Wednesday, April 29, 2009

The Election No One Cared About

I am an election junkie, I can not help myself, I love watching and taking part in the game of politics, but this BC election is the most dead one I have been around in my life. No one seems to care about this one other than the terminally politically addicted and the hopelessly partisan.

I ask everyone I interact with about their opinions on the election. Servers, colleagues, people at kids events, people in line at Starbucks, people in the bar watching hockey, and anywhere else I can talk to people. The public I am talking to is not interested in this election and hates the two main choices in the election.

  • There is no issue driving in this election
  • There is no passion in the electorate
  • The NDP campaign is a rambling amateurish ball of negativity
  • The Greens have not moblized people on the ground
  • The Liberals are competent as government but blandly visionless for the future


I having trouble finding interesting places for commentary on the election. There are a few good blogs, but they are not enough to satisfy my habit.

Last time around I was completely subsumed by the BC STV campaign. There was more of an on the ground buzz with electoral reform last time, this time people are just not that interested in coming out and learning more.

We have so few polls and they tell us less than ever that tea leaf reading is getting almost impossible.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Bernard, I agree.

'79, '83, '86, '91, '96, '01, '05 was full of voter anger and emotion.

This one's a dud. Nobody I know even cares.

Voter turnout might be abysmal this time around.

Anonymous said...

If voter turnout is abysmal, wouldn't that help the NDP and the greenies who have large number of ideologicall fired "true believers"?

Mr Squid said...

I doubt that there are a lot of ideologically-fired true believers left in BC. Those who are still around probably get media attention far in excess of their numbers. I have no idea what the Greens are like now, but the NDP lost any of their ideological credibility when they let the Vancouver transit strike last for four-and-a-half months a few years ago. A low voter turn out is going to favour the status-quo, which means four more years of the neo-Socreds.