Canadian Election–When You Just Don’t Know Who to Vote For

Leadership is not about the next election, it's about the next generation. - Simon Sinek

Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few. - George Bernard Shaw

People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election. - Otto von Bismarck

Election season has gripped us once again, being full swing in Canada while the US goes through the throes of candidate selection, the latter being that magical process where candidate wannabes spend months proving that opponents within the same party are unworthy of office until one is chosen to represent the party, upon which the same detractors will then tell you why that person is magically and suddenly THE BEST candidate for the job.

And once again, social media, coffee shops, mainstream media and everywhere else are filled with an emotion-laden (sometimes hate-filled), fact-less cacophony of noise that proves several points:

1. Many reporters and pundits have no clue about anything with the exception of an amazing grasp of clichés and what-if pontificating.
2. The majority are easily moved by emotion to serve the needs of the minority.
3. The voices of well-intentioned, potentially competent people who truly want to serve the people are often lost in the noise of incompetent, not-so-well intentioned people, whether that be the people who are running for office or the people who support them.
4. Emotion means more than facts (and is far more useful).
5. Tearing others down is an easier, more useful strategy than promoting one’s own strengths and ideas.
6. People rarely understand (or even have a vague idea) of the platforms of the people they are supporting.
7. The previous point occasionally applies to politicians themselves.
8. Great people, intelligent and focused on serving others, exist but one must work hard to find them.

I wonder if people would make smarter, more informed choices when it comes to elections if they viewed the election as Simon Sinek did – that the result of any given election is not about what the voters want now but it does determine what kind of future the voters want to create for their children.

Outside of the rare minority who actually understand political party platforms, understand the upside and downside of each and can make informed decisions (choosing either the best choice or the lesser of many evils), most people have zero idea why their candidate or party is best and why everyone else’s candidate or party is the worst.

And because of this, I believe federal elections create a lot of unnecessary stress on people as they struggle to complete more important tasks in their day, whether it be deciding whether they want the 32 or 64 gig version of the newest smartphone, whether cats or dogs make for better Facebook updates, how one is doing in the NFL Fantasy League (I’m currently in third – thanks for asking) and whether Night of the Living Dead could really happen.

It’s the same sort of confusion that people face as they plunk down millions on lotteries.  Many (especially those who failed mathematics) believe that picking their own numbers gives them a mathematical or astrological advantage over others.

Others get overwhelmed with the choices of numbers and whether they are good luck or bad (with cultural demographics, life experiences and children’s birth dates impacting their decisions) and being in a hurry to post their cat pictures on social media, they choose a Quick Pick with the belief that deities and mathematical odds have assured them of success.

With that in mind and with an eye towards helping Canadians so that they don’t get too preoccupied with the important task of determining a future that impacts our children, I would like to recommend to Elections Canada that we create a new ballot.

Here is a sample of what it could look like:

Imagine the unfortunate voter who, upon settling into the privacy of the polling station, gets overwhelmed with evaluating important data – his eyes are creepy (is he really the Devil incarnate), is he really like his father or just a paper facsimile, would he really create an alliance with other communists, etc.

The Quick Pick solves all of this.

Upon presentation of ID, the voter merely says proudly, “I’ll take a quick pick, please”, and a computer will randomly select a party and place a vote on the voter’s behalf.

It’s fast, doesn’t require stressful thinking and allows the voter to get on to the things that really matter.  They can also share on social media that they voted and that their friends should feel ashamed if they don’t do the same.  After people reveal their vote on social media, they can enjoy being called an idiot or a traitor for no valid reason that has any sense of rationalization associated with it.

The Quick Pick works – since the voter rarely understands what the candidates represent anyway, they don’t really lose but like the lottery, they don’t really win either, with their odds being slim to almost none.

The Bottom Line

This is all, of course, whimsical sarcastic thinking (except for the rabid minions who got halfway through this blog post and are in the process of sending me a death threat).

To implore voters to really get to know the issues is as useful and fruitful as it is to throw a drowning man both ends of a rope.  For the many who do, it has a nice, feel-good association with it but serves no one in the end.

However, when we choose not to vote or not to choose our vote carefully and intelligently based on data, we are either insisting that the right to vote and the right to a free, just democracy is not important enough to assert and defend or that we don’t care what kind of future we create for our children.

Which one would you like to be accused of?

Think … then vote … .both matter.

In service and servanthood,

Harry

Politics and the Mutability of Human Values

(aka Bad Government – It’s Your Fault)

The foundation stones for a balanced success are honesty, character, integrity, faith, love and loyalty. - Zig Ziglar

Honesty is the best policy - when there is money in it. - Mark Twain

Honesty is the fastest way to prevent a mistake from turning into a failure. - James Altucher

My recent exploration of the by-election in Calgary-Foothills and the potential embellishment of education credentials by one of the candidates in the blog post PC Party and Blair Houston–Isn’t Honesty Still the Best Policy? has generated thousands of emails, private messages and texts to me (not all kind, professional and positive, may I add) and the reaction caused me to think about the general election currently underway in Canada.

In regards to the afore-mentioned by-election and my expression of concern regarding the potentially dishonest representation of education credentials by a candidate, I was told by Party execs and some MLAs that the resume embellishment is known but that it is important that the candidate stay in the race anyway without a public correction since officially addressing the issue may damage his chances.

This suggests to me that the human value of honesty is mutable and wavering within these individuals, being something that can be paraded around when convenient / useful but which can be modified or ignored when required.

But when one explores the larger political scene, is it any different for any political campaign on a municipal, provincial / state or federal level?

We have national politicians in Canada espousing the importance of legalizing pot, sending blankets to refugees in Syria and the like but I don’t hear many voters demanding specific, explicit, measurable, verifiable details regarding the economy, climate change, ever-escalating healthcare / education costs, privacy versus protection (anti-terror) legislation and the like.

And even when a candidate rolls out a half-baked answer or solution to something, it is often full of holes, has no data to back it up and oftentimes has nothing to it at all.

And yet we blindly accept everything without asking the candidate “What are the real issues?  Why do they matter?  What is your solution?  How do you know?”

And so political parties, politicians and their blind, Kool-Aid drinking minions continue to send us meaningless distractions which divert our attention away from the truth that most (not all) politicians are either ignorant, indifferent or incapable when it comes to serving the populace or creating solutions to the ever-growing list of “stuff” that needs to be addressed while it still can be addressed.

What does this say about politicians and political parties?

What does this say about us when, not if, we accept it?

Does such a stand on our part remove our right to complain when politicians let us down later, when we suddenly learn all over again that their values and ours, that our needs and their intentions, aren’t in alignment?

Why do we care more when the politician lets us down after being elected instead of caring more about the details regarding the candidates and their solutions / intentions before we elect them?

Why would we rather spend more time complaining after the fact instead of using our time productively during an election to produce the best government possible?

