Sane

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, defeated candidate at the last French
Presidential election, has apparently developed a bit of
an obsession with the notion that Emmanuel Macron made
six million phone calls in the three days before the election.
According to Libération, he did indeed. A pre-recorded message
was phoned in to home phone numbers, and a press 1
would activate the candidate's voice on why one should vote
for him. Otherwise, one was merely reminded to go
out and vote.

Reading about this reminded me that the CAQ candidate - now our
provincial prime minister - used the same technique in the recent provincial
election. And there was no invitation to press 1, either. Just the candidate's
voice to the effect that it was time for a change. I remember thinking
at the time that the CAQ was obviously on a roll, and expected to win.
I hung up on it.

Is there room for concern, here? Well, the narrative in the message was
off. Premier Couillard was wrapping four years in office, not that long.
Nor were we seeing a campaign about corruption in government. In fact,
the campaign had been close to issue-less. Why was it time!?

Election campaigns everywhere are taking on new modalities in the
digital age. Is there no concern about keeping things clean... and sane?