URL: http://www.rickmercer.com/blog/index.cfm/2008/9/28/Who-can-survive-a-good-googling

Chris Reid, the recently dumped Conservative candidate in Toronto centre believes socialism has turned us into a nation of effeminates. How else, the longtime conservative activist argues, can we explain how a deranged killer managed to decapitate someone on a greyhound bus? It turns out that it’s not the killer’s fault. It is the fault of the limp wristed schmucks who were trying to catch some shut-eye between Portage la Prairie and Brandon, Manitoba. The solution Mr. Reid believes is to simply arm the population – or at least the women and homosexuals – with concealed handguns.

Personally, I’m hoping that in the future this bright young man takes a run for the Conservative party leadership. It would make for an interesting campaign – homosexuals of Canada, lay down your Botox needles and pick up a Colt .45.

Are we a nation of effeminates as Reid suggests? I’m not sure. I do know that if I’m ever on a bus when the stabbing starts – call me whatever you want because I’ll be the one screaming like a girl and heading for the exits.

And then there is Ryan Warawa. Mr. Warawa, the current Conservative candidate in Vancouver East thinks Canada’s defense Minister Peter McKay is actually a pipsqueak and not fit for public office. Mr. Warawa is a new type of Tory who calls male politicians he doesn’t like “bitches” and “whores”, believes that heroin should be legalized, and that prostitutes should work in legal brothels so we can tax them on their activities.

Among Conservatives there is a lot of grass root support for Chris Reid’s brand of conservatism. He wants to close the CBC, scrap the Indian act and seems to have deep seated rage issues – but team Harper still dumped him for his views. Word is Harper draws the line at homosexuals with guns; and really, considering his record on that file I can’t say I blame him.

As for the pro drug, pro prostitution Warawa, he still remains Stephen Harper’s chosen candidate in Vancouver East. A spokesperson for the Prime Minister’s office says the Mr. Warawa has, as of three days ago, changed his views and no longer believes anything he ever said on any issue whatsoever. Rumour is that once his blog came to light he was immediately run through a Conservative reeducation camp. A few pistol whips from a flack jacket wearing Peter McKay (“Who’s the bitch now Warawa?”) topped off with a chemical lobotomy and the boy is good as new, a virtual Bev Oda – happy to be seen and not heard from ever again. He will make a hell of a cabinet minister someday.

By the sounds of it, when it comes to dealing with party dissidents, the Chinese government could learn a thing or two from our sweater wearing prime minister.

Of course, as voters, we only know what Mr. Reid and Mr. Warawa actually believe because they have both, in the past, had online blogs.

The irony is, like most blogs, nobody really read them at the time – ordinary Canadians don’t spend a lot of time reading blogs because ordinary Canadians know that blogs are basically the domain of idiots, mad people and news anchors. This is by and large true. I should know, I’ve had one for years. And like most bloggers I have a love hate relationship with my online diary.

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Like most bloggers (and perhaps my audience of family and friends) I quickly grew tired of my own thoughts and instead of updating my blog five times a day I started aiming for once a week and then once a month. Somehow the world survived.

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 (Reid is 28 years old, Warwa is 32) 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 us can do such a thing?

I know I won’t be able to. When I read back through my blog archive I see opinions that make me cringe. I come off alternately as a crazed left leaning liberal and a crazed right leaning conservative; rarely does any opinion come across as moderate. Because let’s face it, on the World Wide Web, that’s just not interesting. Taken out of context I would be sunk.

And yes I have published, with the aid of photo shop, photos of Stephen Harper, Stephane Dion and Jack Layton in situations that would be considered by most community standards to be disrespectful and tasteless, but by my standards is good clean fun.

Luckily I have no immediate plans to change occupations. So by all means feel free to check them out at rickmercer.com – destroying my future in public life since 2005.