Elections (and parliamentary democracy) are interesting again
April 30, 2011 | No Comments
Questions I have this weekend–which I hope Monday’s federal election will shed some light on the answers. How effective and efficient will be the Conservative strategy of consolidation of its voter support and micro-targeting voter subsets and individual electoral districts? Will the Conservatives benefit from Liberal-NDP and Bloc-NDP competitions in Ontario and Quebec? How many [...]
The Rudderless Ignatieff
April 29, 2011 | 4 Comments
I don’t want to write the obituary for the Liberal Party just yet, but it’s pretty safe to suggest that the Liberals will experience monumentally bad election results on Monday. Personally, I think they probably need to get rid of Michael Ignatieff, though perhaps there’s some inside dope to which I’m not privy that would [...]
Give Michael Ignatieff Another Chance
April 28, 2011 | 2 Comments
As the Liberal Party braces for what appears will be an inevitably disastrous showing next week on Election Day, observers are already speculating and predicting that Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff will be run out of town. Assuming the Liberal Party suffers a loss as devastating as predicted, the calls for turfing Ignatieff will only grow [...]
The Failure of Democracy
April 28, 2011 | 14 Comments
For most Canadians, there’s a lot riding on next Monday’s election results. But while they will watch the returns closely in the hopes of seeing a Conservative majority, an NDP opposition or some other partisan configuration, younger voters ought to save themselves the time and trouble. After all, for all the talk about engaging younger [...]
Birthers are a stain on the human race
April 28, 2011 | 7 Comments
I’m sure most of us have heard that Barack Obama has released a more in-depth version of his birth certificate (I refuse to use the term “long form” which seems to have been made up by racists and poor losers). It doesn’t change anything. Mr. Obama is still President and he is still a natural [...]
Quote of the Day
April 27, 2011 | 1 Comment
From Stephen Gordon: The transition from producing platforms that are crazy to ones that are just dumb may not seem like much progress, but it’s enough to put the NDP within hailing distance of the Liberals and the Conservatives. True dat.
The cure can only come from the disease
April 27, 2011 | No Comments
Scott’s recent ‘Coalition‘ post has prompted me to finally put together a post on the prospect of – and the voters reaction to – a potential coalition government. Scott’s pretty bang on in his assessment, and I think the recent polling, with the Liberals sliding and the NDP ascending, demonstrates that the populace isn’t as [...]
A Different Kind of Change Election
April 27, 2011 | 13 Comments
So it’s now official that the EKOS poll placing the NDP ahead of the Liberals was not an outlier. Both Angus Reid and Forum Research have polls out that not only confirm the numbers presented by EKOS, they actually present rosier pictures for the NDP. What many predicted would be a sleepy, non-event election that [...]
Liberals can’t stop the bleeding
April 27, 2011 | 2 Comments
If there’s one thing we’ve learned recently, it’s that only thing Canadians like less than Michael Ignatieff is a 30 minute infomercial on Michael Ignatieff. If we’ve learned two things, we’ve learned that the current Liberal Party has no effective strategy to stop hemorrhaging support. Recent polls show that while the Conservatives remain the lead [...]
Sun Media’s own Wikileaks tale
April 27, 2011 | No Comments
The Sun chain is congratulating itself for adhering to its mandate- a commitment to the truth- after it received a blurry image of a fellow who looks a lot like Michael Ignatieff holding a rifle in Iraq. Despite the excitement in the news room (if its veracity was proven, this picture would apparently contradict Ignatieff’s claim [...]