Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Election? What Election?

Since this blog isn't about politics, I'm not going to espouse any political opinions here, aside from urging all of you who live in democracies to always exercise your democratic right to have a say in your country's future. I don't care how you vote so long as you DO IT!
As I'm sure that most of the world knows, the United States is in the midst of a Presidential Election. Unless you're Canadian, you may not know that we too are in the midst of a general election. This is where the knitting comes in. I've noted that many of the American knitting blogs that I read are very openly proclaiming their support for one candidate or another or making reference to political groups that they belong to on Ravelry.
"Interesting...", I thought, since I'm not seeing the same sort of open political support on Canadian knitting blogs, nor references to political groups on Ravelry. "This requires more investigation", I thought to myself.
So I headed over to Ravelry and did searches on Harper, Dion, Layton and May. There is one group, Canada Indecision 2008. It has 85 members.
Then I did searches on Obama and McCain. The search under Obama yields 8 groups. The largest is Knitters for Barrack Obama with a whopping 3,147 members! McCain yields a similar number of results (with some duplication) and while The McCain Ravelry is significantly smaller than Knitters for Barrack Obama, its 510 members still looks impressive compared to the 85 interested in the Canadian election. Since we don't have a Vice Prime Minister, I won't even go into the groups about the US running mates...
What does this say about us? Are Canadians really that disinterested in our political future? Or are we just more private about it? Or maybe we all decided to follow the advice of Peter MacKay as given to Alexa McDonough: "Stick to your knitting!"

4 comments:

Alison said...

See, here's the thing. Now that Alexa has retired, I have no idea who in my riding to vote for. It was always so easy before, being in Alexa's riding. And seriously, so far nobody has the personality to get and keep my interest in this election, when I'm feeling sick with a cold, and 36 weeks pregnant! Bad timing, really!

sharon said...

uhm.
are you sure we aren't like twins in mind? I don't have a lot of political inspiration - I told megan's dad that (while pregnant) the baby I carry could be the future prime minister, but really, except for the fact that the budget from last year directly affects my work and will only be accepted if Harper gets reelected, i'm really busy with some 1 x 1 ribbing and garter stitch raglan increases and hint 6 on a pretty pink stole and....
and I work for the government.

Andrea said...

I think Canadians are just tired of having elections every 2 years. We'll vote in a new government than someone will decide 2 years down the road, it's not working let's call another election!

scappyhappy said...

Being a US citizen it breaks my heart to see how this election is. I vote for who ever I feel is qualified. But this year...tough and very scary. Working for the Federal Gov. makes it even more interesting, because my agency will be greatly affected by the new administration. But I just hope I will always be able to buy my fabric and yarn and be content. Maybe all crafters, knitters and quilters should move to an island and form our own little society...LOL..but then again our form of justice might be to stitch or knit someone up into a sack and hang them from a tree so they can't get to their projects...Whew...this old world...hmmmm...keeps us thinking! Happy sewing, knitting and whatever.
Iva