Iain Coleman is a candidate for the city council in Cambridge, England.

That more than makes up for the occassional encounters which go more like this:



ME: "Hi, my name's Iain Coleman and I'm the Liberal Democrat candidate in the City Council elections. I'm just coming round to ask you if you'll vote for me."

HIM: "I don't vote, 'cos politicians are all a bunch of liars."

ME: "I've never lied to you."

HIM: "Well, I don't mean you personally, but politicians are all the same."



Even there, there's a positive aspect of self-discovery: I've discovered this amazing ability to not tell people to fuck off.

Now if I were a politician and people were telling me they considered all politicians corrupt, but responded to this not by examining the honesty of the politicians they voted for more rigorously but by voting for whoever had the prettiest campaign commercials, I would become slightly bitter.

It sounds like Iain is a better man than I am, so even though he has this quote from Rosseau on his sidebar:

I was born a citizen of a free state and a member of its sovereign body, and however weak may be the influence of my voice in public affairs, my right to vote on them suffices to impose on me the duty of studying them.

he probably won't decide that since the voters are corrupt they don't really deserve good govermnent. Somehow we always worry about corrupt politicians, but never the corrupt voters who elect them. Sort of like blaming the CEO of a company but not the board of directors who selected and were supposed to watch him.