Erin Weir’s campaign sent out an e-mail blast today entitled “Why We’re With Weir” which lists excerpts from various supporters and endorsers.
Pretty standard stuff that we’ve seen from all campaigns except that this e-mail included a quote from somebody who I’m pretty sure isn’t “With Weir”…ME!
I’m in good company as they also included quotes from Greg at Accidental Jurist, Scott at Canadian Political Viewpoints and Jim at Buckdog – none of whom, as far as I know, have formally announced support for Erin Weir’s campaign.
[Edit: Just to be clear, the positive quotes from bloggers comes under a section with some positive quotes from journalists and I think the intention was that these two sections be seen as separate from the initial section with endorsers since, at least in the case of the media, it’s fairly clear that these are positive comments rather than full-on endorsements. But given the title of the blast, I can also see why it could cause confusion. And there’s also some other carelessness which could reinforce the idea that this misdirection is purposeful – all the former elected politicians who are supporting Erin are listed simply as “MLA for Melville” or “MP for Palliser” or whatever. These do come under a heading of “Former Elected Officials Support Weir” but again, there is potential for confusion for any readers not paying close attention or who don’t realise the NDP hasn’t had an MP for Palliser for at least a couple election cycles!]
Ryan Meili’s positive approach to politics has obviously had a good influence on me as I’m not going to ascribe nefarious motives to this seeming mis-representation. (It happens – I remember a similar incident in the 2009 campaign when someone made a big stink after being shown in a Facebook album on Dwain Lingenfelter’s campaign page in a way that implied that they’d endorsed him rather than just attended an event and been photographed with him.)
So how did I end up appearing in an e-mail blast as an apparent Erin Weir supporter?
As I’ve been clear, I see this blog as a place more for my own personal opinions where I can call things as I see them. I’ve been complimentary and critical of all candidates at various points during the course of this leadership campaign.
Of course it would be easy for me to just avoid saying anything nice about anyone other than my chosen candidate so my words can’t be mis-used in this way but that wouldn’t be honest, either to myself or my readers. (On the flip side, it would also be really easy for me to be a LOT more opinionated with my thoughts about the various other candidates than I have been – and which I probably would be if I wasn’t so closely associated with Ryan’s campaign.)
So instead, I’ll just point out that Trent Wotherspoon’s campaign hasn’t mis-represented my words this way and since I’m still undecided as to how I’m going to rank my ballot, I will say that little things like this make me more inclined to rank Trent ahead of Erin.
And you can quote me on that! 😉
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