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A television website sage gave the Cool Factor honour to the Conservative Party site for featuring a Podcast of Stephen Harper. He should have followed up by asking how many people saw it and sent their iPods back to Apple. Fool Factor would be a better term when describing federal election web sites. The political parties have mostly died on the web, but there is some indication of rebirth. I mention rebirth because the Green Party and the NDP web sites are now nicer to view and browse. I didn’t enjoy them at first, but they grew on me and in content over time. Front page content in the form of large issues graphics changes every day or so for the Liberals, Conservatives and NDP. An example would be the Conservatives’ recent map of Canada and the news that the Liberals Failed to Defend Canadian Sovereignty by allowing a US nuclear sub to pass through our Arctic waters. Two days before Christmas the Liberals featured a huge Harper photo and attacked him for crossing the line in accusing Paul Martin of supporting a sovereign Quebec and not valuing parents. At the same time Jack Layton escaped to the North and the NDP site featured him and a First Nations Chief. The Conservatives like to look stern and serious. Their news release gallery is called Reality Check. This isn’t the CBC version, but mostly attacks on the Liberals and NDP. Stories like “Paul Martin - The High Flying Polluter”. A news release that points out that the Conservative Airbus campaign plane is greener than the Liberals’ Boeing. The Tory airbus may even be greener than Sun reporter Greg Weston’s campaign Hummer SUV. Web videos for the Conservatives as well as for the Liberals and NDP take forever to load in tiny postage stamp screens, and that’s on new machines with high-speed Internet. Most people would give up on watching them. Only political parties and the government could harness new technology and deliver so little with it. With more ads, the Conservatives deliver the least as far as genuine content goes. Their send an eCard, which is really a Tory flash election ad, is one of the most absurd features I’ve seen. You can choose between Stand Up For Canada, Cut the GST and Accountability. All of the cards feature a grinning Stephen Harper. They also have C-boutique, where you can order Tory T-shirts, watches, lapel pins, golf umbrellas and leather attaché cases. A Jack Russell dog wearing a kerchief is at the bottom of the C-boutique page and I hope it bites some Tory ass for this crass attempt at selling items to the voters. The Conservative CPC Energy Youth Campaign Blog is what-I-did-on-my-vacation stuff, and though the Liberal blog has been attacked for reading like a teenage girl’s diary, the Tory blog may actually be one. Here’s a sample. “Meet local Conservative youth supporters (big photo included) Spencer and Joel, who set up a root beer and popcorn cart and took turns offering "tasty bags of Liberal arrogance" to passers-by.” Stephen Harper is once again presented as scary by the Liberals. But my question is whether the old Harper speech they quote is really scarier than the Conservative Party web site. Like the other party sites their policy is presented in blurb form, and even in that form the substance or lack of it is frightening. Their idea of “consolidating security services under a new National Security Commissioner” frightens me a fair bit. Without details I have to believe this person will be little big brother, under the wing of Bigger Brother Harper. Harper’s “ending all defence loopholes for child pornography” immediately brings to mind a new assault on art and freedom of speech. And of course there is Harper’s desire to expand free trade and tie us to the skirts of right-wing Americans. The Conservatives say they will represent ordinary Canadians, but I suppose that depends on whether ordinary Canadians want privatized health care and an end to most gun control. Ordinary voters will have to decide if the Conservatives are scary or if they’re cool iPod cats using their tech powers to end government corruption and lower the GST. One hint in making this decision is that the Conservative site first told people that the donations page was secure. It wasn’t and this may indicate that they are telling us we’ll be secure with them in office when we really won’t be. The Liberals have a web site that is similar to the Conservative site in features. The front policy photo changes regularly, providing a lot of work for Martin’s official photographer. For election ads you can watch two versions of “There are over 30 Million Reasons to Vote Liberal – What’s Yours.” Also included is an exciting replay of “The Accomplishments of Paul Martin’s Minority Government.” My personal view is that the Liberal web site is not one of the 30 Million Reasons to Vote Liberal. The message in the Liberal ads is that they have become a party valuing fiscal management. The Liberal actors are identified in the web version of the videos as party insiders and I find that they mostly look like young business people. One blogger accused them of reading financial statistics from a Teleprompter. They see Paul Martin as standing up to the US, but that is on large trade issues and not much else. Liberals are portrayed as the party of rights and equality, but only in general terms and not in a fine-tuned way where social programs are actually delivered to those at the bottom. Low unemployment and a balanced budget are probably not the product of Liberal vision as is claimed, but more likely a product of low interest rates, and the Liberals’ robbing of the EI fund to boost other budget items. They do stress the Gas Tax, funding for green infrastructure, health and daycare plans, so the Liberals are still in the ballpark when it comes to being socially progressive. Yet that becomes less believable when they have a web reference from the Canadian Council of Chief Executives. Their pushing of the hot-button handgun issue has also drawn attention away from their bread and butter policies. The Liberal website also features downloads of desktop wallpaper and contains two gems you wouldn’t want to miss - Belinda Stronach desktop wallpaper and Paul Martin with Buzz Hargrove wallpaper. Buzz and Paul had their arms raised in victory on my desktop for nearly a full day. Blogs have been a minefield for the Liberals, getting them nabbed first for silliness and then for racism and profanity. Mike Klander, an executive vice-president of the federal Liberals' Ontario wing put up a site that featured a picture of NDP candidate Olivia Chow beside a chow chow dog. He titled it "Separated at Birth." He included a list of the top ten things that will make him sick during the campaign. I won’t reprint them but I will mention that he’s been forced to resign. Scott Feschuk’s Blackberry Blog is Official Liberal Cool Factor though the Conservatives point out that it is only in English. Feschuk is Paul Martin’s speech writer and to email him you click an icon of a gorilla. Blogs are now considered strong marketing tools (but that’s only if you can keep from hate-mongering.) It is hard to say what the blogosphere is as some call it niche media and commentary while many pages are now from corporate media. The readers of blogs are mostly younger than 36 and the CBC’s web site critic has hit on the political parties for failing to “exploit” these readers. Scott Feschuk’s third person referral to himself as Blog Boy irritates me as he is more like Martin’s minister of propaganda. He admits early on in the blog that he has been described as "shameful" by the chief strategist of the University of Toronto's McLuhan Program. The accuser says that the Liberal blog really does read like a teenage girl's diary.
