Well, can't say that I'm surprised with the outcome. I can certainly say I've heard enough about it for a few days, with just a couple of hours of coverage. There's not much to report, but every radio program introduces the story of the election as if nobody else is covering it, and treads the same ground.
The fact is that participation is down, and with a small fraction of the total vote, the ruling conservatives have increased their minority government.
But the story is not one that has finished. This is, to an large extent, just a continuation of the same story that has been developing from the day that Paul Martin's cronies decided to attack Cretien while he was still in office. Ever since then the Liberals have been in disarray, and the left side of the spectrum (if such a spectrum really is relevant anymore) has been without a dominant force.
In the coming year (man, do we really have to watch that long?) Dion will be pushed back out, Rae and Ignatief will again split their party in half vying for leadership. What will be different this time? Will Kennedy come up the middle this time as another weak liberal leader? Will Manley throw his hat in the ring and split the party three ways? Will one of the previous guys turn out to have weakened his position letting someone move into a dominant role? Hard to say.
I can't help but think that an 'instant run-off' voting system would have worked so much better. In each riding if voters had picked their first and second choices we'd likely have seen a liberal minority with a substantial green presence and a stronger NDP, leaving government open to form around a coalition of a pair of parties, and we would not have a small percentage of the popular vote resulting in so many seats going conservative.
Such is life.
Something tells me this blog will be coming back to life in the 18months, to chatter about yet another trip to the polls. 'Till then - happy politics! (And enjoy the dog and pony show to the south!)
Wednesday
Tuesday
Done!
Well, I did it. I voted the crap out of that election - boom, in the box.
Did you? Get out there - several minutes remain!
Did you? Get out there - several minutes remain!
Saturday
Election Prediction
I have a lot more confidence in the UBC election stock market than I do any of the polsters for predicting the election results. It's looking like there will be another conservative minority with a slightly diminished seat count for them, but also a substantial diminishment of the Liberal seats. NDP position seems to have strengthened a lot, though no to the historic high which I think was around 45seats under Ed Broadbent.
I'd love to see the conservative numbers drop down to a lower number to create something more interesting for us. Perhaps some sort of coalition government, with some legs to run for a few years... at least long enough for the Liberals to re-group. We need some stronger people in leadership, and the only avenue that I can see producing someone any time soon is probably the Dion door.
That would mean the old Rae vs. Ignatief thing again. Not sure if either of them fit the bill. Perhaps Manley will dust off his old election signs and give it a whirl as well. The country might be hungry enough for someone that he could potentially take a pretty good crack at it. I suspect, however, that his strategy will be to wait for the Rae/Ignatief battle to run a little further through before popping his head above the parapet.
I'd love to see the conservative numbers drop down to a lower number to create something more interesting for us. Perhaps some sort of coalition government, with some legs to run for a few years... at least long enough for the Liberals to re-group. We need some stronger people in leadership, and the only avenue that I can see producing someone any time soon is probably the Dion door.
That would mean the old Rae vs. Ignatief thing again. Not sure if either of them fit the bill. Perhaps Manley will dust off his old election signs and give it a whirl as well. The country might be hungry enough for someone that he could potentially take a pretty good crack at it. I suspect, however, that his strategy will be to wait for the Rae/Ignatief battle to run a little further through before popping his head above the parapet.
Thursday
Stephan does The National
I watched a goodly chunk of the National's Q & A with Stephan Dion yesterday. Insert big sigh here.
I accept that he's passionate for what he believes in. And I also believe that he wouldn't do a bad job. He's utterly charisma-free, which generates a gut reaction in me of "wrong guy for the job" but I can happily over-ride that with my trusty brain which I keep handy for just such moments.
His almost desperate delivery is probably what gives some that sense of passion. I suppose to as an ordinary sort of guy, there is a certain amount of nerves talking on national television perhaps? Plus he was trying to squeeze in 5 pounds of potatoes into a 1 pound bag in most of his responses. The result is that he seemed to be ignoring the question. Sacrificing the answer to cram in some more details.
