The Point

Sunday, October 07, 2007

Losing my F.E.M.E. cherry

So I'm pretty excited. As you probably know, I'm a bit of an informed cynic about politics in general; enough faith in the systems to know what will be useful when we abandon them for something a lot better, but probably a political junkie the way other people like to watch famous people going to jail. Or train wrecks. Or something. Someone once told me Americans are benevolently uninformed about Canada, and Canadians are malevolently well-informed about the US. Along those lines.

But I kind of like being the nerd who goes to all-candidates forums and gives every one a fair, critical listen. It gives me some quiet pleasure to know I've actually taken the time to sit through 5 or 10 politicians talking out of their ass for an hour or two and will be making a reasoned, well-thought out decision never ever to vote for them. And this year, my friends, is my First Ever Municipal Election.

What does it feel like to lose my F.E.M.E. cherry? Well, for the first time ever I've put up a sign in my window for a candidate. Since they don't come in any partisan shades of orange or red or blue that say 'Here lives a socialist' or 'Here lives a fiscal conservative', I felt genuinely and 100% confident about taking out some scotch tape and fidgeting with my (not very hard-earned) down-cyclable sign for Mr Lewis Cardinal, Ward 4. Ain't Edmonton great? Lewis is smart, passionate, talks about social justice and sustainability that makes it easy to see he gets his talking points from his convictions, not the other way around, and to make it even juicier, his brother is Lorne Cardinal, the guy from Corner Gas. How awesome is that?

But we get two votes for City Council round these parts, and right now it looks like my other vote is leaning toward either Hana Razga or Ben Henderson. Initially, I was willing to discount Ben altogether because his signs were out so suspiciously early and conspicuously, but he had some very reasonable, intelligent things to say at the forum last Thursday. Unfortunately, he should have been roundly beaten by Hana, who has many ideas along the same track in a more well-thought out way. Some that are even pretty ambitious. I like that.

She didn't win that forum, though. Not by a long shot. Despite a number of ideas I could get behind, she's not a very compelling speaker (or, at least, not in that kind of environment). It's possible to chalk this up to the extremely, humiliatingly poor attendance of about 30 in the Myer Horowitz. Issues about our sham mislabelling of ourselves as an informed electorate aside though, she just doesn't have the buzz to get a seat right now.

So. With a week and and a bit to go til the polls on October 15th, I ponder... should I get involved in a campaign? For a candidate I believe in? In a system I don't believe in? I'm tempted by the opportunity to do so without having to hear people's minds shut down once they hear the words 'conservative,' or 'liberal,' or 'separatist gunshot-toting baby-hating plague-bearers.' But should I really get mixed up in who wins Monopoly when I'd rather we look ahead to Twister and Jenga?

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posted by Christopher at 6:28 a.m.

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