Musings —09.09.2011 07:45 AM
—Hazardous Horwath – live!
I don’t know where these web sites come from, honest I don’t, but here’s a neato one about Andrea Horwath – who has moved her party so far to the Right, she’s practically attending tea parties with Tim Hudak.
As a New Democrat, that stings.
Asking New Democrats to hold their nose and vote Liberals is secretly our favourite thing. It enables us to point out that the Liberal party has zero ideas and will honor zero of their promises. We get to say they feel “entitled” to govern and stop anyone else from governing, and their last ditch effort is to scare you into supporting them. We’re always able to canvass a few ex-Liberals who are angry with the party, just out of spite.
When the Liberal party stands for something, a real credible stance, New Democrats lose votes. This environmental stuff could be it. I honestly don’t know how to respond.
The Liberal Party does stand for something. It stands for making decisions based on facts and circumstances rather than dogma and idealism. No, it’s not as sexy as uncompromising pursuit of principles, but on the other hand it actually works in the real world.
Funny, I thought it was making decisions based on the wisdom and donations of Bay Street. Now they’re in third-place.
The party that made decisions based on facts and circumstances died with Pierre Trudeau.
Waitaminit. Are the overnights pushing Tim into third place? Is that why Tim is campaigning in safe seats while the Liberals are setting their guns on the NDP?
Liberals are turning their guns on the NDP because they can no longer get away with ignoring them completely. Don’t ask me, ask that dumbass Alfred Apps.
Point taken
It’s the the federal dynamic but reversed and she’s dulled the appeal of the Provincial NDP as an alternative, ironically because I think she’s trying to make the NDP more mainstream.
The Layton strategy of being first out of the gate to oppose all things Harper didn’t get the recognition that it eventually did. Layton’s strategy gradually made the federal NDP look more consistent as an alternative. It also forced Ignatieff to walk along a blurry line of supporting the government during tough economic times while trying to oppose and differentiate the federal Liberals from the Conservatives.
When election time came around voters could not see enough of a difference between those two parties to even consider voting Liberal.
Ontario NDP seems to moving in the opposite direction to the Federal regarding the level of influence from unions – much like in BC, the provincial NDP have completely abandoned any legitimate claim to the support of the environmental left.
In BC these days, the only consistent thing about the provincial NDP is its joined-at-the-hip relationship with labour unions. On taxes, they’re all over the map (witness joining hands with Vander Zalm — of all people — on the anti-HST campaign), and on the environment too (witness their opposition to the carbon tax). Thing is, I don’t know if the BC NDP is going to pay much of an electoral price for that, because they’re enjoying a huge bump as a result of the whole HST fiasco, organized labour is behind them 100% and there is a significant fatigue factor with the BC Liberals, who have now been in power for a long time. The BC Liberals have made a lot of enemies.