A more concerning thing personality-wise is that he seems to be utterly humourless at all times. Never cracks a smile. Never seems to calmly ponder the answer to a question. I'm not looking for a creepy Harper smile, but some sense of calm, confidence would be good. Then again, maybe those are traits that get wrapped up in the concept of charisma.
There was a moment when he expressed an answer to one of Mansbridge's questions with a sentence of French. I'm sure he lost a few thousand western voters with that one. I guess the idea was "here's a very a propos proverb that we all know well." Well, it wasn't "comme ci comme ça" - we didn't know that one, and it came across like someone unable to think of the words in English. Not the sign of a strong communicator who will connect with the people from sea-to-sea.
There were some pretty direct questions that he should have been prepared for. Ones for which he could have delivered a nice clean, to the point answer. First, I recall a woman saying she earns $12k a year and has two kids, and inquiring how is she and other poor people going to afford a new carbon tax.
The answer was a gimme! Slam-dunk opportunity. And if delivered with compassion and understanding could have really connected. Instead, he immediately forgot the detail of the question: "I don't remember how much her revenue, er, income was," he began "but let's say it's $20k..." and he launched into how much money she would save based on his green shift shtick.
No Stephan! First - $20k is a lot more than $12k. Surely you could have retained that nugget from a 15second clip. And the right answer was an emphatic: "With our green shift you get to keep more of your hard earned money - it is not a tax on your income." He could even have slammed Harper's lie and deny approach (straight from his US republican advisors no doubt) "Mr. Harper repeats at every opportunity the lie that the green shift is a tax on individuals. This is not true."
There, done - say it with some compassion and you're through the question. But no go.
The other question I saw was a small biz owner with an aviation company asking if the green shift was going to tax his business out of existance. Dion's response was totally off topic, talking about airplane manufacturing jobs at Bombardier doing well 'cause they were building more green planes.
He had actually given the right answer earlier in his conversation - where he pointed out that the green shift is phased in. While a small businessman has no ability to drop his plane and buy a new state-of-the-art bio-plane, he should have suggested that he could alter his business to embrace more green friendly processes, and the green shift would not knock him out of business. He could have also projected a tough line to say though, that if his business was unable, over the long term, to become more green friendly, that was a cost of doing business in the new reality, but they weren't going to hit him over the head right away. Perhaps throw in some comment about a special element of the Green shift plan to help small businesses of fewer than 5 employees or something. Done.
Poor guy - can't project his way out of a soggy paper bag. I don't doubt that he'd do a decent job. I just don't know that an average voter can see the strength in the platform beyond the anti-charisma that their leader exudes.
Hope you get out and vote next week. Remember to take a look at the polls in your riding and just pick the strongest non-conservative and go with it.
Seriously, just think what fun it would be to have an awkward, bookish PM! Really, it would truly make me proud to have someone totally charisma free representing us world-wide. There's nothing that says 'integrity' like someone who doesn't come across like a used-car salesman... or a creepy cult-religion pastor like our current guy. So perhaps putting your vote behind Stephan is not such a bad thing!
I accept that he's passionate for what he believes in. And I also believe that he wouldn't do a bad job. He's utterly charisma-free, which generates a gut reaction in me of "wrong guy for the job" but I can happily over-ride that with my trusty brain which I keep handy for just such moments.
His almost desperate delivery is probably what gives some that sense of passion. I suppose to as an ordinary sort of guy, there is a certain amount of nerves talking on national television perhaps? Plus he was trying to squeeze in 5 pounds of potatoes into a 1 pound bag in most of his responses. The result is that he seemed to be ignoring the question. Sacrificing the answer to cram in some more details.
A more concerning thing personality-wise is that he seems to be utterly humourless at all times. Never cracks a smile. Never seems to calmly ponder the answer to a question. I'm not looking for a creepy Harper smile, but some sense of calm, confidence would be good. Then again, maybe those are traits that get wrapped up in the concept of charisma.
There was a moment when he expressed an answer to one of Mansbridge's questions with a sentence of French. I'm sure he lost a few thousand western voters with that one. I guess the idea was "here's a very a propos proverb that we all know well." Well, it wasn't "comme ci comme ça" - we didn't know that one, and it came across like someone unable to think of the words in English. Not the sign of a strong communicator who will connect with the people from sea-to-sea.
