Monday, September 19, 2011

PC First Ballot Results

It is not often that I will argue in favor of streamlining procedures - there's something about bogging everything down in nonsensical garbage that appeals to my inner procrastinator - but the PC leadership vote is definitely one of those times.

Since the top candidate, Gary Mar (Gary. Mar.) failed to garner at least 50% of the vote there will be a second vote on October 1st to decide between the top three; Mr. Mar, Ms. Redford, and Mr. Horner. What I don't understand is why they did not simply include the option for a second choice. I have no math to support it, but I suspect that it could have made enough of a difference to save us the multiple election obnoxiousness.

In fact, if I were to put my Paranoid Pants on for a moment, I would even suggest that the process was intended to favor one candidate over another...

I have tried to maintain a non-partisan stance for this blog but in the face of this development, I will cast aside the veil. Mr. Mar's campaign is running on two strengths: selling memberships ("My job is very clear over the next two weeks, I've got to get out there and sell more memberships and our team is going to do that.") and appealing to emotions (Albertans working on Albertans). This stance completely benefits from the extra two weeks to sell memberships (His volunteers were even accused of selling memberships illegal) and the sad fact is that people who are motivated by emotions, rather than rationality, are more motivated to get out and vote multiple times and more motivated to push their views on other people (passion begets passion). I can make no secret of the fact that his rude treatment of the debate announcer bothered me.

Ms. Redford, the next most likely candidate, is running a campaign based on intelligence, something I suspect even the other candidates know; there were several points where Ms. Redford silenced the room just by speaking, a privilege the other candidates were not afforded. She was the most effective at deliberately answering questions put to her, although I suspect this will not help her in the campaign since actually answering questions in politics is 'not done'. The two weeks will be useful for her to get out and start knocking on doors to sway folks over, but will make it hard to maintain her original voting base, since the brain does not motivate people to get on out and vote with the same intensity as emotions do. To be honest, she is my choice of candidate, and perhaps the threat that she may not win might be enough to push people like me to the voting booth.

In my opinion, the difference between these candidates is who we want to become. So far the "Angry Albertan take-back-what's-ours" stance has not served us very well, and I think Mr. Mar is promising more of the same, but using more people and money to do it. As Ms. Redford has said, "We're going to keep talking to every one of our supporters and make sure people know change is possible." In essence, she's the candidate we deserve, but not the candidate we want.

No comments: