Political Pandermonium #nlpoli

You can tell the election is already going on.  You can tell because of what some of the political workers are doing.

The Liberals are going door-to-door.  They are meeting voters.  They are asking for their votes.  Then the campaign workers write on Twitter and Facebook.about the “glorious day” of campaigning  they’d had.

Politicians tweet as well. The candidates tweet about their campaigning. The elected politicians tweet about the meeting they went to, or a government comment, or questions in the House of Assembly. 
Taking a lesson he learned from Reform Conservative turned Grit turned provincial Conservative Steve Kent, provincial Connie turned Grit Paul Lane goes places,  takes a picture of himself there, tweets it, and then frigs off somewhere else. The selfie makes it look like he stayed at the event.  That’s how he can be in so many places at the same time.

Lane also posts ridiculous pictures like this one about the May 24 weekend.  It’s a stock photograph of an Adirondack chair on a lake somewhere else in North America.

He used the same picture in a string of tweets over the weekend. People on Twitter made fun of Paul.  It looks like Lane had these pictures made as fridge magnets. Paul needs to decide if he has a moustache or not.

The Twitter Perspective #nlpoli

Tories on Twitter act like twits. Then they complain in the House of Assembly that other people are misbehaving.

Yes, they are hypocrites.

The Black Letter of the Law #nlpoli

You’d think that someone who approves laws, including this amendment to the Highway Traffic Act in 2010, would understand  what the words mean:

Cellular telephones and other communication devices

176.1 (1) A person shall not drive a motor vehicle on a highway while holding, or using a hand-held wireless communication device or other prescribed device that is capable of receiving or transmitting telephone communications, electronic data, email or text messages.

The penalty for a conviction under this section of the Highway Traffic Act is a minimum of $100 or two days in jail and a maximum of $400 and 14 days in jail.

Politicians elected since 2003 should be familiar with this offence since one of them was done for it in 2008, before they broadened the scope of the section.

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The Ides of March, 2012 #nlpoli

Twitter is a wonderful thing except that sometimes you can’t use the whole of a great quote.

The following is a larger bit of one quote that turned up in a minor flurry on the Ides of March.  It was hardly a Shakespeare smack down but it was fun for a moment.

The quote below is part of a speech from Julius Caesar in which Cassius – he of the lean and hungry look – talks to Brutus about fate and destiny and the power that individuals have to change the course of events.

Here’s a bit more of it:

Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus, and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs and peep about
To find ourselves dishonorable graves.
Men at some time are masters of their fates:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.

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Rumour management and Twitter #nlpoli #cdnpoli

Via crisisblogger.com comes a link to a Guardian feature on the role Twitter played in rumours about riots in London.

The site gives seven specific rumours and tracks the life-cycle of the rumour from inception to death.

From the Guardian:

A period of unrest can provoke many untruths, an analysis of 2.6 million tweets suggests. But Twitter is adept at correcting misinformation - particularly if the claim is that a tiger is on the loose in Primrose Hill.

This is a fascinating study that uses technology to help tell the story in a compelling way.

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The Twitter Conundrum #nlpoli #nlvotes

Kathy Dunderdale sends messages using Twitter.

Herself.

Using her own two hands.

Someone who has spent about 60 years in this province -  give or take – and who has been a prominent municipal and provincial politician before being yanked out of pseudo-retirement to become Premier should know how to spell  the names of places in the province.

We are not talking Quirpon here.

We are talking the lush agricultural valley on the province’s west coast or as Kathy tweeted it this morning:

Cod Roy.

Two words.

Maybe she thought she was logging into the multiplayer version of Call of Duty using Danny’s leftover screen ID.

Maybe she was so overcome by the beauty of that part of the island that she fancied herself a Scottish-Newfoundland freedom fighter.

Maybe she thought she was the king of the fish.

Or maybe – and we are just just spit ballin’ here – Kathy doesn’t write her own tweets.

Maybe she has someone following her around, Crackberry in hand ready to spit out something from her boss to make it look like the amazingly transformed KD herself is telling us about yet another “beautiful” place she has been in the “beautiful” province in order meet all the “great’ people after her morning “run”.