Why indeed.

The likely reason is that it is easier to blame someone else for the failures around us rather than take proactive steps to prevent them in the first place.

In other words, we are running short of personal responsibility when it comes to the issues that we face collectively and so it is easier to wait for the failure of someone else to manifest so that we can point a finger elsewhere instead of at ourselves.

The Bottom Line

Politicians rely on the apathy, indifference and ignorance of the electorate.

What does this say about them?

What does this say about us?

At what point will our apathy, indifference and ignorance produce a government that is actually incapable of solving our problems despite its best intentions because the problems are too large, varied, complex and interwoven?

Why do we tempt fate by potentially allowing such a scenario to be created?

Maybe we have already reached (or passed) that point and politicians have merely become feel-good, “the future is always bright” mouthpieces to serve their own needs and intentions, knowing that our needs are already unsolvable but selling us a bright future can satisfy their own desires.

Would you know the difference between promised solutions and realistic ones?

Would you bet your family’s security and well-being on your answer?

Do you care?

Are you sure?

How do you know?

It takes more than a vote to create a positive future.

It takes an intelligent, informed vote.

And last time I checked, there seems to be a significant shortage of those,

Because in the end, when ineffective, incompetent or dishonest politicians and governments are elected, it’s not their fault.

It’s ours.

In service and servanthood,

Harry

PC Party and Blair Houston–Isn’t Honesty Still the Best Policy?

One of the reasons people hate politics is that truth is rarely a politician's objective. Election and power are. - Cal Thomas

I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live. – Socrates

[Author note: There are important addendums following this post, particularly addendums 2 and 3]

Dear PC Party of Alberta / Blair Houston (Candidate for Calgary-Foothills):

While a lot of my readers in Alberta have been enjoying (or hating me for) my occasional musing about the PC Party of Alberta and the missteps it has taken in recent years, writing about you has become a little boring for me and I would rather move on if you don’t mind.

However, I can’t move on because I see political leadership as an essential component for creating a strong future for citizens and when I see flaws in political leadership, I know said flaws, if allowed, will fracture the future for the people that the politician and political Party claim to serve.

As a long-time conservative, it matters to me where conservatives stand, what we represent, why we are allegedly the best choice and when we make mistakes (and we all do), what we intend to do to fix them.

When the Calgary-Foothills election was called, I asked you and Mr. Houston publicly what had been learned from mistakes in the past general election and how the Party will re-engage the hearts, minds and votes of the voters.  After all, to win the vote, one must influence the mind of the voter and to influence the mind, one must touch the hearts of those voters.  As a long time strategy person on Wall St., this seems obvious to me – that a mea culpa and a new strategy are necessary to regain the support of the people.

When I asked the question, I received insults which I found amusing enough to write about here PC Party of Alberta–Proving Einstein and Churchill Right? and here PC Party of Alberta–Who Will Bell the Cat?.

However, I never received a reply from the candidate or the Party specifically answering my questions or concerns.

Now a story is circulating about Mr. Houston’s alleged resume embellishment, where he claims to have gone to the University of California, a highly prestigious institution, while his campaign manager admits that he went to the College of the Desert (a two year technical school).  Here’s an important note – most people who have attended the University of California note the specific campus as many campuses have prestigious reputations of their own (e.g. UCLA, UC, Berkeley, etc).

While I’m sure the College of the Desert is a fine institution and in fact, there is nothing wrong with having attended such a school, in the private sector where I live, intentional resume embellishment for the sake of employment / personal promotion is grounds for dismissal.

That aside, you both have dodged the question in the media about Mr. Houston's education credentials which brings the same old question to mind:

When will honesty and transparency become a part of the PC Party in its alleged desire to rebuild itself or are they just clichés to hide a desire for status quo under the guise of something different?

Or ….

Should we just give up asking any politician for honesty and transparency in the first place?

If the claims are true and you are going to steamroll ahead anyway, then we are in the process of watching another dishonest person run for office.  If that’s the case, the PC Party hasn’t changed and honesty is still a rare commodity within the Party.

If the claims are true, then Mr. Houston should do the honorable thing and step aside unless he has an excellent reason for the discrepancy.  To admit such a discrepancy, whether he decides to continue running for office or not, would take a lot of courage but would be the right thing to do.

If the claims are not true, then one can make them go away instantly by merely responding to them.

And finally, to at least publicly respond to the accusation would show some level of accountability and responsibility to the public.

Because if we don’t have honesty, courage, accountability and responsibility in our political candidates and our political parties, what do we have?

And if we don’t have that, we don't have anything and neither should any Party claiming to want to represent our best interests.

Mr. Houston, please say something, otherwise you don’t deserve anything.  You claim to want to be the voice of the people – let’s here you speak when the people ask you questions.

Your integrity has been called into question – defend it otherwise other people will define it.

Yours most sincerely,

A citizen who worries about the future we are creating for our children.

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In service and servanthood,

Harry

PS The difficulty with silence is that it usually (not always) suggests that an inconvenient truth has been spoken.  Human beings have a tendency to fill in the blanks when there is a vacuum of comment / information / response, often to the detriment of the person who has little to say in their own defense when others have much to say about them.

Addendum 1 – A Call For Honesty

The Calgary Herald ran a piece on Mr. Houston for the Calgary Municipal election in 2013 (found here).

Ironically, he cited the importance for “respect earned by honesty” and for the need for people “to have faith in politics again”.

It’s hard to know if he believes these things based on the afore mentioned musing.

(click on image for larger version)

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Addendum 2 – Post Debate Conversation – August 24, 2015

I attended the debate in the Calgary-Foothills riding tonight with the hope of requesting clarity on this item.

I submitted a question regarding this to the moderators but it was included in the questions which were considered to be attack questions and so was rejected.  This is what I tweeted when I heard this:

Since Mr. Houston was unavailable after the debate, I stopped by the campaign table set up outside the debate area and asked his staff why the brochures on the table still imply that he graduated from a school that he in fact, did not graduate from.

The nice lady at the table stammered for a bit, suggested that he had graduated from there (which I refuted) and she suddenly had another answer.  She told me that the truth was that he had started to go to school at the University of California (didn’t know which campus which is still curious as previously noted) and that his mother had died while attending and therefore he had returned home.

While this is unfortunate if true, I told her “But you imply in the bio that he graduated from there so this doesn’t make sense.  In addition, if this is the truth, then why don’t you just say that to the press and to the many people who are concerned about his honesty and integrity and settle it once and for all.  All it takes is one statement that says ‘I went to the College of the Desert and took some courses at the University of California but had to leave because my mother died’ and it becomes a non-issue.  Allowing confusion over his education credentials to grow this way, if this is in fact a true story, creates a vacuum of information which is likely to be filled by speculation that will likely not go in his favor.”

