"Is Stephen Harper a Hologram," and Other Pressing Questions of our Times

In Maclean's this week, Rick Mercer joined the press corps and followed the leaders around their campaigns, prompting him to ask the titular question.

The Harper campaign is far and away the most disciplined, the most professional and the most scripted. Every word is on a teleprompter, it is delivered in exactly the same way, and the Prime Minister does something I have, in a lifetime of watching live performers onstage, never seen before: he actually stops and sips his water in the same spot every time. Nothing is left to chance. Either that or he is a hologram on a loop.

This is what happens without the teleprompter:

And I will never forget the chilly Newfoundland morning when Stephen Harper faced not just a disappointingly low turnout, but a cantankerous teleprompter that left him standing on centre ice at a hockey rink in total silence for seven long seconds. Eventually our quick-witted leader said, “Jeremy, could you bring me my notes?” a sentence he kept repeating until Jeremy did just that. Thank God for Jeremy, because this mercifully allowed Harper to begin the same speech that he had given 50 times since the campaign began. Nine minutes later it was over: “Chaos is lapping at our shores,” “thank you and goodbye.”

The Liberal and NDP campaigns sound like a lot more fun. Meanwhile, Mercer finishes off with this reflection on the changing nature of campaigning:

Very soon a national leader is going to make a quantum leap and launch a national campaign by staying home. He or she will enter a bunker in Ottawa and from there they will Skype streaming video into 10 curling rinks in 10 provinces in one night. They will hold a dozen town halls in a single afternoon. They will take or refuse questions from all over Canada from all sorts of people. By staying home they will reach more Canadians.

I don't think this is going to happen anytime soon--I think Canadians still very much value a politician who is willing to come out and meet with them personally. But it's a thought.

Hologram or not, Stephen Harper is considered by Canadians to be "the best to get things done", while Jack Layton narrowly wins as the leader who would make the best prime minister. Michael Ignatieff polled a distant third, with Canadians apparently finding him neither competent nor likeable.

Carleton Vote Mob/The Movement Gains Strength!

Here's the Carleton University vote mob.  I love the intro with Rick Mercer and George Strombolopoulos!



Also, by the way, #votemob is a trending topic on Twitter right now. Oh yeah! WIN.

Here's the piece on vote mobs from the CBC on Friday, it's worth a watch.

Friday Night Brain Break

New tumblr: Things Harper Does to Seem Human.

Check out The Bacon Party of Canada. Their notes are my favourite. Straight-up hilarious parodies of campaign ad rhetoric.

Leavin' Stephen:


Lead Now parodies "I AM CANADIAN":


Steve Paikin interviews Rick Mercer:

We're "doing it"

VICTORY

Article from the Globe & Mail reproduced here in full.

Oh geez, Rick Mercer, what have you started?

There you were on national television urging Canadian kids to get off their butts and vote.

And suddenly students across the country, inspired by the way kids the University of Guelph reacted to your rant, were putting together these things called vote mobs.

The students at the University of Victoria did it.

The students at the University of Ottawa did it.

The students at UNBC did it.

So did students at the University of Calgary and at McMaster University and at McGill University.

And more vote mobs are being planned at the University of Waterloo, and Queen’s and Carleton and the University of Toronto and Yukon College and UBC.

They’ve even got a web page.

And they are using Facebook and Twitter to organize these things.

Now, if there is one thing worse than having mobs of unruly kids expressing an interest in democracy, surely it’s having them actually take part in an election.

Remember last time, when only 37 per cent of eligible voters between 18 and 24 turned out to the polling stations on election day? Remember how easy it was then for political parties to tailor their platforms to the people they can count on to cast large numbers of ballots – the seniors?

Now what are they going to do? They are going to have to start talking about things like the environment and drug policy and tuition.

Well thanks a lot, Rick. Thanks a heck of a lot.

Some Funny/Awesome Stuff in Case You Are Bored

OK, so I have been a little bit in absentia today, and will be kind of in and out over the next few days on account of I Work Hard For My Tuition! Also: Final Papers Gah! Howsomever, here are some Things For You:



Pretty awesome, eh?

From last week: speculating on the leaders' pillow talk.

ALSO: Did you know that Rick Mercer writes for Maclean's now? Everything he writes is hilarious.

So the other day while googling "vote against apathy" (I am now 4 of the top 7 hits, including videos) I discovered that a few weeks ago someone tweeted about my blog, and I'm pretty sure I went to high school with this someone, which is cool. Or is it creepy that I remember that? Probably creepy.

Anyway. French-language debate coming up in less than an hour, and then I will be back to the Serious, Hard-Hitting Coverage you expect of me. But hopefully this will tide you over until then.

Watch This for It Is Awesome

Flash Mob at U Guelph!

This is pretty inspiring.



I especially love the line, "Vote for the Canada you want." Too true, too true.

I can only hope that other campuses across the country follow Guelph's lead. Hopefully some of them will use this awesome song as a rallying cry:



Is it just me, or is youth mobilization being led by/crystallizing around Rick Mercer?

Why do I say things when Rick Mercer always says them so much better?

Here are two Rick Mercer videos, one yesterday's rant, the other a promotion for the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations (CASA)'s Students Need to Vote website. Mercer is talking about why it's so vitally important that young people (and particularly students) vote. Everything he says is spot on, as usual. Transcripts below (anglais seulement).





Rick's Rant - Vote

So there we have it, we are heading into an election or, as Stephen Harper calls it, a dangerous and unnecessary exercise. Because as we all know, Canada is one of the world's greatest democracies and the greatest threat to that democracy is that we get to vote. But vote we will.

So that means if you live in a retirement home, prepare to be targeted. Because these days it’s all about targeting the vote. All the major parties have well publicized plans to target the ethnic vote, the women's vote, the blue-collar vote, the corporate vote. If there were more then five paraplegic lesbian Inuit women in Labrador they would be a target.

Everyone is targeted, except for one group, the youth vote.

There are more than three million young eligible voters in this country and as far as any of the political parties are concerned, you might as well all be dead. In fact in some elections, in Quebec for example, the dead have a higher voter turn out.

It is the conventional wisdom of all political parties that young people will not vote. And the parties, they like it that way. It's why your tuition keeps going up.

So please, if you're between the age of 18 and 25 and you want to scare the hell out of the people that run this country, this time around do the unexpected. Take 20 minutes out of your day and do what young people all around the world are dying to do.

Vote.

Get out to vote students!

Hello students, I'm RIck Mercer. You know, throughout my career, I've had the opportunity to meet many of the men and women who represent us in the House of Commons. I've heard a lot of divergent views on the direction that this country should, or should not, be heading. But there is one issue where all the major parties seem to agree. Students don't vote. According to the major political parties, you might as well be a prisoner doing federal time, because they believe you don't vote and never will. Now I know very well that politicians are not always correct--if they were I wouldn't have a job--but on this particular issue, I hope they're wrong. There are one million students in this country and believe me, if you showed up to vote, your tuition would never go up again, and post-secondary education would finally become a priority. So the next time we have an election, please deliver some shock and awe to the powers that be. Show up and vote, and you may end up with a government that's on your side.