There were some pretty direct questions that he should have been prepared for. Ones for which he could have delivered a nice clean, to the point answer. First, I recall a woman saying she earns $12k a year and has two kids, and inquiring how is she and other poor people going to afford a new carbon tax.
The answer was a gimme! Slam-dunk opportunity. And if delivered with compassion and understanding could have really connected. Instead, he immediately forgot the detail of the question: "I don't remember how much her revenue, er, income was," he began "but let's say it's $20k..." and he launched into how much money she would save based on his green shift shtick.
No Stephan! First - $20k is a lot more than $12k. Surely you could have retained that nugget from a 15second clip. And the right answer was an emphatic: "With our green shift you get to keep more of your hard earned money - it is not a tax on your income." He could even have slammed Harper's lie and deny approach (straight from his US republican advisors no doubt) "Mr. Harper repeats at every opportunity the lie that the green shift is a tax on individuals. This is not true."
There, done - say it with some compassion and you're through the question. But no go.
The other question I saw was a small biz owner with an aviation company asking if the green shift was going to tax his business out of existance. Dion's response was totally off topic, talking about airplane manufacturing jobs at Bombardier doing well 'cause they were building more green planes.
He had actually given the right answer earlier in his conversation - where he pointed out that the green shift is phased in. While a small businessman has no ability to drop his plane and buy a new state-of-the-art bio-plane, he should have suggested that he could alter his business to embrace more green friendly processes, and the green shift would not knock him out of business. He could have also projected a tough line to say though, that if his business was unable, over the long term, to become more green friendly, that was a cost of doing business in the new reality, but they weren't going to hit him over the head right away. Perhaps throw in some comment about a special element of the Green shift plan to help small businesses of fewer than 5 employees or something. Done.
Poor guy - can't project his way out of a soggy paper bag. I don't doubt that he'd do a decent job. I just don't know that an average voter can see the strength in the platform beyond the anti-charisma that their leader exudes.
Hope you get out and vote next week. Remember to take a look at the polls in your riding and just pick the strongest non-conservative and go with it.
Seriously, just think what fun it would be to have an awkward, bookish PM! Really, it would truly make me proud to have someone totally charisma free representing us world-wide. There's nothing that says 'integrity' like someone who doesn't come across like a used-car salesman... or a creepy cult-religion pastor like our current guy. So perhaps putting your vote behind Stephan is not such a bad thing!
Wednesday
A Peep from the Finance Minister
Well, RH Harper took the shackles off Flaherty long enough for him to pipe up and issue some firm words against deficits.
I had a funny moment standing in my kitchen a couple of days ago, listening to the news when I suddenly couldn't think who the finance minister was. Wow, I thought, we didn't have that issue back in liberal days. I was not a big PM as PM fan - but it's hard to fault Paul Martin on his fiscal policy, and solidity as a Finance Minister. They churned out surpluses over and over, and left things in pretty good shape when they decided to turn inwards and set their own offices ablaze with in-fighting.
A few moments later Flaherty's name came to mind, and my heart sunk recalling all the childish sniping at Ontario's government. Oh grow up, you lost that election and new guys are doing a better job of it than you did. Scuttling a province by generating bad press from the feds isn't going to make people sing the praises of the Harris government of yesteryear.
So, the knitted curtain (made out of surplus sweaters don't you know) was lifted long enough for Flaherty to say "We will maintain a surplus in Canada and we will continue to pay down debt." Great, thinks I, that sounds reasonable enough. But so much of a country's perception in a volatile market is the confidence that the outward facing officials can generate. A government that keeps the media out of all its activities, does not evoke a sense of transparency.
Truth be told, I'd prefer the finance ministers of yesteryear. I like Martin in the role, I thought too that Michael Wilson, to go back a few years, did a decent job as a Conservative FM (ie non-CRAP conservative). I even remember Allan MacEachen appearing decent. Granted I didn't have as much flesh in the game in those distant years past, so may not have noticed all the nuances.
There's a good resource to be found here, a list of all the FM's.