She said “You should have been been his campaign manager” to which someone standing nearby, listening to the conversation, said “To hell with that – he should have been Harry’s campaign manager.”

Here’s another idea.  If a candidate is discovered to have some “ambiguity” in how their education credentials are presented but the issue is admitted and corrected as soon as it becomes known, the candidate can actually leverage the correction as “Look at how honest and forthright I am”.  Some strategy people I know would take this one step further and leverage the death of the parent to tug at the heartstrings of the voters (this is a morally questionable strategy but happily used by some).  Unfortunately, this strategic opportunity was passed over by the candidate. 

If there is concern about how a “lack of education” would be perceived, I couldn’t care less.  I have worked for Bill Gates, Larry Ellison and others and they didn’t have degrees when starting / growing their companies.  Formal education is fine but it is a human being’s inherent wisdom, knowledge, business savvy, communication skills, listening skills, collaboration abilities, life skills and other things that matter.

I have no idea if her story is even true, especially the way it was told to me after I refuted the first story she told me.  It may be a sad, true story or it may be a fabrication.  For the many universities that I have taken the occasional class from, I do not claim to have “attended” the institution because it would likely create some confusion as to my education credentials.  For those classes, I note them as “class x completed from institution y” so as to not imply that I obtained degrees from those institutions.  If Mr. Houston had intended to attend full time and didn’t convocate, there is nothing wrong with merely stating that.

During the debate tonight, Mr. Houston claimed to be a “relationship builder”.  He and his campaign team have a long ways to go to better manage public expectation using effective communication.  I and others asked him and the Party several times for clarity and they never even bothered to answer (something that would have taken a minute or less).

As I noted before, we can define our reputation or allow others to define it for us.

The nice lady at the table said that he chose not to address these concerns because he felt that he didn’t need to.

When one makes this choice, one has chosen to allow others to define who they are, a move that is not very astute or strategic in the political world, sending the wrong message to potential voters while simultaneously projecting an air of arrogance or incompetence.

Bottom Line - Control the Message

Maybe if people like myself and others keep giving these guys free consulting advice, that they will finally use it, otherwise they can continue to produce the result they are producing.

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Addendum 3 – The Mutability of Human Values – August 26, 2015

I was told by PC Party execs and some MLAs that the resume embellishment is known but that it is important that the candidate stay in the race anyway without a public correction since officially addressing the issue may damage his chances.

This suggests to me that the human value of honesty is mutable and wavering within these individuals, being something that can be paraded around when convenient / useful but can be modified or ignored when required.

What does this say about politicians and political parties?

What does this say about us if we accept it?

Does it remove our right to complain when individuals let us down later, when we suddenly learn all over again that their values and ours aren’t in alignment?

Why do we care more when the politician lets us down after being elected instead of caring more about the details of the people before we elect them?

Politicians rely on the apathy, indifference and ignorance of the electorate.

What does this say about them?

What does this say about us?

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Addendum 4 – Questioning the Strategy – August 28, 2015

Watching the lackluster performance of Mr. Houston in several debates and recognizing that he is a perpetual candidate who has ran for various seats over the years without winning any of them, I wonder why the PC Party chose him over a “ringer”, especially if the riding is as important to the Party as they claim.

Is this a strategic failure on the part of someone within the PC Party or did they believe or fear they were going to lose despite their desire for a win, thus not wanting to sacrifice a more important player?

Only a select few know.

If Only You Weren’t So Stupid, You’d Understand

Never insult anyone by accident. - Robert A. Heinlein

An injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult. - Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield

[Author Note: After this blog was posted, Ms. Buzreba abandoned her campaign.  Here is her statement:

My post remains as a warning for other politicians who insist that their actions of the past are not a reflection of who they are in the present.  I believe Ms. Buzreba did the honorable thing which in fact IS an example of positive character.  Now … if only Hillary Clinton ……

So as you read this post, think about other politicians instead of Ms. Buzreba.  Perhaps they could learn something from her graceful exit.]

The original blog post continues ……

The political world has become all abuzz once again as another political wannabe, Calgary-Nosehill Liberal candidate Ala Buzreba, sees her social media past become, unfortunately, her present as Alberta NDP MLA Deborah Drever experienced shortly after being elected.

It seems that Ms. Buzreba, in a life that has clearly prepared her for public service, has previously graced the Twitter world with beautiful gems such as:

And of course, the ever so poetic, so intellectual, so mature  ….

Unfortunately, such words become politically inconvenient when running for office so Ms. Buzreba felt obliged today to issue an apology that included these tweets:

Ah yes – the classic politician who wears the Teflon suit of convenient misdirection, revisionism and amnesia with a touch of mass hypnosis sprinkled in …. “you will forget what you have seen here”.

Fortunately or unfortunately, Jedi mind tricks only work on the weak-minded – it all depends on how many weak-minded people are present at the time.

When one makes comments that are crass, immature or insulting and they make headlines once discovered, it doesn’t become “a lesson in social media” as she dismisses her comments.

It is a statement about her character, since social media doesn’t change our character, it reveals it.

As for the tweets not reflecting her views, everything I think, speak and write are a reflection of my views and yet she somehow thinks that we can be convinced that what she says doesn’t represent how she thinks?

Perhaps this suggests that she in fact will be the perfect politician since we rarely receive from politicians what they tell us we will should we elect them.  Her training is complete.

And while she can dismiss the ranting of her 17-20 year old self as being from someone who wasn’t as mature as she is now, I know that when I was 20 years old, I knew the difference between being respectful and not.

The reality is that the foundation of her character appears to have a malfunction in it but she, like many politicians, think that it is fair territory to insult or degrade and to dismiss it with a perfunctory apology whenever convenient (translation: whenever caught).

We are taught that everyone makes mistakes and so we should forgive everyone when they offer an apology and beg for forgiveness.

Unfortunately, too many times this becomes a useful, strategic weapon of choice for the bully and the ignorant, since the convenient apology always stands at the ready after the damage has been inflicted upon a person or an organization.

Imagine if I insulted her gender, her faith or anything else about her and having inflicted an unethical, immoral or illegal barb, I retracted the statement saying I was merely having a bad day.

Imagine if we all lived this way.

The difficulty here is that what we don’t condemn today, we accept tomorrow …..

….. and what we accept today, we embrace tomorrow.

If you find such perfunctory apologies acceptable, send me an email.  I will have someone arrange to have you or someone that matters to you incessantly insulted on a personal level so that you can see what such a society will eventually look like.

Perhaps if we didn’t forgive and forget so easily those who mistakes are more character flaws with intentional acts of malice behind them rather than simple accidents, people would be forced to think more before they speak or act.

And besides, we need stronger character in our leaders and politicians … not weaker.

The Bottom Line

Character is not something that is suddenly put on like a new jacket or suddenly discovered in a revelation when someone discovers something nasty in our past.

