Colin's Blog

I have been pretty quiet about the passing of Jack Layton. I hesitated to acknowledge his death publicly because I disagreed with him, and his NDP colleagues, on so many things it seemed disingenuous to suddenly gush about him simply because he had died. Then I saw this photo.

Remembering Jack Layton at Nathan Phillips Square | Flickr – Photo Sharing!.

Taken by Jackman Chiu yesterday, the image captures a fleeting moment in Canadian political history that I doubt will ever be repeated. Indeed, the chalk remembrances created in Nathan Phillips Square were washed clean just hours later by a powerful storm.

Jack Layton was the most remarkable politician this country has seen in decades. Remarkable not for his ideas or policies or electoral successes but for his ability to say “Follow me” and elicit a response like this. I can think of only one other politician who so deftly seduced Canadians with equal amounts of charm and tenacity. It will be interesting to see now if their sons can follow their fathers into the hearts of Canadians.

I decided quite a while ago that I would keep partisan politics off this blog – for a variety of reasons. This post is consistent (just barely) with that policy because it deals more with the philosophy of liberalism rather than the politics of the Liberal party. More than that, I feel compelled to share this as widely as possible because I think we’ve managed to forget – in only a few weeks or months – what liberalism really means. To be fair, I think we’ve also conveniently forgotten what conservatism and democratic socialism mean. continue reading…

photo credit: dmixo6

As the Facebook group “Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament” began to approach 100,000 members (it currently sits at about 95,500) it struck me that the movement was constrained by Facebook’s walled garden. Naturally, I did something about it.

Tonight I was happy to flip the switch on NoProrogue.ca – a new website intended to take the anti-prorogue movement beyond Facebook. The site is completely community-managed – anyone can contribute blog posts and manage local event pages. Seriously.

In the few minutes since the first blog post went up, it’s been retweeted a bunch and traffic is already out-pacing this blog!

If you think prorogation was wrong, give the site a visit – and perhaps tell us all why in a blog post!

All Harper said was: “Well, Barack, when I get my majority…”

It's a photo caption contest! Leave your captions in the comments.

Photo courtesy of the White House

As I’m sure you know, we’re witnessing an historic time Canadian politics – and if you know me at all, you know that there’s nothing I love more than political drama – especially if it involves the constitution!

Over the last day or so, I’ve been asked by several people to explain just what the heck is going on up in Ottawa. So far I haven’t been able to explain it well enough in emails and Facebook messages so I thought I’d host a little webTV show to talk about the vote of no confidence and the proposed coalition government.

I invite you to join me right here on Thursday, December 4^th at 9pm to discuss the political situation and get a better understanding of just what’s going on. You can ask questions through the chat window that appears either to the right of or below the viewer, depending on where you’re watching this channel. Think of it as a ‘type-in’ show rather than a call-in show.

If you think you can help me explain what’s going on, and you have a webcam, send me an email to request an invite. liveweb@colincarmichael.ca

You can tune in to the live web broadcast in two places:

http://colincarmichael.ca/tv/

http://www.mogulus.com/ccarmichael

I hope you’ll join me Thursday night. See you then.

I’ve mused before about the possibility of a tie in the Electoral College this week. I think it’s still possible even with Obama’s strong showing over the last several weeks.

Here’s the LATimes current analysis: (They have the coolest maps)

Here’s my best shot at what an Electoral College tie would look like:

What would it take?
* McCain takes Florida, Colorado & Virginia from the Obama column
* McCain takes the three tossups: Indiana, Ohio & North Carolina

A fairly plausible scenario.

Another possibility is that New Hampshire gets weird and goes red again. In that case, to maintain the tie, McCain would have to give up Colorado and take New Mexico instead. Either of those southwestern states are a possibility for McCain and New Hampshire is a New England maverick – having gone red in 2000.

Yet another scenario sees Michigan going to McCain, and Virginia, Colorado and New Mexico to Obama. Not as likely, but still plausible.

Update: I almost forgot to add what I think is going to happen…

Obama by just 7 electoral college votes.

At the Cambridge Reporter meetup on Tuesday, an interesting discussion sprang up about transparency of media bias.

Here’s what I said, more or less:

No-one is truly objective. I’d rather know where my media talking heads are coming from than to try to decipher disingenuous attempts at sounding un-biased. In other words, journalists should wear their opinions, political and otherwise, on their sleeves in the interest of transparency and fairness. I also said that I’d rather have Bill O’Reilly anchor the nightly news on Fox and Keith Olbermann anchor the news on NBC because at least then I know how much salt to apply and where. Williams, Kouric, etc, have zero credibility for me because I don’t know where they stand.

In the Canadian context, there are no O’Reillys or Olbermanns that I’m aware of because even our commentators bend over backwards to apply criticism evenly. Rex Murphy would be so much more credible, for example, if he was open about his true opinion – not to mention Peter Mansbridge and Lloyd Robertson.

When I watch Steve Paikin on The Agenda with reps from each party – I constantly wonder – who’s he secretly rooting for here? Because he is – he’s human.

Why is it that Jon Stewart is increasingly becoming the primary source of political news for my demographic? Part of it is his humour to be sure – but part of it also is that he’s not afraid to let his guests and his audiences know where he’s coming from. He’s not bound by archaic and deceptive ‘code of journalism’ that expects the press to pretend they are doing the impossible – be objective.

I remember watching the 1995 Quebec Referendum through the national media because, though a Montrealer by birth, I had since moved to central Ontario. I distinctly remember watching Quebecois journalists on CBC and CTV reporting on the campaigns in their diluted, objective way and screaming at them in my head to “Please just tell me what you think! I’m not there – you are!”

Chantal Hebert is well respected journalist in Quebec – but I can’t trust a single thing she says about the Bloc Quebecois because I have no idea where she stands on the sovereignty issue. I’ve heard her both praise and criticize the BQ on tactics but those are delivered through a Quebecoise filter that either agrees or disagrees with the Bloc in principle. So which is it? Are they right or wrong? I can’t trust you, Chantal, if I don’t know you.

So that was a little more than what I said the other night, but you get the idea.

My question to you, then, is this:

Should we allow and encourage the members of the press to shed their artificial objectivity in the interest of transparency and full reporting?

Did you know that it’s possible to tie the Presidential election?

The Presidential election is decided by Electoral College votes which are distributed among the fifty states roughly by population – California gets lots, Delaware not so much. There are 538 electoral college votes up for grabs – and they way they are distributed makes it entirely possible that the election could end in a tie! Using the LA Times interactive Electoral College map (hat tip) it’s clear that not only is it possible – it’s really not much of a stretch.

What are the odds of this happening?

In the video below, Democratic Presidential front-runner Barack Obama talks about social networking and its impact on his campaign at a private function in Silicon Valley. In particular, he mentions the ability to create organizations in Idaho and Kansas throught the online social nets before the campaign apparatus was involved. He also muses that these technology-enabled grass-roots movements have reduced the impact of high-profile endorsements and dogmatic special interest groups.

Most interesting, however, was his mention the potential to apply “these same principles” to government.

More details about the event at zenvalley.com.

(via Geoff Livingston)

Why? Because everyone will stay home on election day. Conservatives will stay home because McCain is too moderate.  Progressives will stay home because Clinton is too establishment. Moderates will stay home because neither candidates is scary enough to force a decision. Hawks will stay home because neither is strong enough on the war in Iraq. Doves will stay home because both supported the war in Iraq.

So who’s left? Not many. This scenario will almost certainly accelerate the democratic deficit in America that has seen voter turnout numbers tumble in recent elections.