Blogging appears to have crossed the vital threshold of geekdom into the mainstream, to the point where political parties and lobby groups actively include usage of this channel in promotion strategies. Blogging’s popularity derives partially from the fact that virtually anyone can do it and are free to state nearly anything to make their feelings known to all. Despite this apparent freedom of expression, it should be obvious to most that when a visible representative of a political organization expresses his/her thoughts in public –no matter how unregulated the forum may be- these thoughts will almost always be attributed to the organization as a whole.
For example, if a soldier were to make negative comments on TV about the virtues of going to war, the morale of the entire Armed Forces would come into question (even if the soldier was merely expressing his own personal opinion).
Mike Klander is one of those unfortunate souls who missed out on this lesson, and the Liberal Party may pay a terrible price for his cyberspace ignorance. For those not in the know, Klander was the executive vice-president of the Ontario Liberal Party. His December 9 blog entry focused on NDP candidate Olivia Chow, comparing the Hong Kong born Chow to a chow chow dog (see below).
Klander resigned on December 26 and removed the offending entry from his blog page. Liberal spokespeople, meanwhile, fell over each other to distance Klander’s personal comments from the general views of the party. Predictably, opposition parties lined up to express their outrage at the slanderous attack.
Whether this childish attack was ethnically-charged or just a play on Chow’s name is irrelevant – Klander’s high profile in the Liberal party means that every word he utters in public will reflect directly on the Liberal Party. This is true even if the blog in question is on a “personal†blog site. It should have been no surprise that content from Klander’s website, which seems to be heavy on personal attacks, could come back to haunt him one day.
So the question on many minds is what effect the Chow-Chow Debacle will have on the Liberal party during this increasingly-tight election race? The obvious short-term consequence is that the opposition parties have yet something else about the Liberals to attack. The NDP will benefit the most for 2 simple reasons:
- Olivia Chow is personally popular. Known for her advocacy on behalf of disadvantaged youth and public transportation, Chow has been voted “Best City Councilor†no less than 5 times by readers of Toronto magazine NOW. As she is generally not associated with ‘dirty’ politics, one can expect voters to be less tolerant than usual of smear tactics against her. This will make Chow sympathetic, even to those who wouldn’t normally vote NDP.
- The [possibly] racial nature of Klander’s post plays right into the NDP’s overall strategy of positioning themselves as a voice for the marginalized (typically racial minorities, manual labourers and the poor). Klander’s open contempt for Chow and her interracially-wed husband Jack Layton –who just happens to be the leader of the NDP party- will only fuel the argument that the Liberals are nothing more than a good ol boys club that shows open contempt for ordinary Canadians. Already Jack Layton has raised the issue of reparations for Canada’s Chinese Head tax and appears to be getting a warm reception from the Chinese community
However, it is the long-term consequences that the Liberals need to be most concerned about. Without strict controls on which party members can blog and what can be said, the Liberals can look forward to issuing many statements distancing the party line from the statements of rogue members (already, Klander is not the only high-ranking Liberal in hot water for slandering NDP politicians on the Internet). Public confidence will wane after too many of these mini-scandals – after all, why trust a party to regulate the country when they can’t even regulate themselves?
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