What’s that you’re wearing?

This morning I took another look at Prince Edward Island candidate websites for the upcoming federal election. Some candidates moved their websites, others set ones up since I first published this table, so herewith I present an updated list. This time I’ve added information about what operating system, webserver software, and Internet Service Provider the candidates are using. Comments below.

PARTY

Conservative

Green

Liberal

NDP

Cardigan

Peter McQuaid

Windows 2000

Microsoft IIS

Aliant

Jeremy Stiles

Linux

Apache

Edmonton

Lawrence MacAulay

Windows NT

WebSitePro

Aliant

Dave MacKinnon

Mac OS

Lasso

Newton

Charlottetown

Darren Peters

Linux

Apache

ISN

Will MacFadden

Linux

Apache

Edmonton

Shawn Murphy

Windows 2003

Microsoft IIS

Velocity Networks

Dody Crane

Solaris 8

Apache

Aliant

Egmont

Reg Harper

No website

Dr. Irene Novaczek

Linux

Apache

Edmonton

Joe McGuire

Windows 2003

Microsoft IIS

eNom

None

Malpeque

Mary Crane

Linux

Apache

EV1Servers

Sharon Labchuk

Linux

Apache

Edmonton

Wayne Easter

Linux

Apache

ISN

None

Where are the sites hosted?

  • Only two candidates — Darren Peters and Wayne Easter — are hosting their websites at a PEI-based Internet Service Provider (ISN).
  • Three candidates — Peter McQuaid, Lawrence MacAulay and Dody Crane — are hosting their websites at Aliant, where workers are currently on strike.
  • Three candidates — Mary Crane, Shawn Murphy and Joe McGuire — are using U.S.-based Internet Service Providers to host their sites (Joe McGuire’s site currently returns magazine subscription offers; I was given the address by the campaign office, and double checked with them; they’re getting back to me).

What are they running?

  • Seven of thirteen candidates — over 50% — use servers running the open-source Linux operating system.
  • All of the Liberal candidates but Wayne Easter use Microsoft servers.
  • Eight candidates are running the open-source Apache webserver, three are running Microsoft IIS, one is running WebSitePro, and one is running Lasso.

I used the Netcraft service to gather all technical data on ISPs, operating systems and server software. All Green Party candidates have websites based on a central Green Party server. I identified candidate’s websites either by phoning the campaign offices, or by following links from the central party sites.

Like a hole in the head…

I received an invitation yesterday to attend a “round-table discussion on ‘Developing a Marketing Brand’ for Downtown Charlottetown.” I am told that “professional moderators from Cossette Atlantic will guide us through a discussion” and that the end product will be “positioning for the new Downtown Charlottetown Brand and subsequent marketing plan.”

Is it just me, or does Downtown Charlottetown (I prefer the more humble downtown Charlottetown myself) need a brand like it needs a hole in the head?

Sure, the brandocrats will tell us that a brand is all about “positioning your qualities in the consumer’s mind” and associated rubbish. But brands are really, at their core, about telling a Big Lie. Or a series of Big Lies.

Downtown Charlottetown is in the process of withering away. Why not concentrate efforts on stanching the wither, and working for real improvement instead of wasting time painting a coat of socially-engineered artifice on the problem?

Federal Politics at 84 Fitzroy Street

We’re hosting an informal gathering with Green Party candidate Will McFadden at 84 Fitzroy Street, Charlottetown on Monday, May 31 at 2:00 p.m.. This isn’t a debate or a speech or a formal Green Party event, it’s simply an opportunity for some of us to meet Will, hear his ideas, and ask some questions.

If you’re interested in coming by, please drop me a line, just so we can get an idea of how many people are coming.

We’ve sent out invitations to other candidates in the Charlottetown district to come to similar gatherings over the next couple of weeks; watch this space for details.

Where everybody knows your name…

I grew up in Ontario. Ontario is large. And far more socially stratified than Prince Edward Island.

I grew up in a left-leaning household. Socially progressive. Open-minded. My grandmother was a scrutineer for the NDP. I never ever heard my parents grumble about paying taxes. We were thankful.

And it was easy to demonize, or at least marginalize, those who thought otherwise. Like our anti-metric MP Geoff Scott. Or the inexplicable Tory leader Frank Miller. Or the whacked out fast-talking candidate for some fringe party who wanted to install particle-beam weapons in the neighbourhood.

Growing up near Hamilton, and having lots of friends whose parents worked for Big Steel, it was easy to see the political world as black and white: you either supported the workers, or you supported their corporate bosses. Later, when I worked in a union newspaper, echoes of the same: you were one of us, or one of them.

I’m not suggesting this was a positive thing, at least not completely. When the teams are so clearly defined, it’s not hard to just join the regular team by default, which doesn’t inspire a lot of thinking. On either side. Nonetheless, if you’re going to end up on a team by default, I think I ended up, generally, on the right one.

