Christian Conservative Christian "Independent"

I'm an evangelical Christian, member of the CPC, but presently & unjustly exiled to wander the political wilderness.
All opinions expressed here are solely my own.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Layton rockets past Dion on Facebook!

LOL... looks like all the Liberal fretting yesterday couldn't stop the Smiling Jack Express train... Jack Layton officially shot past Dion last night for having the highest number of supporters on Facebook, and just kept right on chugging.  The current numbers for Jack are 11,677, versus 11,496 for Stephane Dion... a difference of 180. (not bad when you consider that he was down by 54 as of 5:00pm last night... that's 230 additional supporters in less than a day!)

While many folks have a "Who cares?" attitude about this, a lot more people, including the folks who run these pages, know better.  Though Facebook is hardly a reliable poll, it says something interesting about where the hearts and minds of today's youth are.  In the past, the Liberal Party could count on the youth of Canada as being solidly in their camp in terms of support.  Today's young people though, are a whole lot more politically savvy than most people give them credit for.  They're also becoming more selective when it comes to throwing their support to any individual or party.  As such, there's been a HUGE resurgence in the last few years of support for both the NDP and the Conservative Party amongst young people.  In years past, it was getting rare to see a conservative leaning campus club in many of our Universities.  Today, most major schools have one, and many are strong and growing.

In fact, one commenter on this blog yesterday, thinking that they were mocking me, only served to prove my point.  He (she?) pointed out that I hadn't mentioned the fact that Mr. Harper is third in the Facebook supporters race, with only 10,195 supporters.  Well, thanks for proving my point!  The fact that Mr. Harper even has 10,195 young people who are willing to fly the Conservative banner on Facebook attests to the very fact that conservatism is alive and well amongst the youth of this country!  (though obviously, there's still lots of work left to be done)

Anyway, the fact that Layton has managed to pass Dion, right on the eve of a by-election, is yet another embarrassing blow to the formerly almighty Liberal machine.  It exposes the fact that the support amongst youth that they once could count on is no longer solid... and perhaps serves as a reminder that Mr. Dion is not the "leader" that Liberals hoped he would become.

Congrats again to Mr. Jack Layton on his astonishing resurgence, at a time when many people we beginning to speculate on the NDP becoming politically irrelevant.  Though it's just on Facebook right now, it could well be an indicator of things yet to come.

Labels: , , , ,

7 Comments:

  • At Wed Jul 23, 12:57:00 p.m. EDT, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    It's only Facebook for heavens sake.

    Unbelievable that you find this important.

     
  • At Wed Jul 23, 01:08:00 p.m. EDT, Blogger Christian Conservative said…

    Believe me, there are plenty of people who know politics who quitely recognize that it's a big deal... a real big deal.

     
  • At Wed Jul 23, 01:11:00 p.m. EDT, Blogger Darryl said…

    Great post my friend. Anyone who thinks this is not important only has to look South of the Border where it is obvious that YouTube and social networking sites are having a huge impact for Barack Obama in driving young people out to the polls.

    As we saw with Ron Paul, there is opportunity for Conservatism to catch on with young people. Harper's numbers are very respectable given that traditionally the youth heavily lean to the left.

     
  • At Wed Jul 23, 02:18:00 p.m. EDT, Blogger Reid said…

    anon:

    It's important for the sole reason that Dion made a big deal about being #1 on Facebook himself.

    I recall seeing an interview he did with Rick Mercer where they are talking about it. And that how, because he was #1, it showed how he connected with masses and how Dionmania would sweep the nation.

     
  • At Thu Jul 24, 11:04:00 a.m. EDT, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Layton drove past Dion based on hundreds of Harper supporters masquerading as NDP supporters. Somebody ought to look at how many common members there are between Layton and Harper supporters on facebook, I think you would find the numbers quite high. So this is a very deceiving story. Not to mention you can create non-existent fake people profiles on fb and then add them as supporters.

    If youth are so important CC, why don't the Conservatives have a youth commission like all the other parties (even the PC's and Reform had one) do? Conservatives use youth for their own purposes whereas Liberals actually adopt youth policy ideas. NDP Youth just toe the party line.

    Liberals need to do better to communicate to youth that they are the ONLY party that actually takes youth viewpoints into account in formining policy (and allocates 1/3 delegate spots to youth at conventions). Youth supporting other parties are just being duped into thinking the party takes them seriously. Nothing like being used as a pawn...

     
  • At Thu Jul 24, 11:08:00 a.m. EDT, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Not to mention the Conservatives couldn't find a SINGLE non party staffer (paid by TAXPAYERS for that day's "work" no less) to help them on the day of the Will You Be Tricked launched. There's some real grassroots youth support for sure!

    Contrast that with Explain the Tape launch where it was entirely youth volunteers. In Ontario there are over 60 active Liberal youth clubs and every single university has one. What's the Conservative record? Do they have youth riding clubs? Oh no that's right they don't have any....

     
  • At Thu Jul 24, 11:20:00 a.m. EDT, Blogger Christian Conservative said…

    LOL... I love how Liberals try to spin the whole "youth club" thing.

    For the record, I accomplished WAY MORE as a youth in the CPC while sitting at the grown-ups table, instead of being relegated to the sandbox of a "youth wing".

    Who's being used as a pawn? Sorry for your luck, I enjoy being outside of the playpen. ;-)

     

Post a Comment

<< Home