Re-branding Plaid as "New Wales" ugh.

Plaid leadership Contender Adam Price has outlined in the Wasting Mule and his website his vision of Plaid under his hand on the tiller.

There 's not a lot to disagree with, (and you can read it all here). Indeed i suspect that is is true of all three contenders, indeed if it wasn't against the nature of politics then a  triumvirate would be intriguing

Adam writes 

The first step in winning the change voter over to our cause is listening to them, attempting to understand where they are coming from and trying to find the common ground in our view of Wales (and the world) and theirs.  Listening not lecturing is the key to political success. We number of voters we speak with needs to increase tenfold.  We need identify about a third of those that are a mixture of supporters and the persuadable.  We then need to conduct qualitative and quantitative research to understand what will motivate them to turn out to vote.  We then need to tailor our message on that basis (experimenting along the way to learn what works best) and build a relationship with these supporters over the two years to the election.  
All the evidence  - work by academics, for example, at Stanford and Yale - suggests that the only way to do this is face-to-face.  Social media is very good at confirming people’s existing beliefs (or prejudices, a feature ruthlessly exploited by the likes of Cambridge Analytica in the Brexit referendum).  But if you are trying to build hope rather than feeding resentment then you have to do that the old-fashioned way and speak to them. 

Well that is obvious accept  if you take the case of Arfon  where Plaid dominate in the council elections , where there is only a smattering of other main political parties at election time. Labour vastly outnumbered on the streets  cane close to capturing the parliamentary seat

General Election 2017: Arfon^[6]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±
	Plaid Cymru	Hywel Williams	11,519	40.8	-3.1
	Labour	Mary Clarke	11,427	40.5	+10.2
	Conservative	Philippa Parry	4,614	16.4	+3.2
	Liberal Democrat	Calum Davies	648	2.3	-0.4
Majority			92	0.3	-13.4
Turnout			28,208	68.2	+1.9
Registered electors			41,367
	Plaid Cymru hold		Swing	-6.7

and consider UKIP  have preformed  well  in constituencies where they have an organisation of one man and his dog.

Adam goes on

To motivate voters we first have to motivate volunteers.  We do that primarily by instilling in them a sense that we have a plausible path to victory. Most people want to know that the time they are giving up will actually make a difference.  We have to show that we are much more serious and strategic in our activism.  In a sense Leanne in 2012 had the right ideas – ‘community champions’ and ‘real independence’ – but there has been a massive implementation gap.So to avoid that happening again we need to create a National Organising Institute, Trefnewydd, that will run residential events, one day conferences, digital webinars and online modules for members and volunteers on the methods of ‘community organising’ that were key to the Obama victory in 2008 (taught by my former professor,  the veteran civil rights leader Marshall Ganz at the Kennedy School in Harvard) and again to the Sanders campaign in 2016.  This should focus not just on persuasion techniques, “deep canvassing” and campaign organisation but also on community activism more widely. And we’ll need to give this army of activists the most up-to-date tools for the job, moving from email to messaging as our principal way of organising eg Hustle is the world-leading peer-to-peer text messaging Service that helped the Bernie Sanders campaign go from just 151 volunteers to 1.5 million registered supporters in a matter of weeks.    We could learn from the CDU who developed a very effective canvassing App for the 2017 Bundestag election.  In the US there’s also VoterCircle, a platform that enables supporters of any campaign to utilise their personal address books to connect with eligible voters, and Victor Guide, a smart phone app specifically designed for candidates.  Qriously, a new smartphone based survey company, meanwhile boasts much more accurate and realtime opinion polling. It successfully predicted Brexit, Trump, and was one of the few to predict the late Corbyn surge.

Certainly this is what Plaid should be doing and whoever wins the Plaid leadership contest should implement it. Indeed you could argue that it is an argument for Adam not to be leader and give him the job od doing so, 

Success will not be built by the party alone but by a wider movement of which we are part.  We should invest in that ecosystem, including a pro-independence thinktank and pro-indy media like Nation.Cymru.  Nor will any leader be able to achieve success alone.  We should do what most parties do and have an elected deputy leader to be the “leader within”, focusing on key internal challenges allowing the Leader to concentrate on presenting our programme for government as the First Minister in waiting.  These, and other structural changes necessary to victory, for example, the creation of a smaller, more focused  and agile Executive Board, should be put to Special ‘Vision for Victory’ Members’ Conference in January focused on getting in place everything we need to win in 2021. That conference should look again at one of the recommendations from Eurfyl ap Gwilym’s review of the 2011 elections.  That looked at creating a new name in English to signal that we are a pan-Wales party.  But what about a new bilingual name to signal that we are the party of Wales’ future?  Dafydd Wigley, in the run-up to the 1999 campaign, said that our challenge was to turn Plaid into the “New Wales Party” which everyone in our country can identify with.  Looking at Labour, whether Corbyn or Drakeford, it sometimes feel as if it’s 1983 and the Internet never happened.  If we want our people to choose a New Wales then perhaps it’s time, quite literally, to put it on the ballot.  

"New Wales  Party" ? I have never seen much sense in having an English name on par with "Plaid Cymru". Plaid  should be on everyone's lips. 

The current Irish opposition party is officially Fianna Fáil – The Republican Party: but i doubt the English version resonates with Irish voters.

Come on it's all  a bit "New Labour" is it not ? Tony Blair may have got a way with re branding  his party on the lines of a soap powder commercial. but it a one trick pony.

Indeed even as I join Adam in his aim that Plaid should not just be to win in 2021, but to win again in 2026 , but after that could you continue with "New Wales" what next "Wales Super", Wales Lite"?

Adams plans certainly  intriguing   and Leanne and Rhun  if they become leader should think about it) except the "New Wales" bit that is.