Political Placards
A few weeks back, I was commuting to work and saw the following poster attached to a light pole. Similar to the political placards that have been present quite often since moving here.
But since this one was up first one up and I had not heard of another election coming up, my anglophone eyes thought they may be a joke. Take off the accent, separate the last name into two words and you'll see what I saw. By no means am I making fun of her name since I should be one of the last people to do that. But that is what my eyes saw.
Then these placards started showing up. My thought was that the party picked the right guy to represent them. He looks pretty green.
This candidate from the Parti Québecois looks like he's working so hard he broke a sweat for the ad photo. Looks like it paid off. He won.
And lastly placards for this candidate started showing up. On the ad with a head shot it is apparent as a friend put it, you can see her facial hair 'while driving by at 50km/hr'. I have absolutely nothing about women who choose to let their facial hair grow naturally. I'm for anyone who challenges social norms. But I thought it may not be the best idea when running for office which for much of the voting public is a popularity contest.
As for this shot, I could not quite figure out what the image was trying to convey. Is she wishing well to the seal hunters on their departure? Does she work part time at the local airfield as wind sock? Or is she about to drop the flag as the official starter of a snowmobile drag race?
Granted, I have not been following this election very closely because I can't vote. I know it has been front page news for the past weeks, but I still have no idea who these people are or what position they are actually running for.
Turns out the election was last Monday. I only heard the night before when it would take place. In the end, the posters may have not played any difference. It seems that much more emphasis is placed on what party you are electing into office as opposed to which warm body. I think it has to do with what ideology you want in the legislative body and that the leader of the party with the most legislative members becomes the provincial or federal leader. I prefer the US model of electing a leader, but as we all know it's not fool-proof.
3 comments:
Ahah, so it's just not me who was somehow put out by the overt facial hair!! I spent weeks being amused by all the placards only realizing when the voting date was the night before. Oops.
I was actually really impressed with Gilles Duceppe's ad for the federal election. The coat and scarf with a nice winter view of downtown Montreal for a winter election seemed a nice touch. Much better than a bunch of candidates standing around in suits.
For me the interesting thing is the number of placards and that almost everyone puts their image on them. They are literally on every lamppost. In Chicago it was all about a barrage of nasty TV adds and the occasionnal 'Vote for Me in 03' placard on someone's lawn.
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