The Quixotic Pipedream that is 1 Calgary Centre

There are some people in the riding of Calgary Centre that are trying to organize a single candidate to run against the Conservative in the by-election this fall.   The thinking is that by reducing the choice people have enough people will be forced to vote for the single remaining candidate and might be able to defeat the Conservative.   I find these sort of movements corrosive to politics in Canada and much worse for us than all the robocall scandal stuff out there.

What I am noticing is that the 1 for Calgary Centre movement has no steam at all other than a few journalists looking for someway to make a race out of a Conservative coronation.   I look at the website and I see very little activity, the whole site has very few names of people active in the organization.   I found two names of people involved with 1 Calgary Centre, Brian Singh (media contact) and Phil Elder as author of a posting.  No mention of who is behind all this, no list of people endorsing the idea, really nothing at all.

In 2012 with social media you can do a lot with almost no resources but 1 Calgary Centre does not seem to able to make use of social media.   When you look to Facebook their page has almost no likes, they are at 186 as of now.   On Twitter they only have 164 followers.  Many of the Likes and Followers will be people like you and me, political junkies from elsewhere.  At best I think there are maybe enough people to sit around a pub table that are actively involved.

I am giving this misguided and badly executed idea more space than it deserves but I really do not like attempts by anyone to reduce voter choice.  Fewer candidates on the ballot will not elect someone other than the Conservative but it will suppress voter turn out.  Restricting choice to force people to vote for someone they would not otherwise vote for is in my opinion completely not acceptable on any level.