CalgaryPolitics.com – Home of The Best Political Team in the Blogosphere (TM)

The concept of a Calgary Municipal Election Blogging “Supergroup” was sparked by an email that DJ Kelly sent to local bloggers Joey Oberhoffner (“The Enlightened Savage”), Shane Byciuk (“CalgaryRants”) , and Jeremy Zhao (“Cats, Chopsticks & Rainbows”) on October 21st, 2009, in which he asked what sort of plans they might have as far as covering the 2010 election.  The recipients briefly talked about getting together over a beverage, but nothing came of it until Jeremy touched base with the group again in early January 2010, and mentioned he was still interested in getting together for that drink. 

The group met, sans Shane (who was busy being a hot-off-the-presses new father), in the Auburn Saloon at the base of the Calgary Tower on January 29th, 2010.  Also invited to that meeting was Grant Neufeld (“Voice of Grant”). Within 45 minutes, the idea of “The Best Political Team in the Blogosphere (TM)”, the name an homage to CNN’s “Best Political Team on Television” and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart’s “Best $*#&$%@ News Team EVER”, was born.

We’re bloggers, pundits, and citizens, trying to cover civic politics in a semi-organized way, to share the burden each of us thought we’d have to shoulder alone, cover the races and candidates that the mainstream media can’t or won’t, and maybe add a hint of mischief to what is typically a NOTORIOUSLY dry subject, covered in notoriously dry ways.

CalgaryPolitics.com is meant to be a way for interested readers to get more in-depth coverage of candidates, public officials, and civic politics than a 30 second television or radio soundbite can provide. Unlike TV, radio or newspapers, we don’t have any space or time limitations and we can write as much and as often as we like. We plan to take advantage of that by building on what the traditional outlets will be offering this election season.  While The Best Political Team in the Blogosphere (TM) is providing this coverage, it should be noted that we are not professional journalists (well, except for Jeremy Klaszus) – we’re just citizens with an interest in the material, and time on our hands. This is to be used as a supplement to the coverage provided by traditional media outlets and trained journalists – we’ll leave the heavy lifting to the professionals.