5 Angry ... Umm ... People

Well that political debate was a lot more amusing than I expected. Perhaps it is just my peculiar sense of humor, but I was laughing pretty much throughout. I'm doubt it is very helpful to force every candidate to distill (in some cases) complex policies into forty-five second soundbites, but it sure provided for some entertainment.

From my uninformed perspective, political parties usually select the safest candidate, which generally leads to having uninteresting leaders. However, between the subtle reminders of the plagiarized speech and the sweater quips, even I must admit that at least this group seems to be of the intelligent and witty variety. Even Harper, playing the stoic, poker-faced incumbent got me to chuckle a few times.

I did appreciate that nobody pretended to be folksy. Instead, each candidate listed artistic endeavours they engage in as a way to demonstrate how much they appreciate culture. I'm not sure which was more amusing: Stephane Dion saying that arts are important partly because they are just plain "fun", or Jack Layton admitting that he is just not very artistic.

My personal favourite of the lot might be Gilles Duceppe. I thoroughly enjoy how he tries to force people to give firm and clear answers to his questions (at least from people with a chance of winning), so as to get them on record. If only he were running for some other party...

On a more serious note, it was a breath of air that nobody brought up a single social issue - unless all of them were settled in the fifteen minutes of the debate that I missed. I hate when politicians add social issues to a platform as the resulting debate never actually convinces anyone one way or another. In the end, it just adds to the partisanship and division that is already inherent in the electoral process.

Well that got a lot more serious than intended. As a consolation, here is the logo Jack Layton used to promote his film festival a few years back. I don't think I will ever get tired of it.