I wanted to keep the political theme of my last couple posts going so went a' searching for a relevant song I had in mind (in title if not in actual sentiment).
This live gem popped up hitting on a number of notes – it's from a concert in li'l London, it's from the first band to be featured twice on Music Monday, it involves a shout-out to UWO and it's just a hell of a good song!
When I first started looking into the NDP leadership race, I went to the now obligatory Facebook fan pages of each of the four leadership candidates.
I was a bit shocked to see that Dwain Lingenfelter had almost twice the number of supporters that Ryan Meili had – even though Meili was the much younger candidate with a lot more appeal to the younger set who would be likely to show their support for someone on Facebook.
I started clicking through their lists of supporters and was a bit surprised to find that a large number of Lingenfelter's supporters were either obviously (because of their network affiliations) or very likely (based on their names) from South America. (And I'm not the only one who noticed it – Small Dead Animals, a right-wing blog I've defended on my blog before – also pointed out this incongruity.)
I later learned that Lingenfelter's wife is from Columbia and this is where the support comes from – likely she's been spreading the word among her connections back home and encouraging them to support her husband's campaign.
There's nothing illegal about this of course and Facebook fan page counts (like any other online poll) aren't binding in any way. But they could convey a message about support and momentum, especially to a reporter (professional or otherwise) that wasn't paying attention. For example, if tomorrow's Leader Post says “Lingenfelter has twice the online support that Meili does” without explaining that a lot of this support is from people who can't vote in the leadership race, that's misleading at best and could have an impact on the race at worst.
So, in the interests of finding out what support levels might really indicate, I did some counting last night. I focused on the two people who are leading in online Facebook support – Lingenfelter who had 543 supporters at the time I checked and Meili who had 290 (For the record, the other two candidates have the following totals: Pedersen – 209 and Higgins – 69.)
I went through both lists of fan page members counting *only* those who are identifiable as belonging to a Saskatchewan network in some way – most likely by having joined a city or a University or a high school network.
There are numerous problems with this methodology:
1) there are some people who support more than one candidate but at least in my counts, they would cancel each other out.
2) some people I *knew* were from Saskatchewan didn't get counted. (In fact Ryan Meili himself doesn't belong to a network so didn't get counted in his own total! Plus Lingenfelter does belong to the Regina network so there was no canceling out effect on this point.)
3) some who belong to a University network may be alumni who are no longer in the province and therefore, ineligible to vote even if they support one candidate or the other.
Before someone calls me on it, I'll admit that I did a pretty quick count late at night clicking through dozens of pages so my final totals likely aren't 100% accurate and I may be out a few people either way for each candidate. But here's what I came up with in terms of Saskatchewan-based support:
Lingenfelter – 128/543 = 24% (or less than a quarter of his support from people identifiable as being connected to Saskatchewan. I thought about it but didn't also do a count of Lingenfelter fans who are in the Columbia network or who have Spanish-sounding names to see if my assertion elsewhere that the “vast majority” of Lingenfelter's online support comes from outside the country is true. But with only one quarter of his online support coming from Saskatchewan, it's definitely possible.)
Meili = 173/290 = 60% (or three out of every five of his supporters are people identifiable as being connected to Saskatchewan)
I've already seen some spin this as Lingenfelter having lots of international experience/support but I think that's a bit of a stretch. I mean, I have family in Hawaii but that doesn't mean I know how to surf! 
What this really shows me is that this race might just be a lot closer than people realise – especially if Meili can continue to leverage the advantages of social networking.
(To be fair, these numbers maybe just prove my initial suspicion that Meili would have the type of supporters who not only join Facebook but also join networks to expand their reach within those networks.
