Not in the same way as American politics, mind you. But every single candidate, commentator, pundit and campaign manager made a complete ass of themselves at one time or another. We’d be here all week if I tried to name them all, so here’s some of the highlights.

Pundits-

Steve Murphy, of Atlantic Canada’s Live at Five News managed to make himself look like a complete arse in the lead up to the election. When asking a question to Liberal candidate Stephane Dion, he used such irregular verb tense that even people with English as a first language didn’t know what the christ he was getting at. It was something like this: “What, if you had been in Stephen Harper’s position, would you have done, if then faced with the same issues he had been faced with anywise, at that time, had you been in his position?”I doubt you can find a tense for that in a Bescherelle (little green French verb text that I’m sure folks in French Immersion remember). Dion, if candidates were truly allowed to speak their minds, probably would have answered by calling Murphy “un petit salope incompitent.”Two outcomes to this. One, it probably made some people question Dion’s communication skills. Two, for anyone who understands the journlistic process, it made Murphy (or at least his producers who were certainly in his earpiece) look like manipulative douchebags, who were out to make Dion look bad.

Well, that notwithstanding, he’s still better than that intolerable Bruce Frisko.

Next up is Mike Duffy, who has now cemented for himself the position of “Canada’s Rush Limbaugh,” and not just for physical appearance. In a segment talking to both Green Party Leader Elizabeth May and Peter McKay (the incumbant in the riding May was running), May made comments about renegotiating the NAFTA agreement. Duffy called her comments “bizarre” and “off the wall,” then rather than ask McKay to respond, he asks him this question:

“How do you debate someone who is never going to be in power and can promise the world and never have to back it up?”

You know, I’ve always thought that Mike Duffy was just a fat, blackhole of charisma. Now, I can see clearly that he’s just a hack. No journalist or pundit with any self-respect would dismiss any political candidate’s chances so tactlessly. Particularly when said candidate is on live satellite hook up with you at that very moment, you tremendous douchebag!

We know the Green Party isn’t going to get elected. I know that, you know that, hell, I’m sure Elizabeth May admits as much to herself. But that’s hardly relevant, is it? Does that make her point less valid? The NDP will never get elected either, but they don’t need to win the election. They just need some seats so they can continue to fight for change on some level. And the Green Party is the same way. There may well never be an NDP Prime Minister (and there will almost certainly never be a Green Party Prime Minister), but you know what Duffy? It was NDP guys who introduced the health care that’s keeping your fat ass alive today. Think about that when you’re recovering from your next heart attack.

I’ll bet he was trying to get her to freak out and prove herself to be a typical, PMSey, unreliable candidate. Instead, in very plain and polite language, Elizabeth May told Mike Duffy he had just lost any integrity he ever had. I’m sure she wanted to tell him to go fuck himself, but as May knows (and apparently Duffy doesn’t) that “The Mike Duffy Show” is not the forum for partisan, personal attacks. This is. So, on behalf of anyone who respects the journalistic process and the spirit of debate, I’m proud to say, “Mike Duffy, just go fuck yourself.”

Of course, on the other hand, I’m none too pleased with the Green Party either. This isn’t an issue of policy, this is an issue of technique. The Green Party is supposed to be an alternative. Not the same as the other candidates. But, it seems odd to me that the Green Party were the only party who completely filled the hallways of my apartment building with their paper flyers. Ideologically, should they even be using paper? Then, it gets worse, as the NDP had, without question, the most wasteful use of signage of any party in my view. On a stretch of highway in Moncton, I saw 16 Green Party signs, all packed into one small 10 meter stretch of grass. Here in Fredericton, there was a huge Green campaign sign, with two smaller ones flanking it. If you have a sign that huge, is there any need at all for two smaller ones that you can’t clearly read from the road anyway? There’s a word for that: wasteful. I would be miffed at this if it were any other party, but for the Green Party, this just seems so hypocritical and tactless.

The effects were seen today, as I was waiting at an intersection and a couple of loose Green Party signs got caught in the wind and blew across the road. It was like a politically irresponsible version of the bag in the wind scene in American Beauty.

Anyway, the logical way to end this article would be to talk about the prospect of four more years of Mr. Harper, but I would run out of energy long before I made my point. So, I’ll leave that one for another day.

Yo sit right back and hear me rap
Muthaf****s in the back, wake from your nap
I’ma bout ta school ya for charity
and put forth the story of S-T-V

lets step back to two-oh-oh-five
da people were keepin STV alive
tallied with a solid ninety-seven
STV looked as gold as heaven

da man rises up and smacks it down
says it might interfere with his crown
simple majority is not good enough
we’ll make STV supermajority-tough

so down the scale went to fifty-seven
but still majority! we be in heaven
but da man steps in again with his bent
and demands an unfair sixty percent

now peeps be sayin since the vote don’t pass
perhaps STV be sittin in the back of the class
“maybe stv aint worth our time”
but if that’s true why do I rhyme?

so vote STV in the next election
and maybe then you’ll be able to get an erection