Did Rae and Ignatieff ignore the Next Face Challenge?
I am disappointed that Bob Rae or Michael Ignatieff were not held accountable for ignoring the "Next Face" blog's challenge in June for leading Leadership candidates. I thought this exercise was potentially an excellent way for bloggers to compare prospective leaders on a common set of questions.
Amongst the leaders, Stephane Dion and Ken Dryden took the challenge right off the bat. Following the publication of Stephane Dion's interview, Next Face published on June 23 the following challenge: "We would like to ask 4 questions of each of the remaining 3 candidates considered by Next Face to be at the forefront for this leadership race, Mr. Dryden, Mr. Ignatieff, and Mr. Rae."
Within minutes the Team Dryden responded to the Next Face Challenge. Mr. Dryden received the full praise of the Next Face interviewer and Mr. Dryden became instantly favorite with Next Face. The last odds published by Next Face were on June 22, 2006:
Bob Rae: 4 : 1
Ken Dryden: 5 : 1
Michael Ignatieff: 5 : 1
Stephane Dion: 6 : 1
I have been waiting to compare the answers of Mr. Rae and Mr. Ignatieff, although I have not heard much of anything from either since the July 4th new member cutoff. Both Dion and Dryden have at least announced policy and have made regular public appearances. Do either Rae or Ignatieff have plans to respond to the Next Face Challenge or should I just move on?
posted by Edgewater Views @ 11:37 p.m.
3 comments
3 Comments:
I disagree jeff. Bloggers are considered to be a dedicate constituency. We are active in the party and are very likely to want to be delegates. Its not one vote. Its many delegates that are at stake by ignoring bloggers. Not everyone is issueing questions for candidates to answer. I asked my question in a debate in Kitchener where 9 of 11 candidates were present. I aslo watch the debates carefully. I like reading candidates responses to questions by bloggers and find them quite telling. It;s not that hard to get back to anyone for a request to answer a few questioons at their leisure. Mr Ignatieff had three and a half weeks of leisure. He had enough time to answer a few questions, but since he couldn't be bothered to respond to the Toronto Star or The Nationsl Post, its not surprising that he didn't respond to Next Face. It is telling however.
Jeff might be a little off base here...with 17,000 hits and counting, Next Face's 'vote' is not all that matters here. Next Face is a blog committed to the debate and read by many in and outside of the world of delegates.
One vote? Hardly!
The fact that Dion and Dryden responded so quickly give credence to s.b's points. The blogs are new dimension on the campaign trail the impotance of which has not yet been measured.
In fairness to Mr. Ignatieff and Mr. Rae, they have not been officially challenged by Next Face, but will be over the next week or two so Edgewater will in fact have his opportunity to review their responses to the tough questions.
We doubt they will turn us down. It is like Mr. Dryden said in the Next Face interview, he did not want to be the one to say no to us and suffer from the backlash.
tobias
www.nextface.blogspot.com
Arnone & Co, I am glad I will be able to compare Rae and Ignatieff shortly. I could see rumblings of activity with your blog tonight that said similar things.
I am curious whether your odds will consider what I believe to be a big "flipflop" by Rae on the Middle East (see my other blog entry). Surely Rae's odds would shift somewhat with mistakes on the same issue that have caused Harper's popularity to plummet in Quebec. The press on Rae's Friday speach was not good. I would like to know more about the "alleged flipflop" if you can work such a question into your interview with Rae.
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