Yes, folks, it is the Twitter conundrum.

The brand new image the nice advertising people invented for you demands you send twitter messages even if you couldn’t be bothered and so the campaign or the Premier’s Office sticks some junior joe or jane with the job all the while praying that joe or jane doesn’t blow away the cool facade by tweeting garbage.

Either that or Kathy herself had to consciously insert a space and push the shift key a second time on her computer or Crackberry to transform “Codroy” into two words both starting with capitals. The simple typo would be the errant extra space, after all.  Whoever typed that thought it was two separate words.

Which is more likely?

You decide.

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Twitter Psychology Insight

Via the always insightful Neville Hobson, came a link to a wonder little diagram that summarises the results o a recent survey of Twitter users.

You can find Neville’s post at the bizarrely named nevillehobson.com.

And you can find the original at whitefireseo.com.

For those who are tweeting during the election campaign, see if any of these insights match up to what you see in real life. 

Don’t just look for the positives, that is the people who are obviously applying these ideas even if they never heard of them before.

Look at the people who might be running against the tide and judge their performance.  Are they succeeding or failing?

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Whiff and poof #nlpoli #cdnpoli

Labrador member of parliament Todd Russell is not popular among Conservatives in the province. The reason has more to do with Russell’s unwillingness to kiss the Old Man’s derriere since 2003 more so than the fact Russell is a Liberal.

Russell made the news in Newfoundland and Labrador on Thursday as a result a virtual town hall he held.  Basically it was an opportunity for Russell’s constituents to discuss the proposed Muskrat Falls project using a giant conference call.  This was a big call, according to Russell’s office, with dozens of people who got a chance to speak, dozens left on the line when time ran out and a couple or so thousand people participating overall.

Here’s how Russell summarised the views he’s been hearing to a reporter at the Telegram:

“They have expressed their opinions around environmental issues, about economic issues, social issues and cultural issues. The overriding concern that’s come to light is that no thought has been given to meet the needs and aspirations of the people who own this resource, the people of Labrador,” he said.

Not surprisingly, one-time Conservative party executive director Mark Whiffen took some time on Thursday to explain to CBC’s Peter Cowan what he thought of Russell and Russell’s concern to ensure the people of Labrador benefit from the project:

“if Todd Russell doesn't see the overall benefit then he isn't a good MP.” and “there will be long-term benefits to Labrador. They all may not be direct, but they'll be there.” and “also, Lab is benefiting from offshore oil - not off Lab's coast, but no one cares. It's 1 province. Shame an MP can't see that.”

Yadda, yadda, yadda.

It is so easy to spew out a bunch of talking points and Whiffen’s tweets are a fine example of the enthusiastic but decidedly insubstantial nature of the partisan talking point.   Someone else joined in the exchange at one point but the general thrust didn’t change much.

But just notice that not just accepting those benefits, especially the indirect and undefined ones, makes one a bad member of parliament.  Asking for more, presumably,  would be naughty.

Naughty, naughty, Todd.

Makes you wonder what a Conservative might say.  Well, a Conservative other than Whiffen who is not, quite evidently, either from Labrador or very familiar with the issues as seen from the perspective of someone who lives in the Big Land.

Why what about someone like John Hickey, currently drawing a cabinet minister’s pay and rumoured to be organizing a run for the federal Conservatives in the next federal election?

Back in 2002, Hickey took part in a massive anti-Lower Churchill rally organized by the guy who would one day deliver the starting bits for the Muskrat Falls project.

Here’s how the Telegram (December 4, 2002) reported Hickey’s comments at the rally:

He said they want to see a development fund set up for Labrador and a plan for long-term sustainable development attached to the project that will bring new industries to the region.

Hickey was even more forthright in his insistence – back then, of course – that not one megawatt of power should leave Labrador until local were met.  As the Globe reported 9 December 10, 2002:

Mr. Hickey said the community of Happy Valley-Goose Bay can only acquire 55 megawatts from Churchill Falls and has been stymied in its attempts to bring in industries such as an aluminum smelter because of uncertainty about the electrical supply. 

