Head Tale

This is probably not a great thing to admit to while not only doing a lot of writing about but also heavily volunteering for one of four NDP leadership candidates here in Saskatchewan.

But I have to admit that if I still lived in Calgary Centre, I’m fairly certain I’d be voting for the Green Party candidate, Chris Turner.

There are a wide number of reasons for this:

• I first became aware of Chris Turner when he was a stand-out writer with now-sadly-defunct magazine Shift and later, when I happened across the book he wrote on “The Simpsons” TV show in the discount bin at a Safeway store of all places.  I bought it immediately and found him to be as amazing as a long-form writer as in his magazine pieces (and I’m only slightly biased because “The Simpsons” was my religion around that time!)
• He’s written a number of books since that first one, his latest of which, “The Leap: How To Survive and Thrive In The Sustainable Economy which had the incredibly great honour of receiving the “Hammy” no-prize award as the best non-fiction book I read last year.
• He’s tapping into much of the same post-partisan, young professional, heavily tech-savvy supporters that defined the successful campaign of Naheed Nenshi. (Small-world coincidence – the author of the first article linked in this bullet point is another friend and colleague from my days working with the Writers Guild of Alberta)
• He’s a long-time member of MetaFilter.  His profile isn’t exactly hidden but at the same time, I won’t link to it as I’m not sure how private he likes to keep it.  But I always look forward to his comments which just sparkle with intelligence, insight and humour.)
• He was born in Saskatchewan which immediately makes him a great guy! 😉
•  I started by saying it’s weird to admit that I’d be voting Green if I still lived in Calgary while so heavily volunteering for Ryan Meili, a candidate for the Sask NDP leadership.  But when you look at Ryan Meili and Chris Turner side-by-side, I’m not sure if you see much difference – authors, activists, well-established global worldview, environmentalists, well-received TED talks, strong Nenshi connections, tech-savvy supporters…the list goes on.  Some may say that just means Ryan’s a Green candidate in disguise (or that Turner is the best candidate the NDP never had – which is probably true).  But for me, I try to remember politics isn’t – or shouldn’t be – a team sport.  Although the NDP is the best fit for me right now given my own personal values, my worldview, my family situation and a number of other factors, I’m also not “NDP 4 Life” to the degree that I would never ever consider voting for a different party depending on circumstances and/or the candidates running.  In fact, when I lived in Calgary Centre, I DID vote for the Greens in the 2004 Federal Election because I liked their candidate better than who the NDP put forward (looking at those results, I wasn’t the only one!) and there’s something that appeals strongly to my innate sense of fairness to want to see more parties successful – on left and in right – and maybe even to eventually move Canada to a more European model of ongoing coalition governments.
• Many people are opposed to strategic voting for a variety of reasons (I’m not and that’s part of the reason I supported Nathan Cullen in the federal NDP leadership race.)  But even if you are – you have to admit that Calgary-Centre has already proven that strategic voting *can* work – as shown when supporters of the NDP, Liberals, Greens AND Conservatives circled the wagons to barely but still successfully elect Joe Clark in 2000 over the candidate for the newly minted Canadian Alliance.  The same might happen again in this same riding but behind a different consensus candidate – in this case, if the vote of the crowd-sourced 1CalgaryCentre project which asked voters who they should mobilize behind holds and where Turner took 70% of the votes.
• Also against the “my team, right or wrong” arguments, Turner is making the case that by-elections are one of the rare cases where voters are free to simply vote for the best candidate.  From his web site FAQ: “By-elections are unpredictable. Voters know they aren’t picking the next government, so they rally behind the best candidate. This time around, we know Calgary’s ready to have a real voice instead of just another backbencher.””
• Although I obviously ran with a lot of writers while I lived in Calgary, I don’t think I ever met Chris.  But many of our shared connections are supporting him too and that’s also important to me.
• There’s one other reason that I’m supporting Chris and it’s about being a father and I’m not meaning to be cryptic but that’s all I’m going to say about that.