"We're voting CBC" doesn't mean they want Peter Mansbridge to be prime minister. But it's hard to figure out what it does mean in Greater Victoria. Three of the four parties are CBC defenders and are promising funding boosts to the troubled outfit.
So a CBC lawn sign just means they aren't voting for the Conservatives, who did the last the round of budget cuts.
On southern Vancouver Island, Conservatives' signs are only slightly less scarce than "We're Voting Fox News" signs. So a CBC sign can be read as NDP, Green or even Liberal support. (Liberals have some dried CBC blood on their hands from the 1990s, but have renounced that savagery and now favour a budget hike.)
The signs don't really narrow it down when it comes to reading political support.
There are more than 800 of them around Greater Victoria now, which the fans say is the biggest per-capita take-up anywhere.
It's an obvious move for opposition parties to support a boost. CBC friends are a vote bloc to be reckoned with, so supporting the institution is a way of appealing to them.
At a Victoria riding candidates meeting this week, Green candidate Jo-Ann Roberts played up her CBC credentials in introducing herself as the host of CBC Victoria's All Points West for 11 years before she quit one year ago. (Disclosure: I sometimes talk on CBC Radio and chatted often with Roberts over the years.)
"Many of you might know me as a CBC radio host of All Points West for the last 11 years," she said.
She said she started out aiming at a law degree but became excited by journalism, instead.
"I wanted to be a journalist. I want to be able to speak truth to power ... All of my life I have made major decisions based on my desire to make a difference in the world."
She wasn't allowed to talk about the cuts while on air, "so I made the decision to leave, because I felt that it might be different if I was outside the CBC ... I also made the decision to run for the Green Party on a similar basis."
People think name recognition is a huge factor for new candidates. But
media people, by and large, have a mixed record in politics, suggesting other factors are just as important.
Greens stand for putting huge amounts of money into the corporation. They want to reverse last year's $117-million cut, add an additional $168 million then spend another $315 million more every year to rebuild CBC capacity.
That's not going to happen. But there are minority-government scenarios where CBC funding might be one of the bargaining chips if a coalition needs to be formed.
Federal funding cuts are only one of the CBC's problems.
The loss of NHL rights was catastrophic. Last season was the first broadcast by Rogers, and the CBC's last quarterly report for the period tells the tale - a 24 per cent drop in ad revenue ($47 million) in the first winter without NHL rights.
It's also living the same economic nightmare most other media entities are suffering - eroding revenue, shifting audiences and complete lack of control over the future.
Victoria NDP MP Murray Rankin has a distant CBC career. He made a few hundred bucks doing some radio segments long ago. But he's just as strong a supporter as Roberts, and the NDP stands ready to reverse the last cuts. So do the Liberals, represented by Cheryl Thomas in Victoria.
Hundreds of Victorians will vote with the CBC on their minds. But where they put their X is an open question.
An easier prediction is what will happen a year from now.
Three things happen after you're elected prime minister. You get enhanced security, you have a higher profile and you develop an antipathy to the CBC, if you didn't have one already.
No matter how the Oct. 19 election breaks, the winner - or winners - will soon be complaining about CBC coverage, regardless of funding.
