THE CONSERVATIVE HIPSTERS
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
POLITICS AS USUAL: WHY ARE THE LIBERALS HIDING?
I know Team Martin's game plan is to keep a low profile until after Christmas, but this is ridiculous.
In doing some research for a client who wanted to get in touch with various campaigns of all political stripes, I was using the internet and the wonders of Google to track down information about each national party: Conservative, Liberal and NDP. What I've found is that the FIBerals have almost completely gone into hiding--it is virtually impossible to get in tough with their campaigns. Although they accuse the Conservatives of having a "hidden agenda", they are out in the open online.
I'll give a few illustrations. My riding is Mississauga Erindale and the Conservative candidate is Bob Dechert. I can find him HERE on the Party site and HERE on his own site. There's contact information and lots of detail on his positions, etc. All good.
But when I tried to find the FIBeral candidate for my riding, Omar Alghabra, it was quite different. Here's what the FIBerals have to say about Omar:
Nothing. No contact information. No website. Now, you might say "Hipster, be fair. Alghabra was only nominated as the candidate last week".
And you'd be right.
But if you look at the listing of every candidate running this time for the FIBerals, there is NO contact information.
None.
In fact, many of the bigger candidates like Michael Ignatieff or long-time MPs like Hedy Fry, don't even have pictures posted on the site.
Now, there are some enterprising folks like Richard Mahoney, Anne McLellan or Derek "As In General, not Bruce" Lee, who have campaign websites with full contact info.
But you look at Cabinet Ministers heavyweights like Ken Dryden, Bill Graham, John McKay, Stephane Dion, Ujjal Dosanjh, John McCallum and many many others, its virtually impossible to actually contact their campaign to ask a question, determine their position on issues or even volunteer. All you get is their parliamentary websites, rather than campaign information.
They seem all too comfortable operating as government officials, but somewhat skittish on actually speaking to voters.
Who looks like they are hiding from the public?
Who looks out of touch?
Who seems hidden right now?
On the information highway, it looks pretty obvious.
In doing some research for a client who wanted to get in touch with various campaigns of all political stripes, I was using the internet and the wonders of Google to track down information about each national party: Conservative, Liberal and NDP. What I've found is that the FIBerals have almost completely gone into hiding--it is virtually impossible to get in tough with their campaigns. Although they accuse the Conservatives of having a "hidden agenda", they are out in the open online.
I'll give a few illustrations. My riding is Mississauga Erindale and the Conservative candidate is Bob Dechert. I can find him HERE on the Party site and HERE on his own site. There's contact information and lots of detail on his positions, etc. All good.
But when I tried to find the FIBeral candidate for my riding, Omar Alghabra, it was quite different. Here's what the FIBerals have to say about Omar:
Nothing. No contact information. No website. Now, you might say "Hipster, be fair. Alghabra was only nominated as the candidate last week".
And you'd be right.
But if you look at the listing of every candidate running this time for the FIBerals, there is NO contact information.
None.
In fact, many of the bigger candidates like Michael Ignatieff or long-time MPs like Hedy Fry, don't even have pictures posted on the site.
Now, there are some enterprising folks like Richard Mahoney, Anne McLellan or Derek "As In General, not Bruce" Lee, who have campaign websites with full contact info.
But you look at Cabinet Ministers heavyweights like Ken Dryden, Bill Graham, John McKay, Stephane Dion, Ujjal Dosanjh, John McCallum and many many others, its virtually impossible to actually contact their campaign to ask a question, determine their position on issues or even volunteer. All you get is their parliamentary websites, rather than campaign information.
They seem all too comfortable operating as government officials, but somewhat skittish on actually speaking to voters.
Who looks like they are hiding from the public?
Who looks out of touch?
Who seems hidden right now?
On the information highway, it looks pretty obvious.
# posted by Anonymous : 3:36 p.m.
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