I would have preferred if, in the Martin years, we had inched a bit more towards debt repayment, when those multi-billion dollar surpluses were rolling in. And we could have done with somewhat less habitual under-estimation.
And out of all of the special interests I can think of, I would loved to have seen a few billion dropped into modernizing Canadian Transportation. Not creating the Mississauga Palace of Versailles that Pearson Airport turned into (I was all for updates, but I think they went a bit overboard there) Rather they should have focussed on steel and rubber transportation on the ground. A world class railway - like we had in the 50's (you can still see it if you want, it's pretty much the same stuff). And some heavy-handed, micromanaged municipal transit build-outs to get me out of my car would have been a good use for those things as well. (Municipal governments would gobble the cash up unless it's well wrapped in strings).
Now we've heard of some infrastructure money in the past few years, but I think it's still an order of magnitude lower than it should be.
Greens and NDP are both talking up a re-investment in these areas. Dion is also talking a green streak - so what the hell, go pick the one that's leading in your area and cast your vote next week.
Let's just avoid buying the sweater thing and putting them back in.
I had a funny moment standing in my kitchen a couple of days ago, listening to the news when I suddenly couldn't think who the finance minister was. Wow, I thought, we didn't have that issue back in liberal days. I was not a big PM as PM fan - but it's hard to fault Paul Martin on his fiscal policy, and solidity as a Finance Minister. They churned out surpluses over and over, and left things in pretty good shape when they decided to turn inwards and set their own offices ablaze with in-fighting.
A few moments later Flaherty's name came to mind, and my heart sunk recalling all the childish sniping at Ontario's government. Oh grow up, you lost that election and new guys are doing a better job of it than you did. Scuttling a province by generating bad press from the feds isn't going to make people sing the praises of the Harris government of yesteryear.
So, the knitted curtain (made out of surplus sweaters don't you know) was lifted long enough for Flaherty to say "We will maintain a surplus in Canada and we will continue to pay down debt." Great, thinks I, that sounds reasonable enough. But so much of a country's perception in a volatile market is the confidence that the outward facing officials can generate. A government that keeps the media out of all its activities, does not evoke a sense of transparency.
Truth be told, I'd prefer the finance ministers of yesteryear. I like Martin in the role, I thought too that Michael Wilson, to go back a few years, did a decent job as a Conservative FM (ie non-CRAP conservative). I even remember Allan MacEachen appearing decent. Granted I didn't have as much flesh in the game in those distant years past, so may not have noticed all the nuances.
There's a good resource to be found here, a list of all the FM's.
I would have preferred if, in the Martin years, we had inched a bit more towards debt repayment, when those multi-billion dollar surpluses were rolling in. And we could have done with somewhat less habitual under-estimation.
And out of all of the special interests I can think of, I would loved to have seen a few billion dropped into modernizing Canadian Transportation. Not creating the Mississauga Palace of Versailles that Pearson Airport turned into (I was all for updates, but I think they went a bit overboard there) Rather they should have focussed on steel and rubber transportation on the ground. A world class railway - like we had in the 50's (you can still see it if you want, it's pretty much the same stuff). And some heavy-handed, micromanaged municipal transit build-outs to get me out of my car would have been a good use for those things as well. (Municipal governments would gobble the cash up unless it's well wrapped in strings).
Now we've heard of some infrastructure money in the past few years, but I think it's still an order of magnitude lower than it should be.
Greens and NDP are both talking up a re-investment in these areas. Dion is also talking a green streak - so what the hell, go pick the one that's leading in your area and cast your vote next week.
Let's just avoid buying the sweater thing and putting them back in.
Tuesday
A Platform! Wow. Is that The Kind of Election We Want?
In a bizarre, unexpected moment of sanity, the governing Conservative party has scrambled around and is going to actually announce a platform in this election. Sure the advanced polls have already closed, so many thousands of people have had to vote without knowing what their party was suggesting for the future. And sure we're in the midst of one of the most significant financial industry collapses in history, without any real recognition of it from that same party. But hey, what more do those little people need to know anyway.