It is a seed that is planted early, nurtured carefully over the years and is revealed when we are called upon to be at our best, especially during times when we face our deepest, most daunting, challenges.

And in such situations, what we say and do provide insight into who we are, sometimes to our chagrin.

While we can choose to ignore the warning signs of flawed character in ourselves and others, we can’t ignore the results produced by that flawed character.

By the way, I’m sorry for calling you stupid.  I asked someone for a second opinion and they said you were ugly too (thanks, Rodney Dangerfield).

Actually I don’t think you are either ….. and I stand by everything I say.

Do you forgive me?

More importantly …..

Do you stand by everything you say and do and does it reflect who you are?

Do you care about the consistency of what others say and do as a reflection of their character?

Does it matter?

Should you care?

How do you know?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

PC Party of Alberta–Proving Einstein and Churchill Right?

If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough. – Albert Einstein

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein

However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results. - Winston Churchill

[Author note: A sequel to this blog post can be found here - PC Party of Alberta–Who Will Bell the Cat?]

When the PC Party of Alberta announced a candidate for the upcoming by-election in Calgary-Foothills, I was curious:

What has the PC Party learned from the election loss in May and what would their candidate do differently as a result of those lessons?

With that in mind, I posed a simple question on the Facebook pages of the candidate and the PC Party.  The question was this:

On what platform will he run? Have we admitted our weaknesses yet, why we lost and what we need to do to regain the confidence of the people? No nasty answers please - this is an honest question from someone who would like to understand if stuff from the past has been resolved.

I thought the question to be fair, legitimate and respectfully asked.

The candidate never answered the question as of the time this post was published.

However, on the PC Party wall, I was blessed with this fascinating interaction (click on the image for an easier-to-read version).

“Clowns like me”.  We’re off to an excellent, cerebral start in our exchange.

The interaction continued ….

Now I’m a “clueless clown”.  I’m having trouble keeping up with the elevated intellectual level of the exchange but I feel I must persevere despite my obvious shortcomings.

Mr. June’s rant continued before the PC Party finally addressed my question and I responded:

Note that they did not attempt to refute his comments at all – a curious thing.

However, in a desire not to feel left out of the exchange, Mr. June re-entered the conversation:

Clearly I am not worthy of the intellect of this individual and I disengaged before embarrassing myself further.

The reality is that there are always idiots (Individuals Derogatorily Opining Trite S**t) out there who can’t wait to share their weak, fact-less, disrespectful opinions on the Web.  I feel bad for anyone whose lives are limited in such ways – it must be a dark, frustrating, powerless way to live.

However, what I am fascinated by is that the PC Party did not attempt to silence the individual or publicly disassociate themselves from his opinions.  Even though it is THEIR forum, they are allowing others to shout down anyone who dares to engage in public discourse for the sole reason of making something better and they are not making any comment to the contrary.

And when someone speaks on someone else’s behalf and the latter chooses not to refute what was said, you have to wonder if they agree with what was said or if they don’t care what the potential result could be if they don’t refute it.

The difficulty here is that what we don’t condemn today, we accept tomorrow …..

….. and what we accept today, we embrace tomorrow.

Does the PC Party know what it may be embracing with such a hands-off attitude regarding the comments of the dull and the ignorant?

Does the PC Party care?

Perhaps the PC Party prefers that difficult questions not be asked.

I can’t tell – they don’t answer them but they do allow others to be the hammer in an effort to squelch public discourse, potentially presenting a desirable outcome for the PC Party since someone else gets to play the heavy when the questions are awkward to answer.

Again, I don’t know and can’t guess if an answer is not forthcoming from anyone except the people who have little to share and a lot of energy to do it with.

Interestingly enough, only one individual by the name of Maxim pointed out that the response to me was unfair.  Such little response suggests that others agree with intimidation tactics, no one cares about the interaction, no one cares to take action when they see something wrong, no one cares enough about the PC Party in general or they have better things to do with their Life.

None of these things send a positive message to the PC Party or to the people who might observe or participate in such interactions.

Voter influence is all about perception and so far, the campaign in Calgary-Foothills is off to a bad start from my perspective.

The fact that people prefer me to be in their camp instead of attempting to drive me to the opponent’s camp through intimidation or indifference is a subject for a different day.

The Bottom Line

You should never allow someone else to define who you are with their own message on your behalf.  It may be the last or only message that others receive and you may fall victim to the reputation that becomes attached to you if the message is not a positive one or one that properly reflects what you represent (or at least what you want it to represent).

If you don’t like what that reputation is, then do something about it.

Because if you don’t do something about it, maybe you agree with the message being promoted or if nothing else, you may be perceived as agreeing with it.

Either way, the perception of the recipient will be the same whether you like it or not.

Do you care what reputation is defined for you by others?

Does it matter?

How do you know?

What are you willing to do about it?

For the PC Party, failure to shut down the ignorant who define the reputation of the Party may be proving Einstein and Churchill to be right.

I wonder if they care.

In service and servanthood,

Harry

[Author note: A sequel to this blog post can be found here - PC Party of Alberta–Who Will Bell the Cat?]

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Addendum: A member of the PC Party, after observing the interaction, texted me this thought:

The PC response is pathetic: we’ll get to a platform when we stop being so busy.  How do you commit to run without a platform?

An interesting thought indeed.

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Addendum 2 – A Response From the PCAA

The PC Party Twitter account sent me this tweet in response to my observations:

A few observations regarding their response:

1. It addresses the subject without really addressing it, since it doesn’t reject the comments as not reflecting the position of the Party or the candidate.  While entertaining all opinions is noble, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand when some participants are abusive and should be banned. 
2. The tweet takes the politically correct stand of “we don’t want to say a specific person was naughty” so we will generalize it to be “some people” which technically could include me for refusing to accept the aggressive nature of others.  Meanwhile, last time I checked, “some people” were still continuing their abuse of the opinions of others.  Convenient?
3. If one does not have a policy for healthy discourse in 2015, one is seriously behind the times.  Beg, borrow or steal someone else’s – there are many to choose from.  “Grow a set” as the expression goes and know when it is obvious to shut down those who merely seek to shut down discourse for their own misguided reasons.  We can’t be everything to everyone, otherwise we end up standing for nothing.

The Bottom Line

The damage is done – my question went unanswered by the Party and by the candidate and others have expressed a lack of interest in speaking up as a result.  Is this a deliberate act under the guise of “we don’t have a policy for healthy discourse”?  This would be very convenient if true.

Not much appears to have changed since the Party attitude, poor perception of what the voter wanted and lack of strategic foresight brought the Party down in May of 2015.

Oh wait, many PCAA members still don’t believe that they really lost that election and maybe that’s the problem.  This is especially true given that many PCAA members keep citing the strange, unrelated statistic that since the PC Party and the Wildrose Party combined took more popular votes than the NDP, then it means that the NDP didn’t really win.

