So that's two elections in a row for me resolved by "bozo moments".

[TrogL]

Up here in Canada, we had provincial elections in Alberta. There were four main parties in contention (from right to left); Wildrose, Progressive Conservative (PC), Liberal and New Democratic Party (NDP). The former makeup of the Legislature was a sea of Progressive Conservatives and two lonely NDPers. A new political party, the Wildrose, made up of what amounted to Tea Partiers, decided to try and unseat the PC's by running to the right.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/canada-politics/tories-majority-alberta-bozo-outbreaks-cost-wildrose-032959197.html

Things were running swimmingly, they were polling really well until a couple of their candidates decided to open their big ugly yaps. One announced that he was the most qualified candidate to talk about ethnic issues because he was Caucasian. Another went on a homophobic rant on his website. The Party leader spouted off denying global warming - a difficult feat considering the insane, global warming-driven weather we've been having lately, such as yesterday's foot of snow. I used to work someplace where I had to attend daily weather briefings. This is not normal.

Overnight their chances fell from a near-certainty to winning a minority of seats, even allowing the NDP to double their ranks (the leader quipped "we're gonna need a bigger phone booth for an office&quot .

Hence it came to me as no surprise watching the insanity to my South, that these "bozo moments" amounted to a wake-up call to normal people telling them to get their asses down to the voting booth and put a stop to the nonsense before somebody got hurt.

[Joe Shlabotnik]

1. 2 other factors in that election too:

1) Lazy or biased polling and reporting, that falsely made a Wildrose victory appear inevitable.
2) A coordinated GOT(Strategic)V operation.

Critical thinking and involvement prevented the crazies from being a shoe-in.

[TrogL]

2. Also some polling-place shenanigans

I had to have one guy thrown out. He was waving campaign literature around and he was a polling clerk in charge of dealing with ID. He was doing such a piss-poor job of it they were thankful to get rid of him. We had another lady who had absolutely no clue on how polls worked and she was in charge. It took two of us in her face chanting "we're gonna challenge" before she backed down.