Seeing the poll graph that flashes past the screen each night on CBC, I see that the Conservative line is dipping, and the NDP & Liberal ones are cranking up. The Greens gained a bit, but there's a sharp snap back on them too. Since nothing specific has happened, I'd expect that's a statistical error - something within their margin of uncertainty. Those graphs should really be drawn with error bars to give us an idea of their uncertainty. Since the Conservative number is 32% and the liberals 25%, if the margin of error is 3 or 4 points, it could be that the conservatives are at 29 and the liberals at 28. I'm sure that is not the case, but we can't really tell what is within the realm of possibility.
So two comments to make that really outline what I'm feeling most strongly about during this campaign. First, how everyone in the country should vote - Yes, I'm talkiing to you, and second my read on how ideology driven people think.
First you need to find a source of polling data for your riding. Now remember, these things are never bang on - but that's okay you just need a rough idea. Since I assume everyone else in your riding is reading this as well, all will be fine.
If you can't find one check here. It's not very scientific but it might fit the bill. The discussions in each riding often include some recent numbers that someone mentions. Otherwise, just google "riding polls" and click the "pages from Canada" search button.
How every you do it, just look at your riding's numbers. This part is the easy step:
simply vote for the leading non-conservative party. That's it. Done.
So, if the conservatives are ahead (my condolences) but look at the next number down, and cast your vote for that party, regarless of which way you are otherwise leaning.
If the conservatives are not leading, simply vote for the leading party in the polls. This avoids the vote splitting. Plus it's pretty democratic really. Since we don't have a proper "first choice, second choice" instant run-off voting system like we SHOULD have if we were in the 21st century, this deals with the challenge of 'anyone but the conservatives' without splitting the vote and letting them come up the middle.
Problem solved.
My fundamental fear of a conservative majority is their ideology driven agenda. It's been very carefully hidden for a few years now. They've effectively cut the media off from being able to participate in the democracy. There are no more scrums in the house. The local MP's in the their ridings don't talk to any media. Thus no media will hear when one of their many loose cannons spews vitriol at minorities, aboriginals, gay/lesbian communities, or immigrants, or when they spout some crazy right wing conspiracy theory about the jews, or advocate adopting the US currency (wouldn't that be great right now as their banking system falls apart.)
What motivates the leaders of this party? I beleive it is an ideology that they have a world view, heavily influenced by religion and class structure, and they are driven to re-mould the country in that image. I fear that their perception is this. "If we can just get that majority, we can fix everything. If we can get around these pesky citizens, who don't know what's good for them, we'll make everything right. Then, we can 'eliminate' the naysayers because they will be overwhelmingly quieted by the vast majority of people who will be won over by our amazing approach to reforming the country."
The problem with that - besides the inherent assumption that they know better than the people - is that the mould they would advocate would involve creating a state infused with christianity-based philosophy, where the border between the US and Canada is largely erased, and Alberta becomes some oil-rich oligarchy within a weak, probably militaristic, Canada.
So we all need to find a means to ensure that the majority (ie at least 65% of the population by recent polls) is not led by this party. Assuming some of the 35% support does not fully grasp the ideology of the conservatives, we are looking at some crazy situation where we can all be led by a minority with a vastly different view of the country.
Then after election day we need to get the voting system changed. Not to some crazy MMP thing like Ontario explored briefly, but changed instead to an 'instant run-off' approach that recognizes that people often have an 'anyone but that guy' perspective. Our current system allows the 'anyone but him' situation to disasterously end up electing exactly that person due to spreading of the majority vote among a diffuse base of alternatives.
Whew. There - I've outlined the solution to all the woes of our country in one brief blog post, and it's not even lunch time yet.
Seeing the poll graph that flashes past the screen each night on CBC, I see that the Conservative line is dipping, and the NDP & Liberal ones are cranking up. The Greens gained a bit, but there's a sharp snap back on them too. Since nothing specific has happened, I'd expect that's a statistical error - something within their margin of uncertainty. Those graphs should really be drawn with error bars to give us an idea of their uncertainty. Since the Conservative number is 32% and the liberals 25%, if the margin of error is 3 or 4 points, it could be that the conservatives are at 29 and the liberals at 28. I'm sure that is not the case, but we can't really tell what is within the realm of possibility.
