Movember Day 5 and Fear and Loathing on the Saskatchewan Campaign Trail
November 5th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
Movember day 5
An interesting story I found pertaining to the Saskatchewan Party campaigning tactics with the media. Bill Hutchinson, a Saskatchewan Party candidate staged meet and greets with campaign workers in front of CBC News cameras. Hutchinson’s reasoning behind the ruse was that he wanted to start it with good conversation with people he knew, get into the groove to talk to total strangers.
The Saskatchewan Party was founded in 1997 by disillusioned Conservative and Liberal party members who wanted to topple the NDP in Saskatchewan. Hutchinson represents the constituency of Regina South, according the his website he is an “architect whose record of community service includes four terms on Regina City Council”. So why does a man of that stature need to resort to staging Hollywood interviews to boost his campaign?
I’m reminded of George W. Bush’s glorious descent to the USS Abraham Lincoln, massive “Mission Accomplished” displayed proudly as he arrived to declare major operation in Iraq had ended. A gross show of indecency to the people, a waste of man power and resources, it will be forever engrained in our minds as a misuse and twisting of the media. Bill’s offense was not to the same caliber but it’s another in a long line of media manipulations by politicians for gaining power.
To see someone on the news who can walk up to two 20-somethings and start shooting the shit about Blackberries will make them look confident and cool. The same guy walks up and meets with a couple, a grandmother in fact, and she has an amazing tale about her 9 grandchildren! You see this man through a distorted view and he hasn’t helped you make a decision, he’s hindered your ability to make your decision. Yet the media is to blame for this as well. They are striving so hard to sell their product that they will look at something too good to be true and run with it. Luckily in this case someone caught this before they aired it as fact, otherwise it’s hard to redact what somebody has already processed and then you also lose your credibility as a source for accurate reporting.
