Parties and the People

In a quite frankly bizarre turn of events the blogger "Buckdog" has been threatened with legal action by the Green Party because he posted the clip of Elizabeth May possibly calling Canadians "stupid". I really don't need to point out the sheer hypocrisy of attempting such a course of action the day after you have portrayed yourselves as victoriously fighting for free speech but this only emphasises the relevance of my previous post. People should think and think again before they send off e-mails that are ultimately detrimental to their party.

This action also highlights an increasing trend within politics. I'm tempted to call it the "Palinization" of the parties. They no longer view the media (and I include bloggers in that) as having the right to challenge and criticise. They view the media as being a conduit between them and the voters. They produce a political ad and expect the TV stations to run it. They hold a rally and expect it to be on the nightly news. The disturbingly sad truth of course is that they have been right in their expectations. Politicians are more and more allowed to call the shots about when and how they are quizzed. The debates fiasco is a prime example of a situation where a principled media would have said "these are the rules and it's your choice if you wish to appear" but instead we get the leaders of the parties hammering out backroom deals.

The Green party tried to portray themselves as being apart from this kind of shabbiness yet clearly they are not.If they wanted to take take issue with the clip that Buckdog posted then they should explain why, and not resort to the bully-boy tactics of the multi-national corporations that they seemingly abhor.

Danger! Danger!

The Internet is a wonderful tool for political parties. It allows them to target vast numbers of voters at very little expense. It allows them to be creative and appealing in ways that they can't achieve on television or radio. It allows them to reach demographics that were out of reach just a few short years ago. Unfortunately it also allows them to make complete asses of themselves.

The suspension of Ryan Sparrow is a case in point. Apparently he thought that it would be a good idea to use a dead soldier to make political capital and has now paid the price. It's ironic that this should happen on September 11th because it has similarities to an incident in Britain in which a staffer for Tony Blair put out an e-mail during the terrorist attacks saying that this would be a good time "to bury bad news". She was also fired.

There should be a cast iron rule at all party headquarters dealing with this kind of missive. Once it's written wait for 30 minutes until you send it out (I know we live in an instant information age but it can wait), make sure that at least 5 people read it without being told what it's about (what some people think is clever other people think is crass (as Ryan found out), and finally re-check everything and wait another 30 minutes before hitting send.

It might just save your career.

One Final Word

Before the whole debate shambles sends me to an early grave through boredom let me just say a few words about the role of the media. On CBC's website today they say that May was originally not allowed to appear in the debates because 3 other parties opposed this. Are they saying that if the Liberals, Bloc Quebecois and the NDP opposed Stephen Harper appearing that they would go along with that too? No, I didn't think so. The media have a huge influence on any election and it is incumbent on them to be honest and to be challenging. So far the coverage has been neither. We are subjected to an array of press conferences with very little challenge to what is being said.

The networks are not just there to relay the news they are also there to speak for their viewers, to ask questions and to challenge.