Musings —02.28.2012 11:31 AM
—Name the latest Conservative Party scandal!
We need a pithy phrase to describe this latest attempt by the Harper Reformatories to hijack democracy. Vote now, vote often (the Cons certainly did)!
And if you have better suggestions, pop ’em in comments!
I prefer “election fraud”. With any preface you want to put ahead of it, as investigations wind through various agencies for the next few years. Canadians need to hear that phrase again and again until it until it is branded onto the Conservative name. It is that serious.
It is. But headline writers won’t likely make that determination on their own, doncha think?
Indeed! Didn’t think of that. Phone-flam? Has a nice alliterative ring to it.
My favourite thus far…..Harper…..the phone-flam man……lol
If warren could figure out how to let us vote on the comments here, I’d give you all my upvotes. Can we please as a society stop using the ‘gate’ suffix with any and every scandal? Just call this what it is, election fraud.
How ’bout the Rotten Boroughs Tour 2011. Sorta has a punk sensibility.
More like “detour 2011”
Good point, No, not Warren. If we name it cute it sounds cute. And it’s not.
Robo-con
Robo-con-job
Just do what every lazy writer has done post-Watergate era. Add “gate” to the end of a word. ie, vote-gate, or election-gate, or robocaller-gate. You’re welcome.
MugabeCon
How would it be used in a sentence?
“The Conservatives carried out a MugabeCon on the citizens of Guelph.”
Um, your poll won’t let me vote more than once. What’s more, when I clicked on my selection, I was redirected to a 404 error page — what kind of democracy are you running here? Very unlike the new Canadian political culture.
How about Block the Vote, or Vote-Blocking Scandal, or VoterCon, or Con the Vote
suppress… suppressant.. cough suppressant.. Robitussin..
Robohustlin’
Here’s my harper meme, feel free to make and share your own:
http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/36cw5j/
Con me once….
I voted for Tele-swindle! Apparently few of my fellow-readers agree with me
I kept trying to find multiple syllable tongue twisters (most starting with Captain Hockey Book), but I keep coming back to “Harper Election Fraud”. It is what it is.
How about:
The Con-Call Scandal
mm
Or better:
Con-Call Scam aka: #ConCallScam
Robo-fraud
Democracy Hijack
Cheaters-gate
I always find it hilarious how Conservatives who despise government always fight to the death to form the very existence of government they so despise.
The Elecscam of 2011.
I like RoboCon as well. It captures the robocall nature, and syllabically refers to cons and conservatives (like there’s any difference).
I like the “Con-Con” – and then photoshop Conservative cabinet ministers into a photograph of Can-Can dancers.
Conservative Robo-Fraud
Tel-a Fraud Scam
Tele-fraud Poll.
Vile Caller Crime
a few variations…..Spite Caller Crime….Right Caller Crime….Night Caller Crime…..;)
“Harper’s Election Strategy”
How about anything with the word “Scheme” in it? Because – that’s what it was…
I’ve been calling it “SuppressionGate”. Using the prefix “robo-” makes it sound comedic and laughable.. so it get’s laughed off.
comm con
Robocon gets my vote.
Or Dial-A-Con
Harper’s MugabeLand
I still like Vote-Blocking Scandal, it rolls like Phone-Hacking Scandal, and it says what they did, not how they did it.
I prefer telegate myself. Nice ring. Especially because it encapsulates live- non robo calls too!
If you pick anything that ends in gate I will stop reading your webpage. So please don’t make me do that.
Robocrimecon. Has a true ring about it.
This is one of the sleaziest crimes in Canadians history. right up there with Harper’s favorite henchman Gordon Campbell. He thieved and, corruptly sold the BC Railroad. That was one of Campbell’s election lies. The other Campbell election lie was, the HST wasn’t on his radar. However, Harper was drooling at the mouth for BC’s HST…So Harper and Campbell forced it on us, without a full debate in the Legislature. A totally illegal tax, with no representation. Now Christy Clark has deliberately delayed the HST, and is leaving the new party with the debt. The BC people have to pay Harper, for stealing from us.
If yer going to go off topic, so will I…..no one likes paying more, but the fact of the matter is the HST closed a whole lot of loopholes that allowed certain groups who shall not be named from paying their fair share…..the HST could have been been brought in an open and forthright manner, and could have excluded certain things that we all need and use for our daily living…..restaurant meals, haircuts, funerals, etc….but in the end would still bring in the extra revenue that the current govt so desperately needs….no wonder Finance Minister Kevin Falcon looked so glum at the referendum defeat…..he knew that the revenue stream he was counting on wasnt going to be there….ergo the current BC budget…..
I for one hope they carry on with the HST…..no one likes to pay more…..but I love the thought of EVERYONE paying their fair share….
Agree with you on the BCRail, though…..
Let the facts come out, there is a certain danger going into hyperbole and crying moral indignation.
