IMO, Spence has indeed helped raise public awareness of both the native plight and the native community governance failures. Unfortunately,IMO, much of this positive awareness (in Canada, where it counts) was shared amongst the "already convinced".

Again, unfortunately, many Canadians see Spence as a representative of the native communities inability to manage it's own affairs and finances, which reinforces the long-held (and IMO< inaccurate) negative sterotypes of the native community (IMO, Ibelieve the polls support that).

On a downside, I see her stubborn "longer than productive" campaign as helping to divide the native Canadian leadership (when solidarity was needed) than uniting it. Time will tell if this is a "good thing, or a bad thing" over the long term.