To those people, I ask them to look at who sits on the Government side of the Legislature.  That is the only answer that matters.

Those people remind me of the belief of some that if someone dies in a violent way, their ghost remains where the person died, unaware that they have actually died.

A pompous attitude when you are “on top of the pile” is not appropriate.

A pompous attitude when you are not is not intelligent.

One causes you to lose.

One prevents you from winning.

Is there any difference between the two in the end?

To Demand Better of Your Politicians, Demand Better of Yourself

Those who stand for nothing fall for anything. - Alexander Hamilton

One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors. - Plato

What is tolerated today becomes accepted tomorrow. - Various Attribution

An interesting conversation this week on the Facebook page of a member of the Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta reminds me of why we have the politicians we have.

It’s because we accept anything they give / tell us.

And while we like to rant and rave about what politicians allegedly do to us as we claim victimhood at the hand of their alleged incompetence or corruption (as some people claim), the reason politicians do what they do boils down to one thing.

It’s because we accept anything they give / tell us.

On the previously mentioned Facebook page this week, there was a discussion around the right-leaning parties of the Alberta political sphere and the possibility (or impossibility) of the two primary parties, the Wildrose Party and the Progressive Conservative Party, reuniting against the left-leaning NDP Party currently in power.

While the conversation was interesting and mostly respectful, I asked a couple of questions, specifically around whether people can come to an agreement regarding the definition of the words “progressive”, “conservative” and “values”, since failure to come to an agreement on what these words mean would prevent any such alliance from happening.

This sparked a healthy exchange until a former member of the Alberta government proceeded to give their views.  The individually waxed poetically about such concepts as principles, values, forgiveness and acceptance and the need “to do better and be better for, and, to each other.”

I thought it was a pretty cool, unifying message although one thing remained stuck in my craw from the previous election loss, a rumor that had been attached to this MLA and which suggested or implied unethical or potentially illegal behaviour and so I asked if the rumor were true.  There was no issue with stating it publicly since it had been rolling around in the public space anyway.

[Background Note] In my world and in the public-facing role I have, questions come in my direction every day, some friendly and inquisitive and some accusatory / confrontational.  When one accepts a public-facing role, one does one’s best to answer every question respectfully and as fact / data-based as possible.

When I asked for clarity on the rumor that was already in the public space, the former MLA and others supporting this person immediately demanded that my question be removed and made the demands in such a way that the person who owned the Facebook wall felt threatened as exhibited in this text exchange between the Facebook wall owner and myself.

The reason he gave for deleting my request for clarity was also intriguing.

So the mere act of asking for clarification on something being discussed about a former politician (who has a desire to be re-elected) in the public space provides people with a reason to feel fearful of asking for clarity or for allowing the request to stand.  This is especially intriguing given that the person being questioned had just cited the need “to do better and be better for, and, to each other.”

Meanwhile an executive within the PC Party texted me this message as he observed the events that unfolded.

I wonder how a Party can expect to rebuild itself on values, transparency and the like when people who request clarity on same are threatened or an effort is made to intimidate them into silence.

The Bottom Line

While many tout our democracy as the greatest form of government on the planet, they forget that the key elements of it need to be constantly, consistently and vigorously earned, re-earned, defended and championed.

One of the tenets of our democracy is the right to request transparency in the actions of those who claim to represent our best interests in our legislatures.

However, a dual crime of democracy occurs when someone who claims to serve us dares to shout us down instead of providing a response to requests for clarity AND the person being shouted at acquiesces without resistance or reason.

When these things happen, our democracy is in danger of producing a result that is not as ideal as that which we desire or deserve.

In such situations, if our democracy or the results it produces is tarnished in any way, we can’t blame the people we put in office nor can we criticize their actions because the reality is that we put them in office and if we accept their actions and keep re-electing them anyway, we have only ourselves to blame.

After all, when we have high expectations of our government and its elected representatives and they appear to be disappoint us consistently, maybe we need to re-examine our expectations of ourselves before criticizing the people we elect.

Unfortunately, I think it is always easier to hold others to a higher standard rather than ourselves since dodging responsibility and accountability requires much less effort when we expect both to be exhibited by others and not ourselves.

What do you think?

Does it matter?

What are you doing about it?

Forget asking what a politician stands for – what do YOU stand for?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

Addendum For the history buff who wondered if I chose the Alexander Hamilton quote deliberately on the 211th anniversary of his death in a duel, I can assure you that it was pure coincidence.

My friends at the Bank of New York used to joke that on the day he died, he told employees of the Bank that he founded not to do anything until he got back.  Hey .. it’s their joke … not mine!  Great people over there with a great sense of humor.

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Addendum 2 – Things That Make You Go Hmmmm – July 12, 2015

I received a cease and desist letter from a legal firm representing an unrelated person who thought I was writing about them.  Oooops – guilty as charged for a crime as of yet unknown by anyone except the perpetrator.  I guess there are more skeletons present than people are aware of.

As a friend of mine pointed out today, Israeli police sometimes offer something of interest to see who takes the bait, referring to the process as the integrity test.  The party drawn out is clearly guilty – one just needs to figure out the crime.

In the spirit of offering to help people as much as I can, I offer politicians the quick reference guide to lying as shown below.  Click on the image for a larger version.

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Addendum 3 – Closing Thoughts – July 18, 2015

What I find interesting about the party in question is that many people who blocked progress before and who fought openness in order to prevent embarrassing truths from coming out are now the same people writing blogs about the importance of truth and openness while simultaneously still blocking the truth.

They wanted to be the hero then by preventing the truth from coming out, they want to be the hero now by pretending to offer enlightenment that is allegedly unknown to everyone else and they are attempting to be the hero of the future by keeping skeletons buried in the closet.

You can’t have it all.

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Addendum 4 – I Guess I’m Not Done – August 12, 2015

With a by-election being called in Calgary-Foothills, I dared to ask what the strategy was to win the hearts, minds and votes of the people after the devastating loss by the PC party in May.

Here is one person’s response (click on the images for larger versions):

I guess the PC party (or at least the loudest people within it) have some learning to complete.

More Anti-Terrorism Laws

A guest post by Gwynne Dyer on May 11, 2015.  Shared here with explicit written permission of the author.

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Left-wing, right-wing, it makes no difference. Almost every elected government, confronted with even the slightest “terrorist threat”, responds by attacking the civil liberties of its own citizens. And the citizens often cheer them on.

Last week, the French government passed a new bill through the National Assembly that vastly expanded the powers of the country’s intelligence services. French intelligence agents will now be free to plant cameras and recording devices in private homes and cars, intercept phone conversations without judicial oversight, even  install “keylogger” devices that record every key stroke on a targeted computer in real time.

