The Debate

Well the day I've been waiting for. There was an all candidates debate in Parksville tonight that my mom and I attended. It was a full house, although the average age was well over 50. In fact, of the hundereds of people tehre, less than 10 looked to be under the age of 25. Sad. There was no shortage of candidates. There was the Liberals, Conservatives, NDP, Greens, Christian Heritage Party, Canadian Action Party, Marxist-Leninist Party, and an independent.

Liberal Candidate - Dead in the water, weighted down by his party. Clinging to Paul Martin, I felt bad for him. No chance in hell

Conservative Candidate - The incumbent. Experienced, gave fairly clear answers, sounded pretty similiar to Stephen Harper. A strong reaction against him, i think he's going down.

NDP Candidate- Nice guy, definitely picked up some points tonight. Had good stuff to say, fairly straightforward and clear, and got a very positive reaction from the crowd. I'd say 7:3 that he'll win.

Green Candidate - Fairly soft spoken, but very clear, had lots to say, and definitely impressed some people. Considering that the Conservatives are probably gonna lose, I think the green will get good support.

Christian Heritage Candidate - Absolutely wild! Completely out of touch with reality, reminded me exactly of the minsiter that gave me a ride to Smithers when I was hitchhiking to QCI. Totally clueless. A one trick pony, he managed to segue from war to abortion. He also supported bulk water exports, which was absolutely opposed by the crowd, but the Liberal and Conservative candidates both hinted that they supported it too. Anyways, this guy called the NDP communists, the Greens environmental worshippers, and he also proposed building a bridge from teh mainland to the island. Total wackjob

Canadian Action Party - Pissed off! They're mad. I generally agree with their analysis, but I think they push a little too hard for complete Canadian sovereignty to the point where they don't care about teh outside world. Interesting ideas, but I definitely disagreed. Nationalists is what they were. No flags for me, sorry

Marxist-Leninist Candidate - I think she would've had a better chance running as an independent, but the stigma of being a communist probably hurt her. A good speaker though and liked by the audience, and she was smart by not really sounding like a relic from the Mother Russia.

I'm still undecided between voting Green and NDP. There's so many factors. I wholeheartedly support the Green party, but with our system, it makes it tough to feel confident voting for someone that won't win. So I could vote for the NDP who would try to bring in electoral reform and proportional representation so that I could vote green in the future. But the thing is, I think the NDP are going in the right direction (although remain to vague and uninspiring), whereas the Greens are already there. Direct hits on all the issues and creative solutions. ALso, it's hard balancing the natnional view with the local view. Jack Layton can seem dronish to me, whereas a local Green candidate might just be filling the spot. I've gone from Green to NDP to Green to NDP and back to Green again. I'll let you know my decision pretty quick though. I'm just having trouble trying to figure out the ultimate criteria. My biggest pull towards the Greens is because they have momentum and need to keep it up, whereas if I voted NDP and they lost, I'd consider my vote wasted, whereas even if the Green guy loses, I'll still feel like my vote was productive.

I've been paying very close attention to the campaign. I must say, the Conservatives have ben doing a pretty god job. In fact, there's even some issues we share in common, like electoral reform. However, there's a lot more to the Conservative package than meets the eye, and while they made moderate themselves in the short-term, a conservative government would certainly take the country in a direction I wouldn't like to see at all. The Liberals are a joke, simple as that. I'd say I agree with most of teh NDP's platform, but I think they're still as burdened by party politics as the other two, and Jack Layton is geting awfully repetitive. I think the Green Party can only get stronger. I'm not sure how i feel about their stategy of stubbornly running in every single riding, because that oftens means bringing in candidates that aren't strong, experienced, or even local. But I am in love with the Green's platform and even if they don't win any seats this time around, I think they'll only get stronger from here on out, and I think it'll be a lot harder to keep them out of the debate next election.