Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Election 2008 The good, the bad and the ugly.

The good,
1. Mr. Burns was denied his majority. We can all breathe a giant sigh of relief. The CBC lives, the Canadian Wheat Board lives, gay people can still walk the streets and artists wont be sent to the guillotine.
2. Harper is dead in Quebec. Good old Quebec, they saw through Harper's sweater an stopped the majority. I love the irony of people voting for a separatist party in order to save Canada. Good old Quebec, the only people in Canada properly horrified by the prospect of putting 14 year olds in prison for life. Out here in the west the only thing people see wrong with that is that we're not giving them the death penalty. Does it bother anyone else that Harper thinks it is okay to make an exception in Quebec (where it is politically unpopular) and raise the age to 16 before you can be thrown into jail for life? If Harper really thinks his law will make Canadians safer why does he not want Quebec to benefit? On the other side why should my kid be subject to this punishment but not some kid in Quebec? No Canadian kid should be subjected to this fascist nonsense.
3. Rahim Jaffer loses his seat. A different colour finally then Blue in Alberta! A speck of orange in the middle of Berlin. I wonder if Helena Guergis will drop him now. I have this dream where her and I and Ruby Dhalla are drinking margaritas and ........ but I digress.
4. The Liberals are back in the game in Quebec. If not at least they have stopped the bleeding. The much maligned Stephane Dion can take some credit for that.
5. Harper still has zero seats in Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal. He also has zero seats in NFLD. I wish every province had a Danny Williams working for us.
6. Best of all I am hearing a lot of talk about a coalition. This is of course the only answer. Throw out Harper tomorrow. Alas were probably all gonna fight amongst ourselves instead but hope springs eternal.

The bad
1. My home province of Manitoba has fallen under the shadow of the empire. Anita Neville, my MP, is the last Liberal left standing in Manitoba. ST Boniface, my parents riding, went to the dark side last night. More on this in " The Ugly"
2. The greens failed to win a seat. Their voice deserves to be in the house. It is very unlikely that anything will get done about climate change of any value in the next parliament.
3. The Libs are back in disarray. Down 19 seats more and right back in the middle of a leadership contest. The right wing is mad about Dion and the green shift. The left wing is mad about Afghanistan. Both wings are smaller and feeling pissy. How do you avoid a costly election and leadership battle and still maintain your principles? COALITION people.
4. Vic Toews was re-elected. I guess the people of Provencer (Steinbach) can forgive adultery, babies out of wedlock and divorce from a Conservative cabinet minister. How many single moms and families have they run out of town for similar behavior? Fucking hypocrites. After all we all know Jesus is a Conservative.
The Ugly

1. Stephen LeDrew. With friends like him who needs enemies. Honorable mention to that dumb-ass Ontario finance minister who thought the election was a good time to trash the green shift.
2. CTV. Duff's conservative cheer leading reached all time highs and the back stab on Dion was beyond contempt.
3. As mentioned before my parents riding of ST Boniface, my childhood home has gone back to the Tories. They are now represented by a get tough on crime, ex police spokesmen named Shelly Glover. Where has my country gone? In Quebec Shelly Glover would be laughed at. In my pathetic town they put her in Govt.
4.Vote-splitting. This was the ugliest of all. Red Tory mentioned this example. Three
thousand idiots in Saarich-Gulf Islands voted for an Ndp candidate, Julian West, who was no longer eligible. This handed back the seat to that little weasel Gary Lunn. Also why would anyone vote for the NDP in Central Nova when they could have voted for Lizzie May, made history and best of all, kicked Peter McKay out of office? You know how good Rahim Jaffer losing feels? Peter McKay would have been twice as sweet. Ditto John Baird. A ridicules vote-split in his riding gets this screaming fool back in the house. All over Ontario Liberals lost close races where only a small amount of the NDP votes would have pushed them past the Cons. The reverse is true in Saskatchewan and BC. In many riding's the Liberals should have voted NDP if only to stop a Tory. We have got to start working together people!
Having said that I am also guilty of voting stupid. I really had trouble supporting the Liberals because of their position on the war in Afghanistan. In the end I couldn't and voted for the NDP. I did this out of principle and because I was pretty sure Neville was gonna win anyways. So I understand not being able to vote for a party out of principle. I get it , I did it but I could have regretted it. A little co-operation can go a long way. Next election more of us need to look into vote swapping and riding co-operation. In the meantime, COALITION PEOPLE.

