And now, the end is near...
posted: 10/14/2008 12:04PM by Mark Campbell

My name is Mark Campbell and I'm a voter. In fact, I have been one for quite some time. I don't actually recall how it started. I remember it had something to do with a party, as most of these things will. Some people suggested I try voting, that it was cool and everybody did it. So I tried it and, well, I was hooked.

 
School daze
posted: 10/13/2008 01:15PM by Mark Campbell

Watching the eneless parade of political ads during last night's Amazing Race, I felt like a kid at Christmas. One minute, it's the Liberals telling me not to vote for Harper because he turned his back on Canadians, punctuated by a shot of Harper with his back to the camera to ensure I got the message. The next, it's Elizabeth May philosophizing on a train or meeting the voters. Later, it's a turly condescending ad, featuring a mother and daughter, that reminds viewers that Harper is not a leader. (I'll try to parse that one later today if Thanksgiving Pizza - that's right, pizza, google it .

 
I'm sorry, I'll read that again
posted: 10/10/2008 08:01AM by Mark Campbell

Remember that famous moment from Fahrenheit 9/11 where Bush, informed about the Trade Center attacks, kept reading to the kids? It was a moment Michael Moore seized on to demonstrate that Bush is not a leader.

So you can understan .

 
Sympathy for the Copywriter
posted: 10/09/2008 02:47PM by donveinish

As the election ad campaigns wind down, I find myself at once amazed and reminding myself that I shouldn't be, at the mediocrity that pervades them all. After all, most advertising is mediocre. Why should political advertising be different? Especially since even more "thinking," from even more people probably goes into these kinds of ads. Almost any example would do to illustrate this but one TV commercial in particular comes to mind because I saw it for the first time just recently. It features a party leader saying that, while another party is concerned with putting money on BOARDROOM tab .

 
The dating game
posted: 10/08/2008 03:56PM by Mark Campbell

There are a number of new Liberal Party ads on the party's website, all long on attacks on both the NDP and the Conservatives, and very, very short on Stephane Dion. Seriously. His picture appears so briefly in one it was like a subliminal message.

It's strange that the Party continues to downplay its leader in the wake of what several pundits felt was a strong performance by Dion in the debates last week. Maybe they've been reading reports of polls that suggest Canadians make their vote based on leaders, not on parties. Probably not. More likely, the Party's strategists still see D .

 
Steady as she goes
posted: 10/08/2008 08:03AM by Mark Campbell

Too little, too late - that's the refrain that opposition parties sang after the announcement of the Conservative platform yesterday. The fact that the document featured pictures of Harper taken as recently as last Saturday was seized on as evidence that this was an act of desperation, a rush job to placate voters and demonstrate that Harper was doing something to protect our investments and prevent an economic meltdown.

Though the argument that this platform was cobbled together is specious at best - photos could have easily been inserted into an existing document - the Conservative .

 
When Green is all there is to be
posted: 10/06/2008 02:14PM by Mark Campbell

Unable to find the new Conservative ad on the party’s website, I decided to have a quick look around for new federal campaign commercials on the other party sites. I didn’t see the NDP's new ads on its site, so I paid a visit to the Green Party to see what was new and what they had been doing since the debate.

Turns out the party has nine ads posted, all of them added three days ago, and all viewable on the Party’s YouTube channel, which has been active since last fall. Five ads feature Green Party Leader Elizabeth May travelling on a train; the other four have Deputy Leader Claude G .

 
Not on the ball
posted: 10/06/2008 07:33AM by Mark Campbell

I wanted to tell you about the latest Conservative ad that ran on TV last night during The Amazing Race, but I can't find it on the website to confirm some of my impressions. Suffice to say that the Conservative Party's web team really should have these items loaded simultaneously as they go to air. Overall, I wasn't very impressed, but will hold off on a detailed analysis until I can freeze frame and really get into the nitty gritty.

In the meantime a couple of random observations: - Walking around downtown yesterday, I did see a few posters taped to telephone poles for the Marxist .

 
Sprinting to the finish line
posted: 10/03/2008 04:25PM by Mark Campbell

The debates are done, the leaders have spoken and the pundits are assessing performances to determine who won. Here's my take on each leader:

Elizabeth May - Not knowing what to expect from the limited glimpses I've had of May, I enjoyed her candor and her clarity, at least when she deployed them. When she took Harper to task on issues, she generally cited reports or experts to back up her assertions. Yet there were times when she failed to directly answer a question put to her. She'd discuss the general topic, but not the specifics, such as budgeting for the arts. Even so, she looke .

 
FTFY (don't wory, I'll explain...)
posted: 10/03/2008 10:52AM by Mark Campbell

Jack Layton won the debates. How do I know? Anne McGrath, the president of Jack Layton's NDPs told me so in an email that was forwarded to me this a.m.

Okay, so Anne is a bit biased, given her position, but Layton did look much better in the hour or so of English debate footage I watched this morning on what the kids call 'teh interwebs' than he did in the French broadcast. Maybe it was the fact that Dion, Duceppe and May were touted as people to watch in that first debate, which prompted me to focus more attention on them. Maybe it was the fact he was not debating in his first langu .