL — The Liberal Party convention this weekend in Montreal has a distinctly American flavour.
No less than four senior officials who worked with U.S. President Barack Obama before and after his 2012 re-election campaign were scheduled to speak at the convention.
Liberals said the party admired the effectiveness of the Democratic machine to mobilize supporters using technology and teams of local organizers.
Former economic adviser to Obama, Lawrence Summers, kicked off the convention with a short talk about world finance, before Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau took the stage Thursday night.
Ryan Adam, a senior organizer for Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign, gave a “grassroots mobilization” workshop with delegates Friday morning.
Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, former deputy campaign manager for Obama in 2012, spoke on Friday and was scheduled to give another presentation on Saturday.
And the digital director for Obama in 2012, Teddy Goff, was scheduled to speak on Saturday.
Obama’s re-election team is credited with pioneering certain uses of social media and targeted marketing to locate support in key demographic groups such as Latinos.
The Liberals have already improved their organization structure in order to locate and encourage donations. Individual donations to the party surged after Trudeau was elected leader last spring. The party received roughly 7,400 more individual contributions than the Conservatives in the last quarter of fiscal 2013.
Former Interim Liberal Leader Bob Rae told QMI Agency at the convention on Friday that “it’s only natural” the Liberals would want to learn from the U.S. Democrats.
“The Democratic party has done some of the most remarkable work that has been done in modern times in terms of mobilizing people and using effective technologies,” he said.