10 comments:

Militant Dipper said...

Funny,seems I spent a good part of the time berating NDP supporters for not supporting the libs in many ridings.How is that endorsing everybody but the libs? Less seats for the cons are good for all of us. Idiot. I'll suppoprt who I want and I'll post where I want as long as they will have me. So Fuck off, if you don't like my "dribble" don't read it.

Anonymous said...

You've got two choices. Make the LPC a better party with a better platform and a better leader, or, keep complaining about "stupid" Canadians who dont vote Liberal and hover around 50 to 70 seats every election and guarantee the Conservatives decades of power. No really...those are the two choices. billg

Anonymous said...

I wish people would stop calling names like "idiot" -- or is that your sig?

Militant Dipper said...

Whaaa who said Canadians were stupid for not voting Liberal. I said Canadians were stupid including myself for not supporting which ever progressive party had the best chance.As for my choices, I'll decide what my choices are.I'm not a member of the Liberals or any other party. How am I suppposed to make the LPC a better party with a better platform and a better leader? all I do is vote and write my little blog.If I have some influence on Liberal party planners I would be very surprised.I'm not complaining about anything I'm simply advocating co-operation between the parties of the left.

Militant Dipper said...

read your own first post if you want to see where i got "idiot" from

Anonymous said...

Uniting the left isn't going to happen. The Liberal illusion is that the Bloc, Greens and NDP would willing run under the Liberal banner. The reality is that the Liberal brand is on the downslide, and the other parties see an opportunity to start picking away at it.
Our best hope is to DUMP our LOSER leader, and choose someone who leans to the right. Yes, I am talking about Iggy.

Anonymous said...

I agree with anon 8:10. We need a strong shift to the right, and start fighting the Tories on their own turf. Going left, is going nowhere but down the toilet. If lefties in the party can't hack it there are a plethora of other parties they (you) can join. Most of them (you) are sell-outs anyway, switching allegiances at the drop of a hat. Yes, please go fuck up someone elses party....please.

Militant Dipper said...

Nice Try trolls

thescottross.blogspot.com said...

Thanks for what you said.
-scott
thescottross

susansmith said...

I can understand your frustration with the liberals (and you should also look at some Green voters who also allowed for Cons to slip through).
Closer to home in Manitoba, one can look at Kildonan-St. Paul in Manitoba where the "blind NDP candidate" came 2nd. Local polling suggested it was a Con/NDP race after the liberal candidate stepped down but than ran as an independent. But after voteforthenvironment site had originally gave the thumbs up to vote for the "BLIND NDP" candidate, but on Oct 12th the site put out a 2 pager on the front page and said VOTE LIBERAL in this riding. Results: Cons: 19750 votes, 53% NDP: 12093 votes, 33% Lib: 3009 votes, 8% Green: 1679 votes, 5% and I don't have the states for the independent, but as you can see, if they all pulled the same way, one less con in Manitoba.

Similarly in Nova Scotia (South Shore-St. Margaret’s) the site could well of contributed to the favoured NDP candidate losing. Earle had placed 2nd in 2006 behind the Con, and had been the former member of Parliament from 1997-2000. Earle was the first black Member of Parliament elected from Nova Scotia. He lost in a very close 2nd, where just a slight shift in liberal vote would have put him in, but the site said vote Liberal contrary to all polling indicators.

In the Oshawa riding in Ontario the same thing happen. It was an NDP/con race. THE NDP came within 463 votes of winning this riding in 2004, and in 2006 within 2500 votes. Both times the "distant 3rd place liberal candidate was placed well back, by over 5000 votes each time. The new NDP candidate was a prominent and popular CAW past executive member: Mike Shields. It was listed as one of the 21 swing ridings. The votefortheenvironment says, "your choice." The quote from the Oshawa site page stated this from day one and never changed: The Conservatives won this riding by only 2,752 over the NDP. Again, with a shift in lib and Green vote this would have been an NDP win.
Ditto in Saskatoon with a heartbreaker of losing by 200 and something votes where a wee shift in lib vote and/or green would have changed the outcome.