We’re only halfway through the election campaign and candidates from all parties are dropping like flies. It’s getting to the point where voters really do need a scorecard to keep track of the rapidly changing players in their ridings.
The culprit in a growing number of these dismissals is technology. At least seven candidates have been dropped from party lists because of past indiscretions that emerged via the Internet. Another handful of candidates are holding their breath, hoping controversies surrounding their Internet posts will quietly fade from the public memory, leaving both careers and candidacies intact.
The 2008 federal election campaign has gone high-tech and, in doing so, taken on a not-so-cozy “ big brother” feel. Forget policy discussions; voters are now vetting online records in search of damaging information that can be used to take a candidate down.
One Toronto blogger rightly reasoned young candidates in urban ridings would be the most Internet-savvy and most likely to have an electronic trail. His hunch was right. He caught Ryan Warawa, a B.C. candidate who once posted blogs supporting the legalization of marijuana and prostitution. It wouldn’t be a problem if he was a Green or NDP candidate, but he’s a Conservative and his comments don’t exactly reflect party policy. So it’s a problem. The jury is still out on Warawa.
In contrast, the knife fell quickly on a Toronto Conservative candidate who used his blog to blame bus passengers for not intervening to stop the beheading of a fellow passenger, saying “this is where socialism has gotten us folks, a castrated effeminate population.” Not a great campaign slogan; so he’s now gone.
This game of Internet “gotcha” has prompted resignations from every party. Ironically, the NDP (who pride themselves in having the most technologically-savvy campaign) have been hit the hardest — done in by that same technology.
A Vancouver Island candidate resigned after the Internet revealed he was investigated for removing his clothing — on multiple occasions — while retreating with teenagers 12 years ago.
Apparently he didn’t know clothing would be a requirement for a later political candidacy.
Two other B.C. NDP candidates were forced to quit when Internet footage showed them using drugs. This shouldn’t have been a surprise — both were members of the B.C. Marijuana Party and the NDP and the public knew it.
Jack Layton himself once made an Internet appeal for marijuana users to support his party, vowing to decriminalize marijuana. But the NDP now claims vowing to decriminalize drugs is very different than using them.
The Liberals dropped a Quebec candidate who said the army should have cleaned up the Oka crisis, even if it meant numerous deaths. But they are still standing behind another candidate whose Internet rants compared Stephen Harper to Stalin and Hitler and encouraged readers to “feel little sympathy for right-voting victims of recent natural disasters.”
The Green party’s own leader popped up on the Internet to call Canadians “stupid” and /or to agree with the assessment Canadians are stupid. Since you can’t f ire the boss, her job remains safe. But two other Green candidates were removed because of Internet comments calling the 9/11 attacks “ beautiful” and the World Trade Center a “shoddily built Jewish world bank headquarters.” Nice.
The Internet has opened up a whole new set of problems for political parties who want pristine candidates. Internet records are permanent and searchable by anyone who has time on their hands or a grudge to bear. There’s no erasing a reckless comment or stopping rumours about indiscretions once they get on the Net. This realization should instantly transform potential candidates (and everyone with a blog and an opinion) into luddites who hate Al Gore for “inventing the Internet.”
Candidates were equally fallible in the past — we just didn’t know it. There was an unwritten code in journalism that prevented them from reporting on intimate details. There was no means of searching the public domain fo r reckless, years-old public statements and no mass communications to spread the word about indiscretions. So a politician like Mackenzie King was publicly revered and became Canada’s longest serving prime minister even though he was, in private, a nutcase.
Internet dirt creates a new dichotomy political parties will have to resolve. They will obviously have to revise their vetting practices to include an extensive Googling and a vetting of blogs. Reliance on self-disclosure is no longer enough; there are too many others waiting to make disclosures on behalf of candidates — and they now have the tools to do it.
But this added scrutiny will undoubtedly keep good candidates from entering public life, whether it is because of relatively innocuous skeletons they may have in their closets, not-so-innocuous skeletons, or fear of the scrutiny it could bring to bear on other family members.
Maybe parties shouldn’t be so quick to pull the plug on candidates outed by the Internet. If this Internet “gotcha” trend depletes the stock of good candidates, perhaps the public should be left to decide if past Internet comments are a lapse in judgment or a true indicator of a candidate’s character.
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