So two comments to make that really outline what I'm feeling most strongly about during this campaign. First, how everyone in the country should vote - Yes, I'm talkiing to you, and second my read on how ideology driven people think.
HOW TO VOTE TO SAVE YOUR COUNTRY
First you need to find a source of polling data for your riding. Now remember, these things are never bang on - but that's okay you just need a rough idea. Since I assume everyone else in your riding is reading this as well, all will be fine.
If you can't find one check here. It's not very scientific but it might fit the bill. The discussions in each riding often include some recent numbers that someone mentions. Otherwise, just google "riding polls" and click the "pages from Canada" search button.
How every you do it, just look at your riding's numbers. This part is the easy step:
simply vote for the leading non-conservative party. That's it. Done.
So, if the conservatives are ahead (my condolences) but look at the next number down, and cast your vote for that party, regarless of which way you are otherwise leaning.
If the conservatives are not leading, simply vote for the leading party in the polls. This avoids the vote splitting. Plus it's pretty democratic really. Since we don't have a proper "first choice, second choice" instant run-off voting system like we SHOULD have if we were in the 21st century, this deals with the challenge of 'anyone but the conservatives' without splitting the vote and letting them come up the middle.
Problem solved.
THE IDEOLOGS PHILOSOPHY
My fundamental fear of a conservative majority is their ideology driven agenda. It's been very carefully hidden for a few years now. They've effectively cut the media off from being able to participate in the democracy. There are no more scrums in the house. The local MP's in the their ridings don't talk to any media. Thus no media will hear when one of their many loose cannons spews vitriol at minorities, aboriginals, gay/lesbian communities, or immigrants, or when they spout some crazy right wing conspiracy theory about the jews, or advocate adopting the US currency (wouldn't that be great right now as their banking system falls apart.)
What motivates the leaders of this party? I beleive it is an ideology that they have a world view, heavily influenced by religion and class structure, and they are driven to re-mould the country in that image. I fear that their perception is this. "If we can just get that majority, we can fix everything. If we can get around these pesky citizens, who don't know what's good for them, we'll make everything right. Then, we can 'eliminate' the naysayers because they will be overwhelmingly quieted by the vast majority of people who will be won over by our amazing approach to reforming the country."
The problem with that - besides the inherent assumption that they know better than the people - is that the mould they would advocate would involve creating a state infused with christianity-based philosophy, where the border between the US and Canada is largely erased, and Alberta becomes some oil-rich oligarchy within a weak, probably militaristic, Canada.
Vote on Election Day
So we all need to find a means to ensure that the majority (ie at least 65% of the population by recent polls) is not led by this party. Assuming some of the 35% support does not fully grasp the ideology of the conservatives, we are looking at some crazy situation where we can all be led by a minority with a vastly different view of the country.
Then after election day we need to get the voting system changed. Not to some crazy MMP thing like Ontario explored briefly, but changed instead to an 'instant run-off' approach that recognizes that people often have an 'anyone but that guy' perspective. Our current system allows the 'anyone but him' situation to disasterously end up electing exactly that person due to spreading of the majority vote among a diffuse base of alternatives.
Whew. There - I've outlined the solution to all the woes of our country in one brief blog post, and it's not even lunch time yet.
Wednesday
Integrity, Debates and Polls
Wow - it's tough to blog about a subject that is just so depressing. Walking along the street today I saw a headline about John Baird being ahead in some poll. This is one of the reasons I dislike media carrying poll information, as it's just put out there in a few words in 200pt font on a masthead, and nobody gets any detail about the question asked or the margin of error.
I'm amazed and saddened that people can actually see that guy in normal operating mode and think "hey, there's a guy I want to support." I lose faith in humanity, in that people seem incapable of detecting (or perhaps caring about) sleaziness.
Meanwhile, I note at night on the CBC national news that a nightly flash of a chart showing the trend over several days is given. Luckily that goes by so fast that nobody can be very influenced by it.
With the freezeframe button on my remote, I can look at it long enough to figure out what it says. It's pretty much showing variations within the margin of error, but seems to indicate some growth for the NDP - perhaps at the expense of the liberals. There's some drop in the Conservatives, but again within the margin of polling error.