Feschuk’s blog contains many literary gems, but most descriptive of it
is probably the opening which is – “November 29th - Day One 6:36 AM -
Wow, look at me! I'm in "cyberspace," where no one can hear you scream.
Or maybe they CAN hear you scream but they don't pay attention because
they're too busy looking at naked ladies. Either way, stop screaming,
would you? Fact Check is the Liberal news release page which is a bunch of attack articles on Harper and Layton. Plus the front page of the site always has at least one attack article below the feature. After the French debate they had that famous photo of Layton, Harper and Duceppe all wearing the same kind of tie … with the story being, “Pundits Pan Opposition Debate Performance.” The NDP web site like the Liberal and Conservative sites has a changing front page. For example, they had a subway train and the caption “Our Commitment to Public Transit.” The policy note being that the NDP wants to increase the Gas Tax Transfer to municipalities to the full five cents. Jack makes a statement about Toronto Liberals, “Liberals are Toronto’s version of the Seinfeld show. A Toronto caucus about nothing….” The NDP also include stuff below the front page billboard. Currently they have an attack on Harper’s plan for BC, a link to their video ads, and a graphic link to their policy on seniors. At the beginning of the campaign the NDP had a page called “Average Canadian or Liberal Insider” with photo evidence that people playing voters in Liberal ads are really … you guessed it, LIBERALS. NDP Rapid Response news gallery is better titled than the others. It’s a daily response policy statement and attack on at least one of the other parties. Rapid Response clicked in when the media had Jack Layton in support of privatized medicine. The response was, “Let's be clear: Jack Layton and the New Democratic Party of Canada do not support further privatization of the health system.” The NDP, if you study their own words on the web site, are better described as the liberal Liberals. They’ve taken many classic liberal stances. With the balance of power they got the Liberals to give more to things like child care and poverty, housing, cheaper tuition, worker training, worker protection from bankruptcies and international aid. After every web site policy blurb the NDP tells us that “Electing more NDP MPs means more will get done.” But not much will be done by them if they don’t win more seats or grab the balance of power. NDP computer desktop wallpaper, especially the hideous puke green variety wins the ugly award. NDP ads were first released online and are about the same as those of the Tories and the Liberals. They have the anti corporate tax cut ad and the other two are straight talk from Jack Layton on Liberal corruption and the environment … pushing the idea that the Liberals speak only for their friends and mentioning that pollution is up and Canadians are living under boil water orders. The Green Party web site has fast improved. I disliked it at first but they now have detailed alternative policy pieces. Articles like, “A comprehensive plan to reduce the incidence of cancer, facilitate treatment and improve quality of life” and “A strategic plan to cut emissions, improve air quality, and boost the economy.” A National Cancer-fighting Strategy is an example of a realistic program that is in Green territory where the big parties rarely tread. A proposal to enshrine basic environmental rights like the right to clean air, soil and water in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is another interesting policy. Other policies include ending federal support for the seal hunt and killing off roadside zoos. The Greens are pushing for a Corporate Social Responsibility Act. They now have the Green Media Relations Team blog, which is another traveler’s diary mixed with Green spin and candidate promotion. Another green blog is at Green-blogger.com. For video the Green Party presents you with Energy Tips with David Chernushenko of Ottawa Centre. These exciting web videos show you how to save energy on your water heater, insulation, furnace, washer and dryer. They also cover your office and are a must-see for green yuppie nerds. These videos download and play full screen, which makes them better than Conservative postage stamp video. Online Goods for Greens are stickers plus toques and T-shirts made from organic cotton. I like Green Party desktop wallpaper. I replaced my Belinda Stronach Liberal desktop wallpaper with the think-green Sunflower. But make sure it is the wallpaper you download and not the horrible gallery of Jim Harris desktop photos. “We can” is the Green motto … and they have an online petition for people who want them included in the debates. But so far “They can’t” – get included or win a seat, but they will put out more new releases attacking Jack Layton’s green record. Making it clear that their motto is really “We can’t” - when it comes to attacking the big Liberal and Conservative fish. They feel it’s easier to take a bite out of the NDP. The Bloc Quebecois site is nearly all in French. They include a blog that allows dissenting comments and that has won them praise. For goodies they include some old scandal wallpaper of golf balls and ties and MP3 files and now have an English PDF abstract of their policies. It is titled, “Thankfully, here, It’s the Bloc.” And I hope the title works better in French. Their policy begins with a push for sovereignty, with the party seeing itself as little more than an arm of the Quebec National Assembly. They also want Quebec to have its own place in all international forums. Alberta and oil companies will be taxed and more money transferred to Quebec. They end each policy blurb with the word sovereignty, but it is clear that the Bloc is a party of Sovereignty Association. On the campaign trail they beat the drums of Gomery and Liberal corruption leaving the voters across Canada unaware as to their real agenda. The Marijuana Party has a website with an animated graphic of a cannabis leaf and the message “Happy Cannabis to You and a Happy New Leaf!” There is nothing much on the site as there aren’t any candidate photos and the policy page says only “Legalize marijuana. And legalize a revolution.”
We are
left with the thought that these people will be stoned until well into
January … and that maybe the other parties should do the same. |
