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Thanks Deaux, I try very hard to be non-partisan. I think painting all Liberals or all Conservatives with the same brush does a disservice to most of the members of either party. It's really the same with any label. You cannot know a person just by which party, ethnic group, or any other subset they choose to identify with.

However, when I ran as a New Democrat (NDP) in the most recent Canadian Federal Election, I noticed how hard it can be to remain non-partisan. The tendency to want to see the wrong done by your opponents is enormous, and its influence is very subtle. I'm having a hard time figuring out if the Conservative I ran against (who was largely absent throughout the campaign) is someone I could normally support, or if he's as dismissive of his constituents as I felt he was after campaigning against him.

I really dislike party politics. I chose to run under a party, because I was late to the game, and thought it best to have some experienced politicos to learn from. I did not like having to "stick to the message," especially when 2/3 of the message was how bad the Conservatives and the Liberals were. On the other hand, at least we had 1/3 for ourselves. I noticed during one hour-long television show, ads from the Conservatives telling us how weak the Liberals were, ads from the Liberals telling us how untrustworthy the Conservatives were, and the New Democrat Ad which attacked the Conservative plan, but at least offered the NDP plan as a contrast. The net messaging: Liberals are weak; Conservatives are untrustworthy; the NDP have a plan.

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