Well, I voted today. In and out in a few minutes, all taken care of. I have to admit, I walked out of there thinking, ok, I’ve done my civic duty, now back to work. I didn’t feel that I’d necessarily contributed in a major way to anything that will matter. And I guess that’s what it came down to. After weeks of following the news, reading the paper, listening to the radio. I didn’t come out of it with a “yes, this is the party to vote for” feeling. First some general campaign wrap up from my everyday voter perspective;

1. I felt that the liberals had a better campaign for the most part from a marketing perspective. Better website, visibility, accessibility, signs, ads, and media EXCEPT I started to cringe when that ad that played every morning on CBC on the way to taking my kids to school. The one with the acadian music in the background with the we can make a difference speech. After several days of listening to that, I turned the rado off this morning just so I wouldn’t have to listen to it again. From a marketing perspective, I think it’s too long of an ad to air several days in a row on the radio. And the music became too much after a while.

2. I didn’t like the negative campaigning by the PC’s and especially the Liberals.

3. It was good to have the NDP platform to read as I didn’t find that through other mediums, that their voice was getting out there. Having read all 3 platforms (and I will be honest, I did not read with a fine tooth comb. I scanned it for items that are important to me, something I think the everyday voter does) while there are differences, there wasn’t a lot that jumped out at me from any of them.

So this campaign, I made an actual effort to read the papers, read blogs (this was my favorite part), and really tried to learn about the issues, not something I had done a lot of before. And you know, the sad truth, is that it didn’t make a lot of difference to how I felt, nor did it really influence my decision in voting. 

Sad, when you think of it. I was active, I learned and I still feel jaded. I don’t trust that politicians will follow through on what they say. Not because I think they are liars or bad people, to the contrary as they are actively trying to make a difference, but because I think that circumstances change and it’s difficult to follow through with some items. So then don’t make promises at election time just for the sake of a vote. I almost think I’d rather have someone running say to me “I can’t promise that I can do x,y, and z. But I know what needs to be done (and state the issues), and I know some solutions (state the solutions), so let’s try and see if we can get there.” Too many things are dependent on other factors. “We’ll make NB a booming place to live by bringing NBers back”, great, how are they going to come back, what will bring them back here, and if they don’t, what are you going to do then?.

Anyway, it’s more of the same rhetoric, what I’m trying to say is that I’m a cynical optimist. I hope for the best, but have my doubts about it happening. I’ll be online from TX on Monday night to follow the election. LOL, who am I kidding, I’ll be out visiting 6th street and seeing the sites of Austin;)