The very best thing about the upcoming Canadian Election is that Rick Mercer has started posting on his blog again.  I love the way he pokes fun at Canadian politics, Canadian politicians, Canadians, and, most recently, Canadian politicians who blog…

But now I love blogs again. Blogs are serving an exciting new purpose: making politics interesting again. When I turn on the news and hear that another candidate is in trouble because of something they said on their blog I am like a kid at Christmas.

We are in a brave new time. In this election, like all of them before, there are people stepping forward for the first time. Candidates in their 20s and 30s … represent a generation of Canadians who’s every movement from the womb to the ballot has been electronically recorded.

A home video camera didn’t just roll on their first adorable steps and their first header into the coffee table; it was also running when they smoked lousy hash in an apple and then opened their zipper, pulled out their front pockets, exposed their man-tackle and did the elephant impersonation. There are now candidates running for all parties who know that their every embarrassing moment at university has been forever cached in numerous Facebook profiles. And this new generation of politician have all, for the most part, experimented with blogging.

This is a harsh contrast to our current crop of politicians sitting in parliament, the vast majority of whom have no idea how to power up a laptop let alone publish every bizarre opinion and thought they have ever had without a spell check, let alone a sober second thought.

It will change the face of elections forever.

Who will run? In the past politicians had to survive a party background check if they wanted to offer themselves for public office. And by and large most Canadians could pull that off. The question for candidates of the future will be “can you survive a detailed Google search?” Who among us will be able to do such a thing?

And you know what? He’s right! I love it!

Welcome back, Rick! You’ve been missed!

And, ok, the election is pretty interesting, too. I’m actually pretty excited to be all set up to vote from afar and will be casting my ballot before long as it must reach Ottawa by election day.  Can I just say how much I am appreciating the differences between American and Canadian politics?  Because I am.  I know that the American population is about eleventy million times larger than ours and maybe that makes the length of their campaign process appropriate. But it feels like it’s been going on FOREVER. I’m kind of relieved that it’s only a month from start to finish in Canada. In my opinion, it gives our politicians more time and freedom to accomplish what they set out to do. 

Or, you know, write incriminating shit on their blogs to be uncovered in future election campaigns.