Canadians have never, ever elected a government. Despite the desperate and frantic tone with which Stephen Harper states that one needs a "personal mandate" to be PM and form government, the cold reality is that is complete nonsense. If we had even the chance of electing our government, we would have had the chance to put Michael Fortier out on the curb three years ago!

As of today, I'm a proud monthly donor to Canada's New Democratic Party because I believe that my donation will make a meaningful contribution not only to a party which I know is working on my behalf, but to Canada's democracy as a whole.

Today, the federal NDP has launched The Orange Room, which offers a number of online social networking services for party supporters. This will enevitably result in a discussion about the future of New Democrats Online, which now has continued the legacy of Blogging Dippers for about a year. The relaunch helped to reshape the future for the NDP online, and that future is once again changing.

Well, I lost my bragging rights on when Jack was going to overtake Dion for most popular Facebook politician in Canada, but nevertheless he has finally done it!

At lunch today a number of New Democrats were suprized to see that Dion's supporters spiked, I presume as a number of staffers or supporters attempted to salvage his stalled popularity. I subsequently believed it would take a couple more days (with the "you can run but you can't hide" mentality).

A quick update, again. It now looks like in an unprecidented relative gain of 75 friends within two days, Jack Layton will soon become the most popular Canadian Facebook politician!

I had originally placed my bet on July 10th, which would have been correct if not for Dion's little perk of "Green Shifters", but in the end it seems as though Jack's popularity and support for his work has won out. Though I wish I had won the target date, 'm extatic! Go Jack!

Just a quickie, but Jack has pulled close to Stephane Dion-- Currently sitting 119 friends back of "Do nothing" Dion, Jack will soon make a sprint to overthrow Dion as the top Facebook politician.

Have you added yourself as a supporter of Jack? Do you have Dion on your list and have you removed him yet?

I was scoping out Wikipedia recently, and noticed this article for Tom King had him identified as an incumbent. While this is not necessarily true yet, I do think it sends a strong message to our supporters and friends in the area and across the country: Tom can win this riding. The Conservatives, Liberals, and Greens are all saying that it can't be done which is in fact I think a fearful message, meanwhile Tom's visibility and organization has far surpassed the other candidates.

Following Howard Hampton's announcement to step down as of March 2009, and therefore hold a leadership contest in the ONDP, New Democrats Online has launched an Ontario NDP Leadership 2009 Coverage page.

Currently, this consists of forums and discussions, with some poll options. However this will be moving in the direction of YouTube, candidate bio's, Q&A, etc.

Having previously been an Obama supporter, I was urged by a friend to take a second look at John Edwards as a candidate for my support (which is of course grossly academic as I am not an American citizen). While I was convinced that Edwards best reflected the changes that I thought were necessary in Washington, I did not agree with my friend that Obama was too closely tied to the establishment or that he was outright an apparatus of the/any American plutocracy. I simply had decided that Edwards was stronger on the issues that I cared about.

Well not really. Actually I'd like to take this opportunity give the ravijo.net-bump to Cam's recent move to adopt audio content on his site. the Peterborough Politics Podcast (what I meant by P3s) is top notch, following his steady stream of excellent blog posts.

Cam's most recent episode is solid through and through. Carry on brother, carry on!