Sorry for the unintentional commercial break, but today we return to our occasional series, Councillor of the Week. It’s Down District Council and the Green Party’s co–option candidate Cadogan Enright, who Slugger understands has just returned from the US after campaigning for Barrack Obama. I particularly like the interactive map of the district where there are issues he’s been working on. His newsfeed is also nicely up to date (or at least until the day of the US election it was!!).
You can download his own Newsletter that carries specific detail of campaigns he’s been involved in. Like his council colleague Colin McGrath, he’s using video. But his video piece is trained on the issue of fish poisoning in the River Quoile.
His photo gallery is similarly issue focused and has good high resolution copies that can be easily used by journalists looking to illustrate local stories. It’s worth noting Cadogan’s statement on his experience of the Obama campaign (not yet on the website):
I was quite stunned to see the level of neighbourhood-based activity, mostly by people who were not necessarily members of any political party, coordinated over the web. Groups were organised in areas of only 150 to 250 houses and the number of people working on Obamas campaign was estimated to be over one million.
Neighbourhood by neighbourhood is a councillor’s natural territory. It will interesting to see if Councillor Enright begins to find new ways to engage his neighbourhoods directly through is own site and that of Down Greens.
Mick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty