This is not a horse race: a matchbook manifesto

In 2004, on the day of the federal election, The Globe and Mail printed a picture a lot like this one next to a poll showing the Liberals and Conservatives in a 'dead heat'.

This wasn't absurd journalism just because the poll was wrong and the Liberals won 36 more seats than the Conservatives. It was also a refreshing reminder of how the mainstream media covers politics in this country like a horse race.

Unfortunately, it isn't just to the benefit of time-starved, dumb, or otherwise incapacitated political reporters to treat politics as sport. This parody of free speech also benefits election specialists, public relations consultants, idea-less politicians and every other parasite who benefits from a national debate on politics that reads like the script surly commentators read from their booth at the hippodrome.

Substantial debate and social change driven by engaged citizens in diverse communities -- i.e. the whole point of democracy -- is impossible when the mainstream media routinely compare political parties to "large hoofed mammal[s] (Equus caballus) having a short-haired coat, a long mane, and a long tail, domesticated since ancient times and used for riding and for drawing or carrying loads" (dictionary.com).

Tragically, as I'm not currently running a newspaper, I can only try to provide an alternative up here in the blogosphere (yes, it is very windy up here, what with having to share so much thin air with so many blowhards.) I'll post my own analysis, as well as linking to the rare article of substance in the press, and I'm going to rely a lot on research done over the long-term on social, political and economic issues. (Also: jokes, both funny and unfunny, to grease the ol' wheels.)

What we'll find, I think, is that Paul Martin and the Liberals have taken advantage over these past twelve years of the amazing absence of decent media coverage to move government in Ottawa hard to the right. I'll be focusing on Paul Martin and the Liberals because there's a lot that isn't known about how they've governed this country, even though they've been both governing and the most popular horse -- I mean party -- in Canada for over a decade.

Well, that's it for now. My next post will contain shocking statistics about who got rich and who didn't during a decade of Liberal rule.