Given the incessantly negative advertising of the conservatives, and their lack of a platform and their ongoing avoidance of allowing their people to talk for fear their propensity to insert their feet, I would think integrity would be a bigger issue in this election.
The recent plaigiarism scandel has been trivialized by some, but I think this speaks directly to integrity. However, I think the story is bigger than what the media is half-assedly reporting. Contrary to their reports, I think the issue is likely not that they copied an Aussie PM's speech, but rather that they were given text by someone in the US Republican party, and they parroted it 'cause that's what Uncle George told them to do. It seems unlikely that Harper's androids were sitting around watching John Howard speeches. Getting the daily communiqué from their republican handlers seems much more likely.
Does anyone care that our PM gets his speech text from a Republican handler? Seems not.
Meanwhile the debates are queued up, and set to clash directly with the US veep debates. You'd think they could have planned a bit better for this. I mean the pure theatre value of the swan dive being set-up for Gov Palin at the hands of crazy-man Biden should be pretty entertaining.
But debates have gone beyond their original purpose. God-forbid that we should have people tune in to the Cdn debate for the purpose of seeing who has the greater strength to lead the country. No, instead people watch it to see if someone can 'score points' against someone else. It's become purely theatre - more a sport than an intellectual discussion. We want to see losers hammered, not eloquent leaders. We don't want to see someone inspire us, we want to see someone trip-up the other guy.
I like to think that my interest in the US Veep Debate is to pull the cloak of lies off this Palin character, and expose her for the lightweight that she is.
I like to think that my interest in the Cdn debate is to hear who can put to gether the most cogent arguments for their platform. Given that certain parties have chosen to introduce no platform at all, and campaign purely on personal attacks doesn't leave me very inspired.
I'm amazed and saddened that people can actually see that guy in normal operating mode and think "hey, there's a guy I want to support." I lose faith in humanity, in that people seem incapable of detecting (or perhaps caring about) sleaziness.
Meanwhile, I note at night on the CBC national news that a nightly flash of a chart showing the trend over several days is given. Luckily that goes by so fast that nobody can be very influenced by it.
With the freezeframe button on my remote, I can look at it long enough to figure out what it says. It's pretty much showing variations within the margin of error, but seems to indicate some growth for the NDP - perhaps at the expense of the liberals. There's some drop in the Conservatives, but again within the margin of polling error.
Integrity
Given the incessantly negative advertising of the conservatives, and their lack of a platform and their ongoing avoidance of allowing their people to talk for fear their propensity to insert their feet, I would think integrity would be a bigger issue in this election.
The recent plaigiarism scandel has been trivialized by some, but I think this speaks directly to integrity. However, I think the story is bigger than what the media is half-assedly reporting. Contrary to their reports, I think the issue is likely not that they copied an Aussie PM's speech, but rather that they were given text by someone in the US Republican party, and they parroted it 'cause that's what Uncle George told them to do. It seems unlikely that Harper's androids were sitting around watching John Howard speeches. Getting the daily communiqué from their republican handlers seems much more likely.
Does anyone care that our PM gets his speech text from a Republican handler? Seems not.
Meanwhile the debates are queued up, and set to clash directly with the US veep debates. You'd think they could have planned a bit better for this. I mean the pure theatre value of the swan dive being set-up for Gov Palin at the hands of crazy-man Biden should be pretty entertaining.
But debates have gone beyond their original purpose. God-forbid that we should have people tune in to the Cdn debate for the purpose of seeing who has the greater strength to lead the country. No, instead people watch it to see if someone can 'score points' against someone else. It's become purely theatre - more a sport than an intellectual discussion. We want to see losers hammered, not eloquent leaders. We don't want to see someone inspire us, we want to see someone trip-up the other guy.
I like to think that my interest in the US Veep Debate is to pull the cloak of lies off this Palin character, and expose her for the lightweight that she is.
I like to think that my interest in the Cdn debate is to hear who can put to gether the most cogent arguments for their platform. Given that certain parties have chosen to introduce no platform at all, and campaign purely on personal attacks doesn't leave me very inspired.
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