Campaign Coverage
Margaret found this North Shore News article covering me and one of the other North Shore Greens, Ryan Windsor and I thought that I'd share it here. If you see any other coverage, (good or bad) do let me know eh?
My First Debate
I participated in my first political debate last night -- as a candidate anyway. It was scary, humbling, nerve-racking, enlightening and altogether exciting. Overall, I would call it a positive experience.
Held in a United church, I took a seat at the table at the front of the sanctuary with the three other candidates Jane Thornthwaite (Liberal), Mo Norton (NDP), and Gary Hee (Conservative) and we fielded questions one at a time on a variety of topics. I didn't really like the format, as it didn't allow candidates to respond to claims by their competitors unless they were next in line, but for the most part the tone was civil and respectful (though the audience did get rather belligerent toward the Liberal candidate a few times.
For my part, I suppose that I performed as expected. As first-time candidates often do, I lacked polish, used some terminology that shall we say, "didn't resonate well with some people" and most importantly choked on the first two questions as they were in areas on which I wasn't all that well versed yet.
After those first two though, I got my act together and did very well. I was clear, concise and did a very good job and positioning the Greens as a viable alternative to the Liberals & NDP.
When it was all over, I had a number of people take a moment to come up to me and congratulate me on a good debate and let me know that I'd flipped their vote away from one of the other candidates. I can't tell you how good that felt. Though I clearly could have done better, I am quite proud of myself :-)
I'd also like to take a moment here to thank my brother, Melanie, Margaret and Quinn for coming out to support me last night. As intimidating as the whole process was, having them in the audience really did make it so much easier on me. Thank you so much guys.
My next (and last?) debate is this Thursday at 7pm. As Quinn & Melanie took notes for me from this last debate, I shall endeavour to remedy my previous shortcomings and give the other candidates another run for their money then.
So This STV Thing... How's it Work?
So I've been hearing a lot of comments about how hard-to-understand STV is (cough)Stephen(cough). Specifically, the complaint has been that while the method of voting is easy (just rank your favourites), the counting system is too complicated to be considered democratic. Seriously people, it's really easy to understand. Here it is, in all its cartoony glory:
Stephen, feel free to use this in your class :-). As far as credit goes, I'm afraid I'm not that talented. The animation was produced by the Citizens Assembly on Electoral Reform.
BC-STV Television Ad
Everyone knows that if you want people to hear about something, the best place to start is Television. The BC-STV campaign has recently produced this ad in the hopes of drawing more attention to the upcoming referrendum and they need your help to get it on the air:
Help put this ad on TV! | British Columbians for BC-STV: May 12, 2009.
Granted, it's not big on the details, you have to go to the website for that, but that's not what a 30second spot is for. The idea is to get you interested enough to talk about it with your friends and do your own research and I think that this video does it well.
Please visit the donations page and send them $5, $10 or even $100 if you're so inclined to help this thing get on the air.
