With the federal election under way, political blogs are heating up (and springing up) like never before. Every politician has an official blog (to say nothing about Facebook pages, Twitter accounts and other Web 2.0 silliness), and every media outlet has some form of an “on the campaign trail” blog. (The Globe alone has eight election blogs)

Here are some of the ones that have peaked piqued my interest so far:

• La campagne vue par Marissal et Pratte (just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?), a strange blog in which La Presse columnist Vincent Marissal and “éditorialiste-en-chef” André Pratte discuss politics with each other. Each post is actually a dual post from each of them, asking each other questions and giving their thoughts on some issue. But it’s not a strict point-counterpoint.
• Silver-Powers, from the Globe, however, is. A Liberal hack vs. a Tory hack. Both former assistants to politicians in their parties. But rather than just yell at each other or make fun of gaffes from the other’s leader, they inject some humour into their posts, and stick to debating the policy issues that set them apart.
• Off the Fence from J. Kelly Nestruck (who went from the McGill Daily to the National Post to the Guardian to the Globe and Mail) has sentimental value for me. We go way back to that protest in 2001 against Canwest, a company we would both later work for.
• Macleans’s Deux maudits anglais gets a mention here not just because it’s funny (and has provided me plenty of linklove), but because it’s one of the few anglo blogs focusing on Quebec.
• Claude William Genest’s blog also gets a vote (he’s the Green candidate in Westmount), but only because his massive ego is so shameless it’s funny. (Though kudos on the website, it’s very well designed)
• Ditto Garth Turner, whose blog essentially led to a party switch. Putting blog above party, that’s worth something. He continues the full, honest disclosure that got him in trouble in the first place, and separates his blog from other candidates’ press-release feeds. (Though every time he mentions Stéphane Dion I ask myself: Really? You’re really excited about this guy as prime minister?)
• Liblogs.ca is a blog aggregator, which is pretty good at finding interesting blog posts from small blogs from a Liberal perspective.

I’m subscribed to quite a few more, and I’m sure I’ll discover more gems as the election goes along.

What are your favourite federal political blogs? Bonus points if they’re francophone and/or Quebec-based. Extra bonus points if they go beyond ultra-partisanship, actually discuss new ideas instead of linking to newspaper articles and popular posts on other blogs, and won’t put me into a coma.

(This is all for a super-duper-secret project that I’ll let you in on next week)