Stephen Taylor

Chuck Strahl started blogging at the kickoff of the campaign and so far, it’s one of the best MP blogs out there. The primary reason for an MP/candidate blog is to connect the representative with the constituents.

A poor politician blog will issue press releases anonymously and be devoid of any other content.

A half-assed political blog will be written by a committee (usually the candidate’s campaign team) and may occasionally include a short entry from the candidate themselves (but how are we to know the true identity of the author, we’ve already been let down by the committee blogging style).

A good blog is one that is directly written by the candidate and details issues that are important to consituents on a semi-frequent basis.

An excellent blog is one that does all of the things that a good blog does, however, does it on a more frequent basis (preferably daily). Also, while political details are also interesting, an excellent blog will humanize its author by describing his preference for Tim Hortons over Starbucks, will detail a personal and emotional moment related to the job, or will discuss other topics such as sports. A politician is a representative of the people. They should be a real part of the community and should relate to as many constituents as possible (takes the kids to early morning hockey practice, drinks Tim Horton’s coffee, scrapes the ice off the car windows etc.)

Strahl has been blogging for a week now and he already gets it. Keep up the good fight Chuck and be sure to blog about it.

Blogging Tories and fans of Blogging Tories, the first leader’s debate has been scheduled for December 15th in Vancouver. There is one new feature that the networks are adding to the debate: viewer participation.

While there won’t be a live studio audience, the networks will be collecting questions from Canadians on a variety of topics. The best questions will be chosen by the networks and they’ll tape you asking your question for the leaders.

Questions can be to all leaders in a general sense or they can be focused to any candidate.

This is another example of how the Internet and blogging is connecting the electorate to their representatives.

So, Blogging Tories (and readers) I’m encouraging you to help further enhance participatory democracy by submitting your questions to the following email address:

[email protected]

Be sure to post your questions in the comments section below (if you like) and please encourage other Blogging Tories to do the same by linking to this post.

Take a look at the header of the Liberal website:

Are the Liberals implying that Buzz Hargrove endorses Tax Cuts? It took less than 24 hours for the Liberals to abuse Hargrove’s endorsement.

Perhaps Hargrove will be rethinking his flawed strategy? Endorsement of Liberal corruption will have the Liberals abusing your endorsement.