And they're off!

Martin makes it official: Canada votes on June 28
Its hard to avoid the horserace analogies, but I hope we will be able to do so this time. Portraying elections as horseraces is a vivid image which becomes habitual -- Martin's in the lead but Harper is preathing down his neck. Now Layton makes his move but may have moved too soon, etc. etc. -- and it has a certain applicability in our relatively short political campaigns.
But if elections are horseraces then what are the voters? Just spectators? We have, of course, much more stake in the election outcome than do racetrack bettors. I know the national media focus is always on "who's winning" and voters are interested too, but of much more relevance than national opinion polls is to keep up with what is happening in individual ridings. The Globe has what looks to be a pretty good Election page set up, which I have bookmarked.
Personally, I think I am intending to vote Liberal in this election, for the first time in about 20 years, because I think Martin is going to make a difference in how Parliament and government functions, and I think he expects voters to be grownups, too, with a variety of positions and beliefs on a variety of issues, instead of treating us like blissfully-ignorant sheep, knee-jerk robots or loud-mouthed protesters, the attitude that Chretien and the other party leaders seem to have about Canadians.