It was allegedly a response to the “Charlie Hebdo” attacks that killed 17 people in Paris last January, but the security services were just waiting for an excuse. Indeed, Prime Minister Manuel Valls said that the law was needed to give a legal framework to intelligence agents who are already pursuing some of these practices illegally. France, he explained, has never “had to face this kind of terrorism in our history.”

Meanwhile, over in Canada, Defence Minister Jason Kenney was justifying a similar over-reaction in by saying that “the threat of terrorism has never been greater.” Really?

In all the time since 9/11 there had never been a terrorist attack in Canada until last October, when two Canadian soldiers were killed in separate incidents. Both were low-tech, “lone wolf” attacks by Canadian converts to Islam – in one, the murder weapon was simply a car – but the public (or at least the media) got so excited that the government felt the need to “do something.”

The Anti-Terror Act, which has just passed the Canadian House of Commons, gives the Canadian Security Intelligence Service the right to make “preventive” arrests in Canada. It lets police arrest and detain individuals without charge for up to seven days. The bill’s prohibitions on speech that “promotes or glorifies terrorism” are so broad and vague that any extreme political opinion can be criminalised.

In short, it’s the usual smorgasbord of crowd-pleasing measures that politicians throw out when they want to look tough. It won’t do much to stop terrorist attacks, but that doesn’t matter as the threat is pretty small anyway.

France has 65,000,000 million people, and it lost 17 of them to terrorism in the past year. Canada has 36,000,000 million people, and it has lost precisely 2 of them to domestic terrorism in the past twenty years. In what way were those lives more valuable than those of the hundreds of people who die each year in France and Canada from less newsworthy crimes of violence like murder?

Why haven’t they changed the law to stop more of those crimes? If you monitored everybody’s electronic communications all the time, and bugged their homes and cars, you could probably cut the murder rate in half. The price, of course, would be that you have to live in an Orwellian surveillance state, and we’re not willing to pay that price. Not just to cut the murder rate.

The cruel truth is that we put a higher value on the lives of those killed in terrorist attacks because they get more publicity. That’s why, in an opinion poll last month, nearly two-thirds of French people were in favor of restricting freedoms in the name of fighting extremism – and the French parliament passed the new security law by 438 votes to 86.

The government in France is Socialist, but the opposition centre-right supported the new law too. Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government in Canada is seriously right-wing, but the centre-right Liberals were equally unwilling to risk unpopularity by opposing it. On the other hand, the centre-left New Democrats and the Greens voted against, and the vote was closer in Canada: 183 to 96.

And the Canadian public, at the start 82 percent in favour of the new law, had a rethink during the course of the debate. By the time the Anti-Terror Act was passed in the House of Commons, 56 percent of Canadians were against it. Among Canadians between 18 and 34 years old, fully three-quarters opposed it.

Maybe the difference just reflects the smaller scale of the attacks in Canada, but full credit to Canadians for getting past the knee-jerk phase of their response to terrorism. Nevertheless, their parliament still passed the bill. So should we chalk all this up as two more victories for the terrorists, with an honourable mention for the Canadian public?

No, not really. Islamic State, al-Qaeda, and all the other jihadis don’t give a damn if Western democracies mutilate their own freedoms, as it doesn’t significantly restrict their own operations. The only real winners are the security forces.

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Gwynne Dyer is an independent journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries.

Why Politicians Fear (or Hate) People Like Me

Since we cannot change reality, let us change the eyes which see reality. - Nikos Kazantzakis

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one. - Albert Einstein

We live in a fantasy world, a world of illusion. The great task in life is to find reality. - Iris Murdoch

The further a society drifts from truth the more it will hate those who speak it. - George Orwell

I’m thinking about running an ad on Craigslist offering to sell the people of Alberta dead parrots.

Why?

Because as the election rhetoric (translation: BS, obfuscation, intentional misdirection, etc.) heats up in the Province of Alberta, people like me who study strategy (and people) for a living watch with a mix of amusement, sadness and disappointment as politicians fall over each other attempting to sell the equivalent of dead parrots to the people.

And it seems that too many people either won’t tell the politicians that they don’t want dead parrots, they are afraid to demand a living parrot or they don’t dare to demand something completely different than a parrot at all, living or deceased.

Oh sure, there is lots of complaining, bickering and the like but the specific, measurable, meaningful asks are few and far between.

With that, the typical exchange between politician and citizen tends to look more like Monty Python’s Dead Parrot Sketch, where a slick salesman sells an unsuspecting customer a dead parrot by waxing on about its positive attributes like its beautiful plumage.

Unfortunately for the people, they are often easily beguiled by such smooth talking individuals and shortly after “buying the dead parrot”, the people return to lamenting that their choice did not produce the result that they hoped for or desired.

Too many politicians don’t care about this, since they have bought themselves another term in which they hope to convince the citizenry that something great is being accomplished and if nothing else, they bought themselves another four years to do “whatever”.

And so the cycle repeats, with the same “customer” going back to the same “salesman” every four years and he / she again sells them something they don’t want or need.

Meanwhile, people like me come along and instead of succumbing to the polished, practiced, political patter, we ask questions like “Why?”, “How do you know?” and “What data / knowledge can you offer up to support your belief / intention?”

We tend to view politicians and their promises through lenses like this one (click on the diagram for a viewable version):

Unfortunately, when people like me do this, most politicians don’t stick around long to even attempt to answer our questions, with the assumption that we are not in the market for a dead parrot or anything else they are selling.

In fact, since we represent a threat to the dead parrot market, they work very hard to avoid us, discredit us, threaten us (yes – it happens) or to outshout us.

They reason that for every one of us who can’t be sold a dead parrot, there are thousands more who can be and are gullible enough to be convinced that it’s either the best thing ever or that there is nothing else out there anyway so they might as well settle for it.

And besides, they posit – even a dead parrot can look beautiful and valuable when positioned in the right way.

Are you in the market for a dead parrot?

Are you sure?

Because if you are not, it takes more than complaining out loud in coffee shops, on talk show radio and on social media streams to make this point clear to the people who would like to sell you one.

Otherwise you will end up squawking like a parrot – a lot of noise and wing flapping while the desired potential and result in government fades away ….. again.

In service and servanthood,

Harry

Addendum – Alberta PC Party Goes Down In Defeat - May 6, 2015

Former Premier Prentice guided to the PC Party to a crushing defeat in the Alberta election on May 5, 2015.  Those of us in the PC Party who warned the leadership about the importance of being honest with citizens, about being respectful and to use data instead of fear mongering were told to mind our own business.

I guess a few voters felt the same way also and made it their business to tell the PC Party what they thought of them.

To know the difference between confidence and arrogance is to walk the fine line between great results and embarrassment.

The PC Party just learned the difference.

Do You Play To Win Or Not To Lose?

