Can’t sleep. Posting this might help.
I wasn’t going to talk about the election results, but given that the results for Kitchener-Waterloo were a tiny bit extraordinary, I felt I should really say something.
Rather than the comfortable Liberal win that most people were expecting, it turns out that Conservative [Peter Braid](http://www.peterbraid.ca/) won the riding by a slim 75 votes.
I, for one, blame the Communist party for splitting the vote and allowing this to happen!
No, seriously. [The polls utterly failed to predict this](http://www.voteforenvironment.ca/node/567). The reason, I think, is that the polls don’t ask one vitally important question: how likely is it that you’ll actually show up on voting day. I can totally buy that people just assumed that Telegdi would win so they didn’t have to bother to vote.
Turns out it doesn’t work that way.
The people who wanted Peter Braid to represent them really wanted Peter Braid to represent them. About 5000 people who *said* they wanted Telegdi in polls didn’t show up for the only poll that matters. [Voter turnout across the country hit an all-time low](http://ca.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idCATRE49E1B320081015).
So congratulations, Mr Braid, on a hard-won victory.
Eegads. My sympathies, Squirrel!!
Myself, I am watching the mail daily hoping to find my ballot within so I can proceed with the important business of getting rid of the Republicans! Or try to, anyhoo. I always do, but too many of my fellow countrymen are dunkheads. Billions of dollars and a never-ending war later, I hope they are waking up…
Btw, what is a “neo-Rhino”?
neorhino.ca is the political successor to the Rhinoceros Party of Canada.
In short, they’re pretty wonderful. They only ran seven candidates in Quebec, though.