Call me cynical, but there have been worse electoral shenanigans in the history of the world. Ballot stuffing, voter suppression, repeat voters are an old tradition in the realm of the electoral process.
You know how the Republicans are represented by an elephant and the Democrats by a donkey? These were images/brands created by their opponents that stuck through the ages.
If the Cons are going to import Republican dirty tricks, then we need to import that tradition here.
Here is my suggestion for the Cons. Most appropriate I think. But I also thought this one and especially this one would work just as well.
Of course, this one is most appropriate as well, only it is not a wild animal, just a “tricky” one.
Ted B has a great idea…especially the weasel…
The info below works just as well for the Robo-Criminals. The Governor-General one is pretty interesting. Oh and did I say yet that the CON Toady Speaker of the House has got to go?
—
SENT TO ME
If you are all as outraged as you sound, here are links to 2 petitions – one is for a call for by-elections, the other is to the GG asking him to dissolve this 41st Parliament:
http://www.leadnow.ca/robocall…
http://www.ipetitions.com/peti…
The best way we can effect change is to sign these, then pass them on, share, email the links, im, tweet to your friends and networks .. as far and as wide as you can. The ‘squeakier the wheels, the better the grease!’ This could be an historic time for our Country – let’s not allow it to die out… Please!
If it dies out, if the justice system does nothing effective, if the media is bought off, imagine what the next election will look like.
Imagine what all our elections (provincial and federal)will look like.
Robocon gets my vote to
And one more suggestion:
“Only losers play by the rules.”
Your Harper Government
Harper’s electoral fraud
Porta-vote!
Tellus, Can-a-dolt.
(not my idea of Conservative Governance – neither is running a nobody candidate in my Toronto riding).
Poutine-gate. Also does anyone know how this would affect the per-vote subsidy that liberals are entitled to?
I think “robocalls” has already taken the cake if the headlines at National Newswatch today are any indication.
Con-a-vote
Or maybe Dial-a-vote
Stick with “Election Fraud”. Make conservative style attack ads talking about how Harper cheated to win. Show a little old lady getting the exact robocall and waiting outside a non-voting station outside in the wind and rain by herself after being dropped off by a cab. Then you have to have scary music and the screen goes red when Harper appears. It’s sad, stupid, and obviously works.
Someone called me last night and said this site was moved to:
warrencinsella.com
“Election Fraud” works quite well.
I saw one one another board I loved ! ” The Crime Minister “
Not to change topic too hard here, but… http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/02/28/pol-robocalls-guelph-pierre-poutine.html
Are you freaking kidding me?! “Pierre Poutine, Separatist Street, Joliette, PQ”?! A name that would be rejected as trite by Air Farce?
p.s., my Captcha phrase just happens to be “SULU” so let me add a protracted, “ohhh my…”
Maybe he’s related to Jean Poutine!
TeleConned
Today, my favourite was a tweet; referring to the PM as the Crime Minister of Canada
Forget Harper Government, from now on – it should be Crime Minister Harper.
Think we could get HMQ to call him that?
That is lovely.
The Harpercons call it “business as usual”, so let’s go with that.
Really? They think it’s OK? Man, you guys are really whipping yourselves into a frenzy. This thread is amazing to read — as bad as the cons in their worst Liberal-bashing mode.
My father was in a union and did a lot of volunteering and canvassing for the NDP. While we lived in a safe NDP riding while growing up, the cash-strapped local Conservative riding would actually call the NDP riding headquarters (by posing as NDP supporters) to ask them to bus their Conservative-leaning voters to the polling stations during election time.
A rather cute tactic, not that it really affected the result in the end.
Does anyone have an actual recording of these robocalls? Most media articles I’ve seen repeat the media script, which sounds very unspecific. For example, I’ve been misidentified as a Conservative supporter (yes, I vote Tory once in a blue moon, but I’m a classic independent swing voter). And during election time, the Conservative party keeps calling my telephone number telling me, urging me to vote for them. It’s actually pretty annoying.
But none of the calls I’ve ever received from the Conservatives could be contrued as misleading. Of course, I get called because they think I’m one of their supporters. I’m not sure how the Conservatives in the robocall allegations would be able to obtain a list of Liberal or NDP supporters and their phone numbers.
Via the same database they’ve developed to call back their _own_ supporters:
“earlier in the campaign …[calls are] structured to identify voters’ party preferences. If a person identified himself as Liberal or NDP, the agent punched a button to indicate he was not a Conservative supporter…if Conservative, the call was passed to a co-worker to pitch party policy or solicit donations”
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1137273–conservative-scripts-misdirected-voters-in-2011-election-say-call-centre-staff
For more on their CIMS database:
http://thestar.blogs.com/politics/2012/02/the-campaign-machine.html
http://thestar.blogs.com/politics_page/2012/02/cims-the-conservative-party-of-canadas-voting-and-fundraising-database.html
How about
Conservative Election – Rise of the Machines.