News from the campaign trail

I figure I'd better post something before rumours begin that I've decamped on a cattle boat to Guatemala or something. Been spending my time with family and politics, in that order.

I now understand why summer elections are the norm in Canada. I've been door knocking with the Conservative candidate in my riding and it's cold, dark, wet and ... did I say cold? For the most part I've been encouraged by the number of people who tell us that they normally vote Liberal, but that this time will vote otherwise. Sometimes they're going NDP. A few times folks have said they are going to vote for the Green Party, but most of the time the "switchers" are going Conservative. There is hope for this land yet. Two weeks of campaigning to go.

I had an extended discussion with one woman who said she is voting Green this time. I asked her why. She said that Stephen Harper would send troops to Iraq. I said that is not possible. The few thousand troops we have are tied up in the Afghanistani deployment. She said that we should be training the Forces for peacekeeping, not combat. I said that the skill set needed for good peacekeepers is the same as for good combat troops, but that in any case the current threat was the Islamofascist jihad and that means combat. I asked her if she supported the Canadian forces being in Afghanistan helping the people in their transition to democracy, or whether she advocated abandoning them to the Jihadists or the Taliban. She looked bewildered.

I tried to be gentle. Birkenstockers are so fragile and I'm not the candidate.

John Tory (the Conservative party leader in the province) spent time doorknocking with us. I liked him.

Back to the coal face tomorrow. (Not the campaign. The office.)

I notice that the Conservatives pulled ahead off the Grits in Ontario (outside of Toronto) at about the same time I started to work on the campaign. Coincidence?