You were born to win, but to be a winner, you must plan to win, prepare to win, and expect to win. - Zig Ziglar

If you take no risks, you will suffer no defeats. But if you take no risks, you win no victories. - Richard M. Nixon

A few years ago, I walked into a car dealership, picked out a vehicle I wanted and asked the salesman for the best price he could give me.  We haggled for a while and then I thanked him and told him I would think about it.

I went to the dealership down the street and gave the second dealer the best price from the first dealer.  The second dealer gave me his best price and I told him I would text this to the first dealer if he didn’t mind.  The dealer agreed and after I sent the first dealer the new offer, the first dealer promptly texted me back with a better price.  I showed the text to the second dealer who promptly beat that deal (which I then texted to the first dealer) and a bidding war immediately ensued between both dealers with my phone as the conduit.

In the end, I purchased the vehicle from the second dealer for $110 over the rock-bottom price and as I left, the dealer looked at me and asked me if everyone bought cars like that where I came from.

We both laughed and I left.

The bottom line was that I had entered the negotiation to win and I played to win, whether it was buying a car as in this case or building successful companies.

However, most people don’t understand the difference between playing to win and playing not to lose.

For example, in Alberta, Alberta Party Leader Greg Clark, in a move of desperation to unite liberal voters who follow the Liberal and Alberta Party brands, offered a non-aggression pact between the two parties where the Alberta Party would not field candidates in certain ridings if the Liberal Party agreed to not field candidates in other ridings.

While Alberta Party strategy folks will insist that such coalition-focused strategy is the best way to offer opposition to the juggernaut presented by the ruling PC Party, it in fact is a non-sensical way of carving the liberal voters between the two parties and then rationalizing that by bringing the same voters back together, they somehow add up to more voters than they started with.

Not only does the math not make sense, in fact the strategy is one in which one is playing not to lose instead of playing to win.  Instead of establishing that he is a leader who would be so strong that the Liberals would be demanding he take over their party, Clark is soft-pedaling a solution that doesn’t help either party, thus weakening him in the public eye.

The approach reminds me of the young orphan in the Dickens’ classic Oliver who tentatively approaches the headmaster and timidly says “Please sir, more soup?”

While political “experts” may say that politics is different than other worlds and that this makes for good strategy, playing not to win is never a good strategy.

Anywhere.

Well, that is unless one feels that pretending to be weak can be leveraged later in a surprise coup of some sort.

But at least one can fall back on cool posters when strategy is absent … posters like this one:

Winners: Because nothing says "you're a loser" more than owning a motivational poster about being a winner.

I’m not suggesting that Mr. Clark is a loser.  In fact, I believe that he is sharp strategically and tactically and that he is potentially the most capable leader of all the political parties in Alberta.

However, if one intentionally plays not to win or someone else convinces them to play in this way, such gifts are quickly wasted.

The Bottom Line

Do you play to win or do you play not to lose?

Do you know the difference?

Are you sure?

How do you know?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

Greg Clark–Politicians and the Importance of Optics

There is an optical illusion about every person we meet. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

One of the reasons people hate politics is that truth is rarely a politician's objective. Election and power are. - Cal Thomas

I was speaking to someone the other day about politics in the 21st century and we were reminiscing fondly of a time when politicians steered clear of obvious conflicts of interest, perceived biases and the like.  While we often believed they were dirty or up to no good, we gave them the benefit of the doubt until someone marched forward with proof to the contrary and the politician faded into obscurity.

In the 21st century, politicians seem to take a different tact, not only not caring about how they are perceived but almost daring the electorate to say anything about specific thorny issues or in some cases, actively shouting down those who dare raise the spectre that something might be amiss. Examples such as Hillary Clinton’s involvement with Benghazi come to mind.

A little over a week ago, I mused about Greg Clark, head of the Alberta Party, where I wondered if his message of being different than other candidates was authentic or just old spin from a new politician.  That post can be found here - Greg Clark–A Refreshing Change Or Just Another Politician?

In that post, I explained how I was intrigued and disappointed in how his words and his actions did not appear to be in congruence and I couldn’t figure out whether he represented a refreshing change that is desperately needed in the political arena everywhere or if he was just another politician telling us what we wanted to hear so he could get elected.

Like many politicians, I found myself sitting on the fence, wondering if I could classify Mr. Clark as an authentic, refreshing change or more of the same and then I noticed this poll.

The poll shows Mr. Clark in a dead heat with the PC and Wildrose candidates, something I was intrigued by.

And then I noticed this little piece of information.

The poll was conducted by a small company in Calgary called BBOLD Public Relations.  That fact in itself doesn’t mean much until one examines things a little more closely and realizes that that organization once had an employee in common with the Greg Clark campaign.

That person is Stephen Carter, now a senior member of the Clark campaign and former President of BBOLD as noted on his LinkedIn profile.

When I tweeted about how intriguing and disappointing the optics of this presented, especially in absence of a truly independent, unbiased poll, some members of his campaign team responded asking me if I was making a judgement on his character.

I didn’t say it.

They did.

Mr. Carter himself responded with this tweet:

The response is disturbing because with it, I can’t tell if he isn’t smart enough to know the difference that proper optics makes or if he believes that I’m not smart enough to see through the lousy optics that this presents.

As we all know, statistics can be bent to anyone’s will.  They are often most (or only) believable when produced by people who have nothing to gain by what the data suggests or implies.  As a long time math guy on Wall St., I know only too well how to use data to manipulate public opinion.

And given this, it suggests to me that once again, politicians would rather brazen their way through lousy optics than avoid them in the first place.

The Bottom Line

When I made an observation about the optics of this poll, I wasn’t suggesting or implying anything about the character, morals or ethics of Mr. Clark as some people in his campaign suggested I might be.

However, when you don’t know someone personally, the only way you can attempt to understand who they are and what they represent is by the optics that they present to you as they attempt to define the interpretation of themselves that they would like you to have.

This should therefore serve as a warning that we need to be careful about the company that we keep.  Sometimes while we may be of strong character, the character we project is actually that of those who project it on our behalf.

And I think his campaign has a ways to go if his campaign dares to suggest that he represents a new wave of truth, honesty and transparency because from where I sit, he is starting to look a lot like the rest of the field – something we don’t need.

What do you think?

In service and servanthood.

Harry

PS Someone on Twitter shared this with me.

It raises many questions.

I leave it to you to find the answers.

Addendum – Alberta Party Comes Up Empty – October 29, 2014

The Alberta Party came up empty in all 4 by-elections in Alberta.  Oftentimes bravado is better directed towards more strategically positive thoughts, words and actions.

I wonder how honest the Alberta Party will be in its post mortems or if it will get distracted by the “second place is a win” mantra that many people embrace.

Unfortunately, in politics, there is only first place.  Discussion of trends, changing momentum and such is often irrational, unjustified, wishful thinking on the part of those who didn’t finish first.

Greg Clark–A Refreshing Change Or Just Another Politician?

