Debating Election Options

If only Jack Layton wasn’t a socialist he would have my vote. I find him likeable, credible and he had the best zinger of the English-language leaders’ debate.

Layton sent Twitter tweeting when he said, “I’m not sure why we need so many more prisons when the crooks seem quite happy in the Senate!”

Analysts say Harper got his message across best and that means he gets the win. They praise his unflappability. Frankly, I’d like a leader who’s a bit flappable! I want some passion, some shred of human emotion. I kept wanting to muss up Harper’s perfectly coiffed hairdo. I’d wear gloves, of course.

Mr. Ignatieff seemed unsure of himself. But as one analyst put it, the bar wasn’t set very high for him so he probably did okay. Gilles Duceppe looks like a nutty professor Muppet, all crazy eyes and bouncy movements. If he had called Quebec a “country” one more time I might have actually gone into my television and strangled him.

On a recent talk show I heard someone musing that people are too selfish when they vote. This person claimed that given the choice between an issue that would benefit 90% of the population and one that would benefit them 100%, the voter would go with the 100% for themselves. I don’t know about that but I do think that people are more comfortable with the devil they know. Ignatieff has been painted as an outsider as effectively as some Americans have created doubt about President Obama’s birthplace. Does it really matter how well your country’s leader performs on television? I think it becomes a deciding factor, actually, because most of us are just too damn lazy to read the party platforms. (Me included)