Craigslist Candidates

The online classifieds site Craigslist has been rather reviled recently for its "Adult" section and the services of varying degrees of ickiness that have been offered there, but can Craigslist be a homebase for grassroots politics? Somebody seems to think so.

While job searching the other day I came across an item in both the Guelph and Kitchener/Waterloo Craigslist. The subject line said "Member of Parliament candidate," and when you clicked on it, the post read:

"We are looking for good people.

This is a new party with a very different and far more democratic ideal.

Before replying please take a look at http://www.pppoc.ca and learn what we are all about. If interested please reply from there."

It got me interested anyway. This is certainly a new approach to recruitment.

The name of the group that placed the ad is The Participatory Politicians Party of Canada (or PPPOC), and the goal, as outlined by party founder Richard Hirtle (The Ricky McMountain's Buyer's Guide), is to take back the political process from scheming, ambitious politicians and give it back to the people and get them more involved in the democratic process. "Our politicians are acting very badly," he says on the PPPOC website. "We have politicians and political parties who routinely mislead to get elected, hide facts and cater to special interest groups. They don't listen, they make back-room deals and give beyond logic explanations."

If you read through the website, you can see that Hirtle's but a lot of thought into his party's philosophy and believes passionately in what he's saying. I'm not sure Craigslist is the place to go to find candidate material, but I wish him luck in the endeavour.