Politics for Joe 21
By: Hubert O'Hearn
For: Lake Superior News
Nation of beer, nation of whine ... I hold in my hand a letter ... The love that dares not speak its name
It's become so much a part of the human nature that we expose to polling and Man on the Street interviews that we don't even question it anymore. TV screens and sidebar stories have been plump with faces moaning on about how this election is expensive and unnecessary. Let me express a sentiment that will forevermore guarantee that I will never, ever stand for public office: these people are idiots and should be ignored.
Let's deal with the cost first. Rabble.ca is guesstimating $300 million and I'm fine with using that number, nor would I quibble with any other number +/- $50 million. Well, the ad campaign for the government's Economic Action Plan came in at $26 million and do tell me in detail how those ads made your life any better? Not the program, the ads. Learning is my life.
So there's roughly 10% of the cost of the entire election, during which ideas will be discussed which are all about making your life better. It's all Vote for Pedro really, the candidate for school president in 'Napoleon Dynamite.' "If you vote for me, all your wildest dreams will come true." Works for me, and it would work for you too.
Besides which, an election is one of the best public employment projects ever invented. Much like the New Deal under Franklin Roosevelt, many are hired and are found jobs to perform. Seniors, students, welfare recipients, the disabled all have an equal shot at making $150 or so as poll clerks and such, more in the District Returning Officer's temporary office. That may not sound like much to you, but it's a lot to some. Other money is spent on national or local businesses. Unemployment numbers always show a little dip as the result. It's not an unnecessary cost, it's a temporary economic boost. And don't think local TV affiliates aren't glad for the revenue either. I've covered television long enough to know that they are not the cash cows of old.
So why on Earth do complain about elections? It's not like they are restful holidays for the candidates. I'm always amazed more aren't carted off the battlefield by emotionally shattered student volunteers bearing the corpse on a litter improvised out of lawn signs.
There fallen O'Riley laid to rest
His body lain on the shield of red
Not 24 hours before Big Lou
Crashed upon his own stretcher of blue
But I digress.
The long and the short of it is that if the cost supports any kind of reasonable debate on the nation's future it is money spent most effectively.
It's all started with a bang. Gilles Duceppe raising a letter signed by Stephen Harper in agreement with a Bloq/Tory/NDP coalition does slather a fresh coat of yellow mistrust on the Prime Minister. I will be very, very interested to see the first polls on the credibility of the leaders. Just as the Republicans in the U.S. eventually had to turn on Nixon to save themselves, unless this election election momentum truly turns, Harper can start tuning up his piano playing for next winter's cruise season. He'll have time (and music) on his hands.
A coalition, or the potential for one, is the lead headline and I suspect it will remain a lead headline throughout the campaign. Layton is positively licking at the idea like it was an ice cream cone, as well he should. Ignatieff's response is - I think - wrong. He is delivering the standard line of, We're in it to win it baby. A coalition is the Liberal love that dares not speak its name. But I think a more reflective answer might have been in order. At least Ignatieff did say that he liked working with people. That is always a good line to put in the resume.
More to come, undoubtedly...
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