One of the reasons people hate politics is that truth is rarely a politician's objective. Election and power are. - Cal Thomas

Divide and rule, the politician cries; unite and lead, is watchword of the wise. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant. - Charles de Gaulle

On Wednesday night past, I took a moment to pop over to the candidates debate in the riding of Calgary Elbow for the upcoming Alberta by-election. Whether I am a sucker for punishment or I still seek hope that caring, competent, public-serving politicians can still be found remains to be determined but there was something that intrigued me in what I witnessed.

Susan Wright, representing the Liberal Party was well spoken and served her Party well at the event.  It wouldn’t surprise me if she does very well in the upcoming by-election.

Stephanie McLean, representing the NDP, trotted out the typical agenda-less bashing (some of it personal), referring to the government as “corrupt” and a “regime” (with clear use of the word in the derogatory sense) and even going as far as suggesting that her PC Party opponent had entered politics for personal gain.

Gordon Dirks of the PC Party left me shaking my head as to how he could claim that “yes, the PC Party has screwed up many times in the past but now that Jim Prentice and I are in town, we are going to fix everything pronto”.  Miracles happen but when one has much of the same team … well …. you know.

John Fletcher of the Wildrose Party left me wondering how one could stumble through a supposed strategy that suggested that he would slash budgets wildly while investing more than any other party.  Mr. Dirk’s description of this as a “fiscal fairyland” made me laugh.

Yup …. three of the four candidates offered much of the same old garbage that is always trotted out in debates.

And then there was Greg Clark of the Alberta Party.  He answered questions without political rhetoric, techno-jargon, clichés and the like.  When it came to answering the question about where the money would come from for future projects, he was the only one who actually stated where it would come from instead of using the typical voodoo, magic, mass hypnosis or rips in the space-time continuum that are often trotted out in such debates.

I gasped when he was so open and honest about what was needed (and he was right).  Could it be that there was actually someone in the political arena who was willing to say what might be unpopular but which was actually needed in the Province of Alberta and could do so intelligently, strategically, competently and eloquently?

Could this be the refreshing change that is needed in Alberta politics (and politics in general), presenting a strong blend of public focus and business acumen to lead the Province moving forward?

Just as I thought that Clark did not (refreshingly) represent politics as usual, I saw this on his Facebook feed.

In a single statement, he shifted from promoting a strong agenda to resorting to the land of personal bashing that is so typical of candidates who have nothing else to leverage, promote or fall back on.

Could it be that in the land of democracy, a political candidate was attempting to tell another what he should do and that that person should be considered less of a person just because he didn’t want to do that which was being demanded by another?

If this happened in a school yard, we would call this bullying.

So much for role models.

As someone who has many gay friends whom I love, support and respect, I also wouldn’t appreciate it if someone said “wear this in support of them otherwise you don’t like them”.  I have a right to choose who or what I publicly support when I wish to.  If I don’t wear such a pin or sticker, it does not mean I don’t support or like them. 

In fact, I’m not aware of a direct correlation between not wanting to wear something in support of a cause and proof that I do not support or I am actively against such a cause.  To suggest otherwise is a weak-minded supposition on someone’s part …. or is politically useful.

And besides, this is a democracy after all.

So on the one side, Clark seems to represent a refreshing change that is needed while on the other, he falls back to the same old divisive, negative politics that has been part of the US landscape for years and which is now becoming more and more common in the Canadian political arena.

Could it be that Clark is being strongly influenced by the juvenile, self-serving thoughts and musings of Stephen Carter, his campaign strategist?

I hope not.  When someone of immense potential taints their offering with the same old negative campaign stuff that others without hope fall back on, it reminds me of splitting an atom.

Do it well and one can produce positive energy forever.

Do it poorly and one produces this:

Unfortunately, explosions this large tend to take out the innocent as well as the guilty, the ignorant and the stupid.

Mr. Clark’s sharp, intelligent responses the other night offer hope that politicians can still be of the people and for the people and to be able to do so intelligently and strategically.

Meanwhile his Facebook post suggests that he has an alter-ego that does not serve all the people so eloquently or intelligently.

I wonder which side, the refreshing side or the same-old same-old side, will come to bear should he get elected.

The Bottom Line

It is not easy to offer one’s self for public service and I commend anyone who has the courage to step up and do so.

However, that being said, once one has stepped forward, the kudos and attaboys should quickly fall second to the important questions of “what needs to be done”, “why are we doing it”, “how are we going to get it done” and “how do we know”.

Because if we can’t do this proactively, strategically and intelligently, then we end up with more of the same old same old, with more valuable time passing by without solutions being offered, with potentially more problems being created and with the electorate becoming more disenfranchised with the political arena.

Many politicians throw many things at the side of the barn to see what will stick and to see if what sticks will resonate with the electorate.

Hopefully what Mr. Clark offers is a refreshing change in the political arena and he is not in fact throwing something else commonly found on the farm.

I think we need the type of refreshing change that Mr. Clark has the potential to represent.

What do you think?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

This musing continues here …. Greg Clark–Politicians and the Importance of Optics.

PS This blog is not an endorsement of any candidate present at the debate.  However, it is important that we apply an appropriate level of discernment to what political candidates offer otherwise we end up with a variant of this:

If we don’t apply an appropriate level of discernment in candidate selection, we can’t blame them for the results they produce because just as our finger of accusation points at them, our other three fingers are actually pointing back at ourselves.

Addendum – Stephen Carter responds – October 11, 2014

In fairness to people named in my blog, I always share responses that they make.

Stephen Carter shared this:

Personally, if I were responding to this blog post, I would have taken the moment to say something like “we believe that the attributes that you noted about Greg will propel him to victory in the upcoming by-election”.  Such a response would have been strategically and politically astute.

However, such a flippant response deserved a flippant reply and therefore I couldn’t resist this little note.

I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised.  During a discussion on Twitter a couple of weeks ago regarding the number of student spaces available in Alberta, I asked a serious question regarding how the Alberta Party would pay for their promises regarding education.

My question produced this exchange with Stephen Carter:

Two points come to mind here:

1. We should always seize every opportunity to promote or advance our agendas when provided with said opportunity and not cripple our efforts or the efforts of others.
2. For Greg Clark – we are the company that we keep.  For a politician, making a poor choice can be very expensive, even if the resource detracting from his efforts is “free” as Mr. Carter claims to be.

Addendum – Alberta Party Comes Up Empty – October 29, 2014

The Alberta Party came up empty in all 4 by-elections in Alberta.  Oftentimes bravado is better directed towards more strategically positive thoughts, words and actions.

I wonder how honest the Alberta Party will be in its post mortems or if it will get distracted by the “second place is a win” mantra that many people embrace.

Unfortunately, in politics, there is only first place.  Discussion of trends, changing momentum and such is often irrational, unjustified, wishful thinking on the part of those who didn’t finish first.