A Candidate's Brochure Speaks A Lot

 Voters for the upcoming 2010 Civic Election have their opportunity to decide now who they want to vote for mayor, city councillors, and school board trustees. One way of doing this is looking at their self-promotional materials.

I have received at least a couple of materials from local candidates in the last couple of weeks. Somehow, finding time to read these materials was as simple as resting on the couch after a heavy meal-- at least that's how it worked for me. As I was reading through one candidate's tri-fold brochure, I noticed several errors that were avoidable. Unfortunately, I assumed that no one cared to proofread the material or maybe yet, the individual responsible in proofreading it was too busy multi-tasking at the candidate's campaign office.

The errors I found were on subject-verb agreement; structure and organization of thoughts; and spelling of words. I wonder- maybe it's just me who's thinking critically here that at the sight of a minute error, I would readily grab my writer's pen and do an unsolicited editing work. The brochure looks fairly decent with the candidate's smiling face on the cover. He looks more like my friendly neighbour who would not think twice to help me just in case I trip on the sidewalk on a rainy day. But these promotional materials serve as an extension of the candidates' overall image. If these errors were done on a provincial or federal level, there is simply no excuse; people will easily notice and probably the media will write about it.

The civic election has its own limelight shining upon all the candidates and their throngs of supporters. Errors on their self-promotional materials are somehow forgivable (at least for now) and the public wouldn't stage a rally to contest a candidate from running on the basis of wrong grammar. These candidates may not even know that such errors appeared but if they did, there's nothing much they can do; all of the materials were already printed with donation dollars spent.

My decision on who I would vote for the different offices is stil hanging by the thread. I think I still have to give myself more time and study these candidates even closer.Their agendas will be a good place to start; that will give me an inside look on what they will be doing in case they get elected. As with their brochures, flyers, and other self-promotional materials, how I wish that these materials will also best reflect the candidates' image even if it's printed on a piece of paper.