So. Liberals I hope you're happy. I know... some of you are positively giddy, after all, your guy didn't have to face any of those pesky questions that always seem to be full of problems. And your guy didn't have to try and convince the electorate or the party membership that his more hawkish comments and defence of "enhanced interrogation" were just passing phases. Way to go! No process, no problem, just straight to the coronation. Why, nobody needs to hear all that stuff about policy or approaches to some of the more pressing problems of the day, nope. Just install the new unit and you're good to go. Choice, that's for girls and shit. The new and improved Liberals are ready! They've swung their act to the right where they can be assured that the centre right Canadian voter dwells and they must be, what, 38% of the voting population and it isn't like they're already voting for someone. Thank heavens there's a new option for the Harper voter, another stilted ego freak that will work like a dickens to alienate Quebec. After the drubbing that poor Stepahane took just for being an academic goober, it must be a relief to the party faithful knowing that there's nothing in the new leader's past that can be used against him by the shit slinging marksmen of the Harper mob. Is it too late to start a draft Gilles movement?
12 comments:
..the kiss of death.. I told James Curran a week or so ago that I might just vote for Iggy if he gets the leadership..
Good grief. Look on the bright side of cheap laffs, you two. We're talking gold, here. GOLD, I tells ya!
We'll see what happens with Quebec. Because Harper is alienating Quebec, the natural response of the Libs is to cozy up to Quebec. Harper will use this to drum up Western support... but he already has that. Iggy can actually talk very intelligently about the plight of those who are marginalized, and given that Harper is once again fabricating a unity crisis this time with his former good friends the Bloc as his latest bogey men, Iggy would be able to use that against the CONs with success in Central and Atlantic Canada. The result may be a Liberal minority, though with Iggy dissolving the coalition, those NDP across the aisle will not be too pleased with not having their six cabinet seats.
If Harper's current racist strategy of vilifying Quebec loses him Quebec and the PMO, he will be gone, replaced by either some one more reasonable, or someone totally off the wall like Craig Chandler. At the same time, the Alberta separatists and their sympathizers, unable to control Canada with a minority as they are trying to do now, should be killing the CONs off with their own version of the bloc.
This spells a mess for Canada, but with our current PM deliberately fabricating unity crises, we have to make the best of it.
There is a Con strategy to goad Quebec into separating which Ezra raised back in 1995. With Quebec's seats off the electoral map, suddenly one only needs about 120 seats for a majority, which is under where he CONs are now, even subtracting their Quebec seats, which they will be losing next election.
This can't be done quickly, but Harper would rather push Quebecers solidly into the non-national Bloc, then let it go Liberal, thus keeping a minority Parliament under his fascist thumb. This is his direction.
So we need to out-Bloc the Bloc.
Iggy may be able to do this. We'll see if he's smart enough.
It would have been better for Bob to have been in right now. He's experienced with ruling coalitions, heavily favoured the coalition, and is a good communicator. When the coalition failed, he'd be related to its end, not Iggy.
Too late...
Who the fuck is this guy? And why is there crap all over the carpet?
Look.. I don't agree with Mark Francis either.. but, I don't think I'd call his comments "crap on the carpet".. oh..sorry, you're talking about the other guy..
Mark.. I'm sure you feel very strongly, but half the liberal problem is that so many are so convinced of their own "truth" that they aren't open that, maybe, most Canadians don't see it exactly that way.. (and yes, there are a crap-load of conservatives who have the same myopia)
So.. just throwing this out there.. polls suggest that anglo Canadians, by about a 60% majority, are against the coalition.. and it's probably worse this week after Dion resigned..
Ignatieff, (hard to admit) will give Harper a better run for his money as he is closer to the great middle than Bob Rae was.
It's time everyone (conservatives included) started paying more attention to that great middle, the people who work hard, receive little, and ask for nothing.. the party that best exorcises itself of special interests will benefit the most.. see Obama's example..
Al Gore, up against the biggest idiot president in history, should have won in a cake walk (yes, I know, he did and got screwed.. the fact that it was that close was only a testament to his ineptitude).. Obama understood that he needed to speak to the great middle - so, no major talk of gay marriage, no major race issues.. just helping return the economy to the common man.. and viola, the first black President.
Who speaks best to the little guy? That's the issue and the Liberals have lost that to the benefit of Stephen Harper.. go ahead, start another "greenshift" -see how that plays in Windsor..
There was a time where Conservatives and Liberals differed, in reality, by marginal degrees.. and that generally allowed the Liberals to rule for 70/100 years in the last century.. universal daycare, gun registry, kyoto.. that speaks to a very loud, but marginal, portion of the populace and a continued drive to satisfy the voice of the few at the expense of the many will not help rebuild a broken machine..
I hope Iggy proves that his supporter's faith in him is justified.
Me, I couldn't support someone who wrote stuff in favour of American Empire, without realizing how much was wrong with that and without realizing that his views might be influenced by his family background as opposed to a rational assessment of factual situations.
And I couldn't respect someone who is supposed to be a top academic in their field claiming - as Iggy did in his apology for supporting the Iraq invasion - that academics has nothing to do with reality. I mean, WTF? Good academics is analyzing and theorizing about reality and coming up with recommendations for the future. Especially in a field like political science.
IMO, Iggy is a privileged, over-educated nincompoop. I hope I'm wrong. But I have this feeling that the Liberal party is going to be on the outs for the next 5-10 years until the wee Trudeau is ready to make his move.
Ignatieff will have his turn. He was the best choice of the two, but not the best choice of the three (LeBlanc FTW).
The choice between Rae and Ignatieff was a choice between moving the party back to the centre or keeping the party cozied up to the left. To win, the Liberals need the moderate Liberals who voted Conservative last time to come back. Hopefully, Ignatieff can do that.
But I wonder... Is it worth electing a right-wing Liberal leader in order to get a right-wing Conservative leader out of office? Bleh.
I was thinking more towards Count Floyd...
wv: extingle
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