Rick Mercer takes Liberal leadership to eBay
Last Updated Wed, 08 Mar 2006 16:48:12 EST
CBC Arts
Political satirist Rick Mercer has kicked off another online campaign, this time in an attempt to lure someone to lead the federal Liberal Party.
Rick Mercer speaking about his Liberal Leadership Kit auction on eBay.
On his CBC-TV show Rick Mercer Report Tuesday night, Mercer announced the online auction of a "Liberal Leadership Kit" to help a prospective candidate make a bid to lead the federal party.
"Like many good ideas, this one came about in a bar," Mercer told CBC News on Wednesday.
"A bunch of the writers were sitting around – a couple of Tories, a couple of Liberals – and they were discussing this Liberal leadership and it was established that the job is perhaps worthless. Someone suggested that it should be put up on eBay and we did it. We thought we would raise beer money – that's what we were aiming for."
The kit includes a 15-minute consultation conference call with the Rick Mercer Report writing staff (which includes "three high school dropouts and a University of Toronto commerce major," Mercer said) and use of the show's colour printer.
"It's a good printer. We're low on magenta though," Mercer said.
"Perhaps [the kit] should come with a 30-day psychiatric consultation," he joked.
They decided to start the bidding at $15 in an attempt to "discourage vanity candidates," Mercer said,
"I'm thinking that if this afternoon it immediately jumps to $2 million, then Belinda [Stronach] is in," Mercer joked.
By 4 p.m. EST Wednesday, the eBay auction had drawn 72 bids and reached $24,100. The auction is set to end March 14, hours before the next broadcast of Rick Mercer Report.
Earlier Wednesday, Mercer had said that if bidding rose into the $20,000 region, they'd have to make sure the money went to "a good cause."
However, he acknowledged having a sneaking suspicion that "it may be hard to collect" from some of the bidders.
"I'm thinking that if this afternoon it immediately jumps to $2 million, then Belinda [Stronach] is in."
—Rick Mercer, joking about his show's eBay auction of a Liberal Leadership KitMercer, who has poked fun at politicians from all the major Canadian parties on his current and past CBC shows, has initiated internet campaigns before.
In November 2000, during the election campaign, Mercer launched an online petition to have Stockwell Day change his first name to Doris.
Day, who was then leader of the Canadian Alliance, is now the federal minister of public safety for the Conservative government.
Mercer's goal was to show how easy it would be to trigger a referendum under Day's proposed legislation to force a referendum on any subject provided a petition was signed by three per cent of Canadian voters (about 350,000 people).
In less than two weeks, the petition had received one million signatures.
Liberal Leadership on Ebay
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