And to be even more fair, there's a poll up right now on the citizen journalism site, Act Up In Saskatchewan, that shows it as a race between Lingenfelter and Pedersen. That poll allows you to vote more than once so that's hardly representative but you could probably claim it's as legitimate as counting Facebook supporters. Here's the current totals on it:
| Who should be the next NDP leader? | ||||
| Dwain Lingenfelter | ||||
|
||||
| Yens Pederson [sic] | ||||
|
||||
| Ryan Meili | ||||
|
||||
| Deb Higgins | ||||
|
||||
| Don't care | ||||
|
||||
| Number of Voters |
: 6050 |
As you may know, former Saskatchewan Premier Lorne Calvert is retiring from politics and a race for the leadership of the Saskatchewan NDP
is currently underway. When the first few candidates declared, I didn’t
see anything that seemed different than what you’d expect – a former
Deputy Premier, a current MLA, a young man involved in the behind-the-scenes of the party. As usual, I'd pay attention, maybe even pick a personal favourite. But that's as far as my involvement would go once again.
Except this time, I didn't feel apathy, I felt disappointed. After
seeing the excitement generated in people of all ages, races, geographic locations and political persuasions
by the Obama campaign in the US, I wondered why we couldn’t have a
young, dynamic, post-partisan candidate here?
Then I heard that Dr.
Ryan Meili had entered the race. Although he’d be the first to deny it,
I think the parallels between his campaign and Obama’s are obvious – a
young outsider with a background as a community organizer goes up
against the establishment candidate (who, in this case, is former Saskatchewan Deputy Premier, Dwain Lingenfelter.)
After
doing some research on Ryan, I decided to do something I’d never done
before – I went to an event in Regina to hear a leadership candidate
speak. And I was so impressed, I called my wife and we both went to
hear him speak at another event later the same day. We’ve both become
members of the NDP so that we can vote for Ryan during the NDP’s convention in June.
I know that for many of us, talking about politics is often like talking about sex or religion – something we don't do in polite company. And admitting that you're excited about politics, that you've taken out an actual party membership and that you're planning to get involved and help out however you can, well, that sort of feels like telling someone what your favourite position is or what you usually only share in the confessional booth! 
I have no interest in knowing your answers to the last two questions – honest! But I do hope that you also take the time to do some research about Ryan (I've got a couple links at the end of this post to get you started). And if you like what you read/hear/see, I strongly encourage you to take the big scary leap to get involved yourself.
The things you can do range from really easy and really cheap (see #1 below) to things that will take a bit of your time, your money, your expertise or maybe all three:
1) join the Ryan Meili fan page on Facebook.
2) if you live in Saskatchewan, consider joining the NDP.
It only costs $10 (and just $7 if you’re between 13 and 25). This will
allow you to vote for Ryan online or by mail-in ballot during the NDP convention in early June.
3) become one of his community organizers
4) Pass this blog post on to family, friends and acquaintances who live in Saskatchewan, even if you no longer do.
5)
Donate to Ryan’s campaign. Neither him nor his supporters are
particularly wealthy (I speak from personal experience!) so he is relying on
many small donors to help cover the various costs associated with
running a leadership campaign.
6) You can also donate to the provincial NDP,
whether you live here or not. It’s the
best tax break in the country – for every $1 you donate, you get $0.75
back on your income taxes!
I’ve spent a
few lines this post comparing Ryan’s campaign to Barack Obama’s. But
I sincerely believe Ryan Meili has the potential to be even more than
that. His unique combination of intelligence and compassion, life experience and willingness to dream big means he could be a Tommy Douglas for the 21st century, he could be our Tommy Douglas.
I really hope that you decide to take that leap and get involved with his campaign!
Jason Hammond
March 21, 2009
Regina, Saskatchewan
More information:
* Ryan Meili's campaign web site
* Ryan Meili's biography
* An article Ryan wrote for Canadian Family Physician magazine
…and a YouTube clip from his campaign launch in Saskatoon:
I knew taking a blog-holiday to go to Vegas could be a bad idea. I haven't posted for the last couple days which is a gap that I've only had a few times in the history of this blog – even if I miss the odd day, I very rarely miss two in a row. But anyhow, let's say “I'm back!” and hope that's true.
