Schadenfreude

Nation, it's been an interesting few months to be me, politically-speaking. We'll talk more about that soon - I promise.

What hit my radar yesterday was the news that 53 Alberta Liberal constituency associations - including 2 with sitting MLA's - and 3 Wildrose associations, including that of sitting Little Bow MLA and noogie participant Ian Donovan, missed a mandatory filing deadline with Elections Alberta and were subsequently de-registered.

The partisan "dance of joy" began almost immediately on social media, with opponents (mostly PCs and New Democrats) eager to point out how utterly disorganized and amateurish these associations must be to miss a mandatory deadline from Elections Alberta, and how terribly embarrassing it must be.

Yes, I imagine it is pretty embarrassing. And you should probably shut up now.

The reality is, most constituency associations are run by well-intentioned amateurs. Regular, average people who just want to participate in the democratic process and make their province better. People like me. And you. And your parents. And their neighbours. Most of them aren't experts in board governance. Or accountants. Or lawyers. Or experts in the application of Robert's Rules of Order.

They're just doing the best they can to participate. They're doing the heavy lifting in between elections so you and I can show up on election day and vote for a candidate representing the party of our preference.

And you know what? Those amateurs - US amateurs - make mistakes. None of the associations I'm involved with missed this particular deadline, but that's not because I'm some super-genius backroom political organizer (I'm not). It just as easily COULD have been one of my associations. People miss deadlines. There are things we amateurs just flat-out don't know how to do. And if our central party office doesn't have staff who can help us keep track and get things squared away under the wire - or we don't have the time to figure it out ourselves - deadlines get missed. There might be a chance to criticize a party's paid staff as result of this situation, but even that is like scoring in the 10 point ring on "SkeeBall" - your political drinking buddies might "cheers" your Tweet, but voters don't care, and you just come across as cheap.

At the end of the day, what happened with this deadline could just as easily have happened to any association, anywhere in the province. And going out of your way to make fun of groups of volunteers who are trying their level best, with absolutely no financial return for their efforts whatsoever, is the lowest form of sleazy politics.

It's an embarrassing situation all right. But not for who you THINK should be embarrassed.

Savage: 10-35.