What Happened to Policy

Since when did Canadians become complacent with the abysmal dirty politics of Bill O'Rielly and Ann Coulter: which subscribe to the school of he who yells the loudest has the correct opinion? That disregard the policies and instead attack the personal character of their opponents. When did Canadians decide that policies were less important than personality? At the end of the day we’re finding someone to run the country not the guy we can "sit down and have a beer with" as one American described why she voted for George W. Bush instead of John Kerry. It seems when we talk about politics today the party policies is an inconsequential issue that hangs in the dark smoky back rooms of party politics not public politics. The only polices that gain attention are those that contain buzz words like tax, environment, or crime. Furthermore, it seems that if the conservatives had their way we would toss away party policies, lock the party leaders in a room with a live feed to CPAC, give each leader a bucket of mud and watch them sling it at each other: whichever party leader is cleanest on the way out the door becomes prime minister. This week the conservatives have begun there work of creating attack ads against liberal leader Michael Ignatieff, because according to The Toronto Star a conservative insider told the media, the liberals are rising in the polls and furthermore, he/she went on to say that they were worried that they had waited too long to begin attacking the liberal leader and had lost their chance to brand him in a negative light. They are wading through a lifetime of writings transcripts and television shows that Ignatieff has been on or hosted to find dirt they can use. Politics should not be personal they are political. Our national parties should be debating policies that affect the nation not what they do after hours. I am not saying there isn’t a very large part of politics which is the court of public opinion, however, it is the role of the media and the voter to formulate opinions not paid political spin doctors. Parties should be attacking policy and providing viable alternatives to gain votes not attacking the personal character of its opponents. The money, time, resources and great minds of the conservative party, which could be working on policies to fix the economy, to fight crime in Vancouver and elsewhere in Canada, mind's that could be used to help alleviate wait times in hospitals, solving poverty are being wasted to attack the personal character of a man that is serving his country: great minds relinquished to the level of tabloid journalists.