Did you happen to notice that Google is celebrating the anniversary of a very well-known children's book with their logo today?
(Thanks to the co-worker who pointed this out.)
I even knew the answer – “where's the bathroom?” wins in a landslide!
(via AskMetafilter)
The week before we left for Vegas I posted Elvis as my Music Monday clip. So now that we're back, I thought I'd close with another Vegas icon…
(and speaking of The King, a note to self: do not include the joking phrase “Going to Las Vegas for an Elvis Convention” in your e-mail auto-reply away message unless you want to explain to a bunch of co-workers upon your return that, no, you are not actually leading a secret life as an Elvis impersonator! 
)
Although I have to admit that I didn't take nearly as many as I normally would – both because I often find that having a lens to your eye all the time removes you from the experience and also because, frankly, you can go to Flickr and find photos of anything we visited – the Lion Habitat at MGM Grand, the Fremont Street Experience, any of the casinos on the Strip – that easily outdo any pictures I took.
1. Visit one of their local libraries.
2. Take in a second show besides “Love” (Penn & Teller would've been awesome as would have any of the other Cirque shows)
3. Eat at In 'n' Out Burger – a no-frills California chain that's sort of like McDonald's but with high-quality, healthy ingredients.
4. Put $10 on the Flames to win the Stanley Cup.
5. Pay $8 for a plain old rye & coke (oh wait, I did do that. Sure, it was stiff as hell but still, such a rip-off! Vegas doesn't have nearly the number of deals that it used to – no cheap buffets, no free gifts to entice you into the casino, not a lot of casinos give you free money ($5 or $10) when you first join a players club, etc.)
Apparently they had cameras following me around in Vegas. Here's a clip from the upcoming documentary…
Sitting in McCarran airport in Vegas just waiting for our flight departure. After a couple *really* close calls on the way down – both in Regina (long security line-up) and Calgary (half-hour delay leaving Regina due to aforementioned long security lines meant we had half an hour to sprint through Calgary airport, clear customs, find our gate and get boarded) so we're not taking any chances this time and are here a couple hours early.
At least the return flight is direct to Regina and at least we're with Grandpa and Grandma this time so we have an extra set of hands (as I type this, I think Pace is off with Grandpa somewhere – probably sitting at a slot machine!)
It's been a fast, overwhelming, crazy week so I'll just hit on some highlights…
– I usually suck at gambling and have never won a significant amount in my life (I think my previous best “big win” was when I won $80 – ironically on my first day the last time I was in Vegas when I was 21) but this time, I won $300 my first day after putting in $20 ($10 of my own money which was the daily limit I'd set for myself and $10 of the casino's money which is what I got for signing up for their player's card.) How often do you go on a vacation where it could end up paying for itself? Of course, the refrain became “Well, you won $300 so this is covered” whether I was buying clothes for Pace, a meal for the family, show tickets, our hotel room or whatever – a phrase all of Shea and I kept repeating long after the $300 was gone!
– went to Cirque Du Soleil's “Love” show at The Mirage last night and as a huge Beatles fan, I was nervous that it wouldn't live up to my expectations. And it didn't – it exceeded them. Greatly! SUCH a great show. I only wish we'd had the financial wherewithal (and time) to take in more Cirque shows – both Ka and O are supposed to be amazing as well.
– the fountain show at The Bellagio was stunning. They apparently spent $40 million developing it.
– the Fremont Street Experience downtown was pretty cool as well and downtown Vegas is a nice break from the chaos of the Strip.
– the Sirens show in front of Treasure Island was pretty cheesy but the price was right.
– the Spice Market Buffet at Planet Hollywood was delicious – about half a dozen different stations encompassing categories such as Asian, Mexican, American, Desserts, Seafood, Middle Eastern, Italian and perhaps 1-2 others I'm forgetting.
Anyhow, those are a few of the highlights of the week off the top of my head. I may do a more detailed report later (or maybe not). Oh, and Shea'll likely have photos up on Flickr later this weekend so watch for that too.
