James Cudmore

It is, some folks say, the nerve centre of a party's campaign. (Though others consider them little more than whirling vortexes of spin).

But one of the problems with war rooms is that they don't travel with the party leader, and it's sometimes difficult to stay connected.

For instance, unless CBC Newsworld is broadcasting your party leader's event in, say, Surrey North, B.C., how would a group of spinners in Ottawa know what their leader is saying?

Well thanks to the miracle of cellular telephony, the NDP war room in Ottawa is always in the loop.

At every NDP event, every day, an NDP tech wizard named Matt dials up Ottawa and then plugs his cellular phone into the audio board and, presto-magico, Ottawa can hear every word spoken into a microphone.

— James Cudmore