This just came to our attention via TorontoVote on the Twittersphere:
Experimental Mayoral Debate Challenge.
Now, we have no knowledge of the folks behind this so can’t vouch for how it’ll all work out but we do encourage everyone to give it a whirl and see what happens.
The proposal is this: From a list of all the registered mayoral candidates (30 to date), you vote for the 5 who you’d most like to see up on stage, taking part in a forum the site describes as, “Debate = Candidates sit and Residents ask questions that Candidates answer to their best ability.”
The top 5 vote-getters would be invited to the debate. Those who decline would have their 8×10 headshots displayed on an empty chair as a gesture of protest against their anti-democratic inclinations. (Although we would suggest to the debate organizers to have the Top 5 candidates who accepted their invitation up on stage regardless of where they placed overall. Set up a wall of shame of all the candidates who were invited to participate and declined the offer.)
Our inclination was to vote for 5 of the “other” candidates who have not yet had a platform to air their views to a wider audience but who we think should be heard. To indulge in a little shameless self-promotion here, if you feel a little under-informed as to who those candidates might be, explore our Friday posts as we’ve been profiling the lesser known mayoral candidates for a few months now and have highlighted 15 of them to date.
Or maybe you want to see 5 of the front runners in a format that is less prepackaged and audience friendly than we’ve seen so far. Fair enough. But start voting and let’s see if we can’t help get this thing off the ground. For all the talk about the weekend polls putting Rob Ford neck-in-neck with George Smitherman, the more salient point was that nearly 40% of those asked are still undecided over where they’ll place their vote.
Clearly, we have been watching, listening and are still not liking what we see. So why not use the opportunity on offer here to try and shake this motherfucker up.
— dutifully submitted by Cityslikr