48 Hours and counting

Podunk heads to the polls on Saturday, then again maybe they just go for the crafts fair and snacks, using the voting booth as a break between sampling fudge and bartering over knit sweaters and wooden craft projects. Regardless of the motivation, the electorate will have passed judgment on the crop of candidates by Saturday night.

With this large a number of council candidates a sense of weariness has dawned over this campaign, it's hard enough to keep track of the candidates names, let alone what they believe in. A number of interesting notes on this campaign have been made at the Nivlac portal, another local posting board of thought on matters Podunk.

As explained on Nivlac the lawn signs seem to be the extent of many of the candidates political exertion. The signs gathered in clusters around town, the only contact with the public on a daily basis.

Indeed, with the exception of the odd front page picture of a current councilor shaking hands accepting a cheque for a hospital or other candidates doing some other local good deed, the visibility of the candidates has been rather faint.

Nivlac observes the lack of the personal touch so far, as many candidates seem content to let those lawn signs do their talking . And it's a valid observation. Now perhaps municipal politics is not the place for the door to door campaign style of the Federal and provincial campaigns. But I've not seen sign of a candidates handout, let alone the candidate him or herself this campaign. I've spotted one or two at various local events, Remembrance Day obviously a must be seen at event, but for the most part the politicos are keeping low to the ground as the big day arrives. Perhaps they're afraid of a last minute blunder that may bleed their support to other candidate, then again maybe they've run out of things to say.

The battle for mayor also seems to have slowed to a crawl of late, with little in the way of fresh comment and no surge in getting issues a more prominent place in the minds of Podunkians. Mainly the election issues have been left to the spin of the paid ads (and letters section) of the newspaper to get the word out.

There has been the odd testimonial in the letters to the Editor page of the Daily Podunk, glowing tributes to one candidate or the other and how they would be a darn fine councilor or mayor in our fine burg. As well, a few of the hotter campaign issues have played out on the Editorial page, the big box debate and the ever popular "secrecy" at city hall seem to have been the two main items of interest to Podunkians. However, there certainly hasn't been much of the emotion or sense of importance to the campaigns of late, it's as though everyone has decided that they'll just sit back and wait and see what happens by Sunday.

Maybe the final two days will provide a flurry of last minute efforts, the ad reps at the Daily probably hope so. But for the most part, it seems we'll be making our decisions based on the last view of the candidates at their respective debates, the last time we actually heard or saw most of them.

At any rate, time marches on and the day of voting dawns in less than 48 hours. One hopes that the local populace are not like some of the politicians and seemingly losing interest, resulting in a low voter turnout. While it sometimes does seem that it really doesn't matter who gets elected, it still is a basic principle of democracy that we have that choice.

The old adage that if you didn't, vote you can't complain, still holds true.

And since we all love to complain about politicians, lets hope we exercise that right to vote (and complain!)