It is a curious phenomenon when insiders in politics, business, or media take up blogging as an alternative way of doing PR. Do they think they will get a significant audience for their opinions, or is the name of their game simply to insure that their opinions get inserted in MSM stories on what's going on in the blogosphere, to create the impression that blogs are just an alternative medium for carrying the same reality as is promoted on tv and in print?
Anyway, if you spend any time in the Canadian blogosphere, you will have noticed the snow in the air. If you are interested in following the Canadian federal election campaign that has just gotten under way, here is a good site to find political blogs of various shapes and stripes. I expect to be getting out to help my local candidate, so you might see a little less from me here at YARGB the next while.
4 comments:
You can't take a break until you provide:
Truepeer's Pick as Best Canadian Political Blog
Then we'll blogroll it and highlight pieces while you're out hustling on the hustings.
Truepeer:
Do the conservatives really have a chance? It has been how many years since they ran the place?
Rick, I have to admit that my interest in the blogosphere has run more to commentary on the interaction of the west and Islam than to things Canadian. Every now and then I tour around the Canadian blogosphere but have yet to find one blog that stands above the rest, like the way that say Belmont Club, Prospero, or YARBG do. I will think about nominating a choice for blogrolling and do a little more reading. In the meantime, a tentative list:
my first thought
a pajama's man with a naked soul
a little quirky but full of stuff
a Tory insider and professional pundit who is right half the time, with a good blog for political junkies
for elegant essays
a popular columnist
for Rick
Terrye, the old Progressive Conservative Party (under Brian Mulroney) was last in power in 1993. The new Conservative Party is a merger of the PCs and the former Reform and Alliance parties which were western-based, anti-government, anti-elitist in orientation and never popular in the big provinces of Ontario and Quebec.
Do the Conservatives really have a chance? They certainly have a chance to be the largest party in a minority government (in a four party parliament). A clear majority seems beyond their reach unless there is major movement during the campaign, which sometimes happens. Campaigns can be revelatory. For example, during the 1993 campaign, the new PC leader, Kim Clark, started with a lead in the polls and was eventually totally blown out of the water, coming in way behind in fifth place. She was not a compelling leader, so the old rule of voting out people who have been in power too long won the day. I would not be surprised by a somewhat similar collapse in Liberal support in this election, but not on the same scale. The Liberals are a tired old, corrupted by power, government, vain and arrogant, and this may well be revealed in various telling ways during the heat of battle.
Stephen Harper is an intelligent man, but he is somewhat wonkish and lacking in heat-of-the-moment performance and passion. He is also an object of much fear mongering (as a right winger who wants to take away "your rights" and cosy up to George Bush); and unfortunately, this works with many voters in Canada, perhaps a third of the electorate. So Harper has got a tough battle ahead but don't count him out yet.
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