The Bruce
03-01-2006, 02:05
2006 Election
The online election sites are definitely where the nastiness is in Canadian elections. It’s where political party representatives can strut their stuff with a bit less supervision than normal. So much of the regular electoral party business managed to provide as little room for error and embarrassment as possible. In other words politics is working as hard as it can to be as boring as possible. A lot of true unpleasant colours have started coming out of blogs and party sites, as muckrakers do their worst, hoping that they can do so unnoticed by the mainstream press. Similar to the recent US political sparring, where bloggers have taken the stage from mainstream media, in Canada most of the sensational election stories are coming from the blogging internet.
So far the Liberals have been the ones pulling the most feet out of their mouths. Trying to shake off the latest scandal to be tossed on the pile of reminders of a corrupt Liberal regime, the Liberal Party has taken great pains to savage the personalities of the leader of the NDP and his wife. There were racial slurs comparing his Asian wife to a chow dog and crude comments about Jack Layton, resulting in the resignation of a highly placed party official. Mike Klander, the executive vice-president of the Ontario section of the Liberal Party, did this. The Liberal Party quickly dismissed this as not representing the views of their party, but this should be rephrased as not representing the “official views of their party for public consumption.”
A few days later a Liberal cabinet minister, David Emerson, uses a Chinese racial slur against Jack Layton (who’s wife is Asian). It turns out that the Liberal cabinet minister was just quoting the line from a blog written by the British Columbia wing Liberal party president, Jamie Elmhirst. It appears that there is a culture of racism at the top of the Liberal party, a charge that the Liberals have always levied at the Conservative (Reform) Party. I’m not saying that they are all this bad, but when this sort of thing comes out this often during an election it’s a symptom of a bigger problem.
The Liberals are worried about losing votes to Jack Layton in the next election, because he was one of the only people actually trying to get something done in the last parliament. Paul Martin is still trying laugh off a RCMP investigation of his Finance Minister about a widespread leak to the party friends in the financial community that resulted in huge volume insider trading.
The Liberals were counting on a long election to provide the unpolished members of the Conservative party the chance to speak their mind and scare Canadians into voting Liberal to keep the Conservatives (Reform) in sheep’s clothing from forming the next government.
Now finally, despite a party wide gag order of showing their true colours, one of the Conservative party elite has gaffed. Gordon Stamp, the Conservative campaign manager for Peter Goldring, came out with a great fumble. This party official has stated in his blog that if the Liberals won the next election that his party would then begin work on Alberta separating from Canada. Peter Goldring, claims to be completely ignorant of the political convictions of his campaign manager (especially when they appear in large embarrassing print). The Conservatives have taken the party campaign manager’s resignation and done their level best to distance themselves from the remarks that a lot of them would probably speak of in private. Again a clear case of this not representing the “official views of their party for public consumption.”
Who will be the next to shame themselves politically on the Internet? So far the Liberals are leading 2-1 against the Conservatives, with the NDP looking pretty good right now. With the campaign intensifying for the final push to January 23rd, it’s only going to get worse.
The Bruce
The online election sites are definitely where the nastiness is in Canadian elections. It’s where political party representatives can strut their stuff with a bit less supervision than normal. So much of the regular electoral party business managed to provide as little room for error and embarrassment as possible. In other words politics is working as hard as it can to be as boring as possible. A lot of true unpleasant colours have started coming out of blogs and party sites, as muckrakers do their worst, hoping that they can do so unnoticed by the mainstream press. Similar to the recent US political sparring, where bloggers have taken the stage from mainstream media, in Canada most of the sensational election stories are coming from the blogging internet.
So far the Liberals have been the ones pulling the most feet out of their mouths. Trying to shake off the latest scandal to be tossed on the pile of reminders of a corrupt Liberal regime, the Liberal Party has taken great pains to savage the personalities of the leader of the NDP and his wife. There were racial slurs comparing his Asian wife to a chow dog and crude comments about Jack Layton, resulting in the resignation of a highly placed party official. Mike Klander, the executive vice-president of the Ontario section of the Liberal Party, did this. The Liberal Party quickly dismissed this as not representing the views of their party, but this should be rephrased as not representing the “official views of their party for public consumption.”
A few days later a Liberal cabinet minister, David Emerson, uses a Chinese racial slur against Jack Layton (who’s wife is Asian). It turns out that the Liberal cabinet minister was just quoting the line from a blog written by the British Columbia wing Liberal party president, Jamie Elmhirst. It appears that there is a culture of racism at the top of the Liberal party, a charge that the Liberals have always levied at the Conservative (Reform) Party. I’m not saying that they are all this bad, but when this sort of thing comes out this often during an election it’s a symptom of a bigger problem.
The Liberals are worried about losing votes to Jack Layton in the next election, because he was one of the only people actually trying to get something done in the last parliament. Paul Martin is still trying laugh off a RCMP investigation of his Finance Minister about a widespread leak to the party friends in the financial community that resulted in huge volume insider trading.
The Liberals were counting on a long election to provide the unpolished members of the Conservative party the chance to speak their mind and scare Canadians into voting Liberal to keep the Conservatives (Reform) in sheep’s clothing from forming the next government.
Now finally, despite a party wide gag order of showing their true colours, one of the Conservative party elite has gaffed. Gordon Stamp, the Conservative campaign manager for Peter Goldring, came out with a great fumble. This party official has stated in his blog that if the Liberals won the next election that his party would then begin work on Alberta separating from Canada. Peter Goldring, claims to be completely ignorant of the political convictions of his campaign manager (especially when they appear in large embarrassing print). The Conservatives have taken the party campaign manager’s resignation and done their level best to distance themselves from the remarks that a lot of them would probably speak of in private. Again a clear case of this not representing the “official views of their party for public consumption.”
Who will be the next to shame themselves politically on the Internet? So far the Liberals are leading 2-1 against the Conservatives, with the NDP looking pretty good right now. With the campaign intensifying for the final push to January 23rd, it’s only going to get worse.
The Bruce