OT: Canadian General Election.

An observation from an American

Just reading the posts in this group, it would appear many make voting decisions based on the canvassing (making a broad assumption based on an extremely small sample - don't worry, I'm not, really). Surprising, as I don't see much canvassing going on here. Don't know if it's a difference in political philosophy or process or plain American laziness. And based on the fact that it appears to be the behavior of the canvaser as much as (or more than) the political leanings of the candidate, it highlights the importance of having "good" canvassers onboard.

I admit to allowing the tenor of the tv ads to sway my voting decisions, to a degree. By which I mean I'm more likely to vote for candidates who do NOT run attack ads but instead speak to their own political philosophy and office intentions. However, the majority of a politician's stated or acted-out views must coincide with mine. I'll never find one who completely matches. If you were to ask them, the far-right-wingers would likely label me a raving liberal while the far-left-wingers would label me a narrow-minded conservative. {shrug} I label myself a moderate and registered Independent.

Just some political/philosophical musings from the corrupt state of California. (I'm new to this state and must say it really seems to have some serious problems with its politicians. We arrived in San Diego just in time for the special mayoral election and sentencing of a number of City councilmen and admission by a leading congressman of his years of being on the take and revelation that the mayor of one of the suburbs is a slumlord and the governator trying to shut up some of the special interest groups by making it illegal for them to speak out and ...)

Helen

The TV , Live at 5 is reporting that our poles will close at 8:30 PM. So that may be to bring it more in line. I do think it influences the vote out west especially the results from central Canada, Ontario and Quebec. Ruby

x-no-archive:yes

Wendy Lil has MS, heard her talking about it on the radio one day, that's why she quit.

I know Mike Savage and like him about as well as I liked his father. I get less money monthly for the rest of my life on account of Savage Sr. It was a dramatic gesture to cut everyone 5%, but it will stay with me forever, so round here the Savage name is something I might hate to tread in. The goddess got him for that and amalgamation though :)

x-no-archive:yes

No, canvassers have never influenced my voting decision at all, I just regard them as a nuisance, something like advertising. I also don't bother listening to what polls say, I do try to read each political platform statement for the top three parties and see which one most nearly meets my views.

Then after that, this time out, there is one person, Stephen Harper, for whom I could never vote (he's a Bush lookalike) so that just left me either/or as there is no Green Party candidate in my riding. So I like what the NDP statement says, like their party in general, and hope they do well though realistically, they will not have a majority. They may be left holding the balance of power though.

x-no-archive:yes

Not a hope! The western vote could care less about us, they believe there is nothing east of Toronto !

I was greatly surprised a few years ago, when a young man and his child came to visit me. I was gardening, so they came around to the porch. He explained he was John Stargel, and was running for State office. He was interested in my views of what I was satisfied with the State doing, and what they should do to improve the lot of older people, like me. He was interested in his prospective constituents, and was subsequently elected as a representative to the House in Tallahassee.

That is old-fashioned common sense canvassing.

The canned phonecalls from Barbara Bush (who I DO admire) and other people I just do not bother with!

Gillian

Speaking from the inside of campaigns, we generally had more people willing to facelessly stuff envelopes than people willing to go door-to-door and come F2F with the wackos on the other end of the political spectrum who'd cuss them out or throw garbage on them.

My campaigning policy is that I will not do anything that I don't appreciate being on the receiving end of. I'll type letters till my fingers cramp up, but I will not disturb people with a phone call or knock on the door.

This is how I normally choose, but this time no-one made an effort so I went with who I thought could be the best for my riding.

Who won which time? San Diego had to re-do the mayoral election as a result of the mess Helen describes.

second time. ruby

This week, it's Jerry Sanders.

Next week, who knows? ;)

(I am pleased to report that none of the people I ever campaigned for was involved in the scandal, or at least, not mentioned in the newspaper stories I read.)

The mayor is the ex-cop. I think he may do well for the city. At least what little I've seen so far, him having only been in office about three weeks. He certainly took swift action when it was discovered one of the city workers had been stealing identities from the city water computers. The two city council seats were just filled, both by people for whom I would have voted, had I lived in their city (based on the little I heard about them). To the best of my knowledge, no one's been named to Cunningham's spot (Congress) yet.

What a mess!

It's about time.

During my time there, we had two sleaze-bag mayors who made my skin crawl; I'd go home from a meeting at City Hall and feel the need to scrub myself thoroughly to get their slime off, eeeyew. One is now a convicted felon, and some not-so-good things came out about the other, too.

Then we got a couple of women who cleaned up the place.

And now men let it get messed up again, which is why I was rooting for the woman candidate.

You are half right... The way Eastern Canada votes has no effect on how we Westerners vote, we vote the way we want to vote, but indeed we do know there is something east of Toronto.

OTOH, I get a kick out of Canadians from the East who refer to Vancouver Island as "Victoria Island"...guess they didn't learn their Canadian geography :)

...Linda

crawl; I'd go home from a meeting at City Hall and feel the need to scrub myself thoroughly to get their slime off, eeeyew. One is now a convicted felon, and some not-so-good things came out about the other, too.

Yep. I was always afraid I was going to catch cooties from shaking hands with him, eeeyecccch! But 'tis not done to tell the mayor you don't want to shake his smarmy hand because he has cooties. (If only we'd had Purell Hand Sanitizer back then!)

x-no-archive:yes

The phrases- which I hear all the time and which gets us mad is "If you go all the way east to Toronto" "eastern provinces like Quebec" you name it. They are not east, we are the easternmost part of Canada, the maritimes and mostly Newfoundland. We are a good 2000k east of both Montreal and Toronto, lot of land beyond them.

It doesn't really matter though, it's probably what makes us great, living in obscurity.

Ah! yes I remember him from the debates. He has a difficult task. ruby