Mr. Hickey was one of several Labrador business and political leaders who met with Mr. Grimes two weeks ago and demanded that any Lower Churchill agreement contain a clause that would allow Labrador communities to obtain 500 megawatts of power for future industrial development.  

"I've got a message for Mr. Landry: 'you aren't going to get a megawatt of power out of Labrador until our needs are looked after,' " Mr. Hickey said.

That was then, of course.  Hickey’s been notoriously silent on the project and whether or not the existing proposal meets the standards Hickey set back in 2002.  (Hint:  it doesn’t). But if you look at Hickey’s view you can see it is pretty much along the same lines that Todd Russell is talking about today. There’s none of the vagueness of Whiffen’s comments.

So is the former Conservative party executive director going to be supporting John Hickey in the next federal election or is John already branded as a naughty boy in Conservative circles for expecting more for Labradorians than the island Conservatives are willing to cough up?

Hard to say at this point but this little exchange does go to show the problems that come when you only know the TPs and not the wider context. 

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Twitter or Huckster? Political uses of social media

Front page of the Telegram with a glorious picture. 

Way better advertising than he could ever buy with cash and Steve Kent nailed it.

Of course, Steve Kent is one thing above anything else:  a marketer.  He knows how to sell you something and the commodity he sells best his himself.  You can tell Steve Kent is good at it because he has done very well for himself in a relatively short period of time.

You can also tell because he uses the textbook lines to describe his interest in social media:

Twitter is really about having a dialogue. It’s about engaging people in conversation and it’s not just another approach to communicating messages in the traditional sense

The front page Telegram story would have you believe that Kent is a keen political trendsetter using social media like Twitter in order to “have ‘more human’ interactions with his constituents.”

Here is an example of those “more human” interactions, the dialogue, the conversations:

-  The Provincial Government is investing $2 million so schools across Newfoundland and Labrador can receive 1,450...

-  Storm has started, but dinner theatre is a go at Reid Centre for @mount_pearl Frosty Festival!

There’s some stuff about a pothole and a flat tire, lots of repeating of other people’s messages – called re-tweeting – and a few sports scores. Not very deep or detailed and all pretty pedestrian stuff.  If this is “more human”, then you’d hate to see the other “interactions.”

Still, good on Kent for going with this sort of thing.  He’s not alone;  he might be the only provincial politician to embrace twitter professionally but there are plenty of others out there.  Most locally tend to use Twitter this way:  very sterile and pretty much for putting on the official face.

Not all of them are like that, though.  Take Tony Clement, the federal cabinet minister.  this guy is on Twitter and he and his personality are right there.

And these guys are distinctly different from other high-profile people who are using Twitter.  News media types are especially notable for just putting themselves and their distinctive personalities out there for people to take or leave as they see fit. They don’t just tweet news or mundane lines teasing up a story on the conventional media for television or radio. Sports, movies, personal comments, jokes are all as much part of the twitter mix as something about what stories they are working on. Two that come easily to mind are Kady O’Malley from CBC Ottawa and David Cochrane, CBC’s provincial affairs reporter in  from Newfoundland and Labrador.

The contrast between the pols and the media is night and day.  One is carefully packaged and guarded, by and large, while the other is more natural.  Guess which one better reflects the online, social media world? 

Yeah.

It’s the news media types.  They have no less at risk than the pols but the ones who are using successfully have come to understand that a key part of their overall success is rooted in them being anything but a coif and a voice. Their personality and their personability has become part of the overall package that draws loyal followers. They aren’t “more human”, they are just human.

Authenticity, it seems, is like sincerity. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made in politics. Odd thing is, most politicians real don’t need to fake either.  Why some do remains a mystery.

Incidentally, it’s interesting to see how Twitter turns up in some election campaigns. In Humber West, Liberal Mark Watton has been using his Twitter feed to push out campaign-related information.  He’s tweeted at least once a day.  Conservative Vaughn Granter tweeted on Sunday but hadn’t done anything with Twitter since Tuesday of last week. The NDP candidate – Rosie Meyers – doesn’t appear to have a Twitter feed.

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