Electoral advice

So we're having an election in the next few months, unless the NDP is able to out-weasel themselves.

This would make the fourth election in five years. That's a lot of elections. I'm okay with that - and I think most people are - on one condition.

We get this one right.

That's a very large 'we', but I'll break it down for specific groups.

For the voters, keep up the good work. You're doing the best you can with the extremely limited information you're given. It'd be nice if more of you came out and exercised your democratic rights, but I can't really fault you at all for being jaded.

For the media...you've got a bit more on your plate. Realize that you're not in the business of giving free advertising to any party (or all the parties). Giving a balanced story is a nice ideal, but it shouldn't be adhered to at the expense of truth. If you're working on a story about a new breakthrough in cancer treatment, and the doctor you're interviewing refuses to talk about anything but the completely unrelated issue of emergency room wait times, do you run that interview? Of course not. So why run an interview with a politician who didn't answer your questions?

There is some evidence that the media is waking up to this fact already. For example, this clip of Conservative question-dodger John Baird from yesterday. It starts around 1:30, with a Francophone reporter I don't recognize asking a question and Baird answering a completely different one. Then Global's David Akin asks a question that sounds more like a scolding. Then the first woman complains that her question wasn't answered, and Baird still doesn't answer it.

This is all good. Politicians seem to think they'll get on the news no matter what they say - and maybe they will under the current conditions, but under ideal circumstances, politicians only make the news when it fits with the story the journalist wants to tell. If the Canadian media as a whole is ready to head back in that direction, we'll all be better off for it.

My final words of advice are to politicians, and primarily to Conservatives and Liberals (as well as those who work for them). It makes sense to think that the more you move toward the centre of the political spectrum, the better you'll do in the election. But that's not really the case - the more you move to the centre, the less likely you're going to give voters any real reason to vote for your party policy-wise, and the more voters you'll lose to parties further from the centre. You need to give voters an identity, a brand, something they can remember besides "that guy looks good on TV" - despite what some people think, the voters respond well to politicians who have well-communicated ideas.

Drop the attack ads. We can come up with our own negative perceptions, and you're not telling us why we should vote for you in any case.

Is this a pipe dream? Probably. But by putting our political culture in a position where it is seen as detached from the realities of the country, where elections are seen as a chore, where the media coverage is something to be manipulated rather than something to be achieved, our politicans are ensuring themselves of a no-win, catch-22 situation where significant policy won't come until a majority government does, and a majority government is out of reach as long as policy isn't proposed.

--Ryan