Segue to Prince Edward Island.

Politics here, to someone who didn’t grow up in the midst of it, is incomprehensible. Black is white and white is black. Conservative and Liberal don’t mean here what they do in Ontario, partly because the lack of big corporate patrons forces them to be more grounded. And because big labour on PEI is more white collar than blue collar, the sensibilities of the NDP are somewhat foreign as well.

Suffice to say that every time I think I understand Island politics, I get knocked on my ear, and realize it will take another 12 or 13 years before I even get an inkling of what’s going on. Is it any wonder that I’ve choosen to concern myself with understanding the apparatus of politics rather than its substance?

Which brings me to my current quandry.

I’m faced with a slate of candidates here in the Charlottetown district each of whom I either know directly, or at least through friends.

When I headed up the Victoria Row Business Owners Association (long story) a decade ago, I worked closely with Shawn Murphy, who owns property on Richmond Street. He was a smart, capable, generous colleague.

The second Christmas we spent on the Island, Catherine Hennessey invited us for Christmas dinner with her, David Weale, Reg Porter and Darren Peters. Although that is the sum total of my personal time with Darren, he has nonetheless said hello to me absolutely every time we’ve passed each other on the street in the years since. Many people I’ve come to know and respect on the Island also know and respect Darren. It’s rare to hear an unkind work spoken of him.

Dodi Crane is an occassional regular at Eddie’s Lunch (aka Viva’s, aka the MarinaGrill). She’s married to a friend of mine. Her office used to be next door, and we shared the same recycling bin for six months. In a province where NDP candidates are sometimes described as “knuckleheads,” Dodi has always stood slightly above the fray, and seems respected even by people who don’t agree with the substance of what she espouses.

Will McFadden lives across the street from my brother Johnny. He parked his van in their driveway last week. A friend whose opinion I respect says Will is a smart, intuitive, crackerjack thinker.

So if I set aside the swirling confusion of the national campaigns — something that is becoming increasingly necessary as things descend into quote-trading and ad hominem attacks —- and see my local decision as one between four well-respected neighbours, all of a sudden things start to get really difficult.

I have a friend who was once courted to run provincially. He was invited into the office of the Premier of the day and shown the results of polling in his district with his name in the fray. He told me it was an eerie experience to see his character judged in such a clear-cut numerical way by his friends and neighbours, to have an actual percentage attached to the question “on a scale of one to ten, how honest do you think I am?”

But, when the decision is concrete — “who’s the best neighbour to send up to Ottawa” — and not abstract (and specious) — like “who will put more billions into healthcare” — then the campaign crystallizes into something more akin to a public job interview process than a pointless pep rally. And so questions like “who is more honest?” or “who’s the better manager?” become really important.

And so for perhaps the first time in my life, with the bedrock of “left = good, right = bad” removed from play, no deal-breaking issues to cleave off superfluous candidates, I’m forced to think really, really hard about my vote. I’m going to have to work at this. And I only have 32 days.

Good citizenship, of course, demands nothing less.

Why We Vote

Compass ran a very well-produced story tonight on why Prince Edward Island’s voter turnout is as high as it is. I don’t know exactly what it was about the piece that was so compelling, but there was a good combination of interviews, historical photos, B-roll and commentary that was all tied together into more than the sum of its parts. Kudos to Nancy Russell and crew for an excellent piece.

Leaders on The National: How They Rate

Every night on The National they run the standard four stories covering the party leaders’ tours across the country for this General Election. Here are my impressions after Day One:

  • Stephen Harper — Surprisingly relaxed and looking a lot less like a wax museum figure than he usually does; he’s dressing better too. Performed better than I expected, and is doing a good job at covering up the secret “lets ship all the poor people to Australia” agenda that others report him to have. 6/10
  • Paul Martin — That blue checked shirt took 10 years off him. Also looked relaxed, but the whole “Stephen Harper is the anti-Christ” approach is already wearing thin, and I predict it will backfire because it makes Harper more credible, not less. The “let’s visit the greenhouse and help the little children plant seeds” was over the top. 5/10
  • Gilles Duceppe — He’s not running for the top job, so he can be more relaxed than the other guys. He used to feel a lot like a high school vice principal; he’s a lot friendlier now, more like a that socialist friend of your parents who used to drop by from time to time. 8/10
  • Jack Layton — The green hues in the backdrop are nice. The prancing through Chinatown was a little too composed and artificial. The speech was well executed: he got all the righteous indignation out of his system before the campaign, and now he looks like the calm alternative to the warring Harper and Martin. Performed better than I expected. 7/10

Where was the Green Party, by the way? If they’re running a candidate in every riding, don’t they deserve equal treatment? The existing setup means the CBC is an agent of status quo preservation.

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