Last time I saw Peggy Nash I told her to kick ass, and with enthusiasm and wit she kicked her boot high in the air, demonstrating her strength and grace.

In Parkdale - High Park, I predict NDP candidate Peggy Nash will be victorious. It will be a tight race against her Liberal opponent, Gerrard Kennedy, but as the incumbent she has an advantage, and friends of mine still in the riding say that as a local representative she has done a great job.

So the Canadian election is coming to a close and I've been having a lot of conversations with friends and colleagues analyzing what has transpired and how social media has played a role.

We've all been witness to the Obama campaign and their innovative use of social media and the internet. Explicitly what was different about their internet campaign was the way they asked people to give more than money or support but their labour. This labour might be getting them to come into to campaign offices, but it was more likely to solicit their help in doing work online. Whether that be raising funds or reaching out to friends in key swing states.

All the Canadian political parties are using social media platforms like Facebook, and YouTube, and similarly all political parties have elements of social media on their own site. However without exception, their use is primitive, and generally of a symbolic nature, rather than an explicit social nature.

The 7th Annual Seneca Free Software and Open Source Symposium is coming up, and it is a great event worth checking out if you want to learn more about what really drives the Internet. Unfortunately I won't be attending this year, however I have given presentations in past years, including this improvised rant from last year:

Nobody likes to make predictions, as they inevitably risk the possibility of being wrong, however I'm going to stick my neck out and report on some first hand on the ground knowledge I've picked up. I think Olivia Chow, the NDP incumbent, is going to lose on October 14th to Liberal candidate Christine Innes in Trinity Spadina in downtown Toronto.

I've spent more time living in Trinity Spadina than any other riding, and I have many friends and family who still live and vote there. In fact Emily still wishes we lived in the riding so she could vote for Olivia Chow.

Whenever there's an election on you can guarantee I'm going to be active. When I was younger I would volunteer all of my free time for some party or candidate that I wanted to get closer to. This election I'm mostly doing non-partisan stuff, and talking to people informally and in social situations.

What I'm hearing in Trinity Spadina is that traditional NDP voters are switching to either Liberal or Green. One person I spoke with today who voted for Innes in an advance poll this weekend had voted NDP almost her entire life.

During a number of the talks and workshops I've run around social media, the subject of politicians and their use of the internet often comes up. The discussion tends to focus on how candidates and elected officials use technology to foster a stronger relationship with their constituents and supporters.

Unfortunately a lot of people approach this topic with a lot of baggage and assumptions, associating tools like Twitter or Facebook with procrastination and wasting time. In my consulting work and in my media appearances I often promote the use of social media by politicians, however I make an effort to emphasize the need for authenticity and understanding how to use the tools properly, rather than symbolic appropriation as a token attempt to reach young voters.

Yet I still get feedback from people who say they don't want their elected officials wasting their time on Facebook, although one assumes they do expect these same pols to answer letters that they receive. The reality however is that modest use is what we can all manage, and it is exactly the weak ties that politicians tend to have with their constituents that can be strengthened by use of interactive platforms.

Today the consortium (monopoly) that controls the televised leaders debates for the Canadian federal election decided that they would exclude the leader of the Green Party, Elizabeth May. In doing so they have discredited their own debates, and will alienate a great many of Canadians who will rightly see a political class as being terrified of environmental issues.

I am not a member of the Green Party, and I will not be voting for them this election. However I am an environmentalist, and I do think it is a crucial issue in this election. I am also smart enough to recognize that the Green Party is *not* a one issue party, and that they have just as many policy positions, and just as many candidates as any other party in the country. It is clear to me that the reason they are being excluded is not because they do not qualify, but rather because the fear, from an optics perspective, is that by including them, the environment will become a more dominant issue. With Green leader Elizabeth May in the debates at least two leaders (May and Dion) if not four (May, Dion, Layton, and Duceppe) will raise the environment as an example of the Tories being totally asleep at the wheel.

Truth is, I don't really like Barack Obama that much. It's hard for me to respect someone who will sell out their preacher so easily, reverse on important policy positions so effortlessly, and pester me with obviously phony emails. I do respect him, and there's a really big part of me that wants to see his Presidency in action, but I'm also kind of glad I am legally unable to vote for him.

I also quite respect John McCain, and am curious to see his Presidency in action. While everyone gives the Obama campaign credit for their use of the internet, I've been following and impressed with the internet work done by the McCain campaign. There are learning opportunities everywhere as this election season demonstrates a true turning point in terms of the internet's influence in politics.

The bulk of my attention tends to focus on issues of organizing and logistics. While I'm quite involved in communications, my real interest is in intelligence, and the way that web tools impact the intelligence gathering capabilities of an organization and how that impacts the day to day operations and the pursuit of strategic goals.

A flip side of that of course is the dark arts, and the world of rumour, spin, manipulation, and attacks. My research into the political use of the internet must of course include the countless rumours and attacks that circulate online. Sometimes they have elements of truth, other times they are total fantasy. Usually they tend to be quite entertaining and offer a surreal sort of gonzo-style lense onto the campaigns.

Now is the time for all of us to speak out clearly in defense of our culture and against this legislation:

One of the things I'm committed to doing in 2008 is organizing more public events. Last year, I ran a number of private interactive and intellectual discussions, which nurtured a desire to develop a larger and more public configuration for them.

To use a software development metaphor, my first public event was an alpha test, in that it was a raw and open exploration of a few concepts I've been developing or have seen in the wild and wanted to try myself.

Recently, there has been considerable innovation when it comes to event organizing, with the emergence of the BarCamp phenomenon as well as the Open Space movement. I am inspired by both, but still see room to incorporate my own sensibilities and experiences.

I've spent the last few years working in television and really studying the direction that industry is going, while also absorbing everything I can about production, both behind the scenes and on-camera. My approach to organizing events has been deeply impacted by this exploration of the television aesthetic and, conversely, my approach to television is heavily influenced by my love of live, interactive events.

The context to all this is, of course, the Internet, where I spend most of my time, and I'm always thinking how to bring the culture and properties of the Internet to live events and broadcast television. Often it has been the focus and/or subject matter. However, in the future, my intention is to run events in which the Internet is so ubiquitous as to no longer require explicit attention.

That is why I chose politics as the focus of my first event. I hoped to capture the zeitgeist of our time (with Obama inspiring a new generation) and tackle a subject that everyone should be able to relate to, one that lends itself to debate and disagreement.

I've always loved Kids in the Hall. I used to go and be part of the audience for the tapings of their old show here in Toronto, and their skits continue to pop into my head at all sorts of weird moments.

So yesterday I was recovering from an exciting event the day before, and still thinking about the intersection of community, technology, politics, and culture, when the KitH song "These are the Daves I know" jumped into my head.

Davids are wonderful human beings. I've known and loved many Davids in my three point three decades of this life. In fact Jesses have a unique relationship with Davids as Isiah chapter 11 describes Jesse as the father of David, Jesse of course described in that chapter as root.

Here in Toronto there has recently been a conflict brewing between two Daves I know, and last night as I saw this dispute seep into tweets, the Bruce McCulloch song got me thinking about Daves in general, and some of the Daves I know.

As in addition to being wonderful, Davids also tend to be powerful. And I must say I've known some rather powerful Davids. As it stands the mayor of Toronto is David Miller. I no longer like him that much, but I did contribute to his first successful mayoral campaign, and he's been in the news lately as he wants even more executive power.

However two other powerful Davids that are making waves in Toronto right now are David Crow and Dave Forde. I like both of these Daves, unfortunately I'm not sure they feel the same about each other, which is too bad, as united these two Davids could enable quite a bit of positive change.