vidTO: Mayoral Candidates & Body Language

With some voters still weighing their options and preparing to head to the polls to casts their votes this upcoming Monday, municipal election fever is heating up. Let's hope that we top the 38% voter turnout we saw in the last election.

The opinion of executive & political communication specialist Mark Bowden seems to be valued. Sought out first by the CBC and later by CityTV, Bowden attended debates, and gave television news viewers his expert assessments of the Toronto Mayoral candidates' body language. Here are the video segments from both networks:

[ CBC report: runs 3mins ]

[ CityTV report: runs 2mins ]

After watching both segments in order, it's interesting to see that Jane Pitfield has taken some of Bowden's comments to heart and changed her strategy somewhat. She no longer points with her index finger, but instead with a closed fist (and still tends to comes off as aggressive, in my opinion). Miller gets high marks for his seemingly confident and passionate gesturing, which he claims he can't control. LeDrew thinks a certain degree of humour and a casual approach are good qualities to project in order to avoid being pompous. CityTV Reporter Muhammad Lila gets two thumbs down for his cheesy thumb up ;).