Visionseeker

Well, no. It is one thing to have an opponent in political inertia, it is quite another to claim momentum for an election. As much as Harper stalls, Dion remains in the starting blocks himself. I said it before and I'll say it again, the Liberals do not want an election until 2008.

Ipsos predicted a Conservative majority on the eve of the last contest. Also, their numbers since have consistently placed the Conservatives well above what various other polling agencies produced. In fact, laughably so. I don't place my faith in any polling firm, but I ignore Ipsos for their consistently poor record. As for shrill/shill, I blame speel-check . The Conservatives are most certainly holding their base. The point of my post was to ask what they need to do to go beyond it.

Even the most rabid of the PM’s supporters must recognize that he isn’t making much by way of inroads beyond his electoral support at the last election. No matter how much their main opposition seems to falter, no matter how many polls suggest that Canadians would be somewhat comfortable with a Conservative majority, poll after poll (excluding the conservative shrill: Ipsos) fail to place the Conservatives higher than the mid-thirties in support. Why is that? What is it about either Stephen Harper or the Conservative brand that holds them back? For that matter, what is the demographic profile of Conservative support and how can they broaden it? Harper and the Conservatives score low with women and lower still with youth. They struggle in urban and suburban environments yet seem to score well in national polls. How? The Conservative vote is what one would characterize as an inefficient vote if not for our electoral map disproportionately favouring rural voters. Their support base is largely constituted with white males over 50 and rural demographics closely associated with family farms, religious affinity and generally monochromatic communities. What do the Conservatives need to do to get over the top? How can they broaden their tent? Who must they appeal to?

What an absolutely nonsensical thread. In the interests of balance, shall we create one to document the juvenile anti-Dion or anti-Layton commentary?

I haven't been following this that closely. Can anyone tell me the nature of the criminal past he concealed when applying as a refugee? What was/were the crimes?

Well, I don’t agree that question period is an anachronism. I think the problem is the public’s reliance of the 15 second sound bite. We live in a society where so called “reality television” is all the rage and yet there is nothing more real than Question Period. If the 308 members of our legislature believed for a moment that a good chunk of potential swing votes were watching, they’d behave quite differently.

Well Garneau has jumped back into the fray. Garneau to run for Liberals after all Dion is far from done. The Liberals have taken a collective deep breath and are beginning to put aside rivalries in order to concentrate on the task of defeating Harper. And a united group of Liberals will be too much for Harper to fight alone. The Conservatives recognize this and we are now starting to see their cabinet ministers under fewer restrictions to engage the press (particularly television and radio). This is somewhat risky for them as one slip of message will inevitably fuel public suspicions, but Harper simply can't be the only public face of the party. Dion has a certain advantage here: for he has many recognized and trusted figures in his party to do the talk circuits. As for the NDP, well, all this attention on the Liberals has left Jack on the airwaves margins. They made a critical mistake by not trying to shape the Liberal difficulties as a manifestation of public fatigue with anything Liberal and thus, people are looking to the NDP for a new standard barer for the centre-left. But then, the NDP only borrows Liberal votes, they aren't interested in keeping them.

Because it would harm them politically. But then, trying to force an election will accomplish the same. The Conservatives have become quite insistent to go to the polls…which simply underscores that the great motivator of fear must be at work.

Everyone should have a hobby. But what exactly do you do with all that straw? Your second question isn't even a question. Proper punctuation is important if you are to be properly understood. I'll let you enjoy the fantasy of the Liberals becoming the third party, for I have grown tired of rescuing Conservatives from their delusions.

The environment might have won Dion the leadership, but it won't win him an election. Pharmacare might just be the pill he needs though. Dion doesn't have Trudeau's charisma, nor does Harper for that matter. These are ideas guys, as such, the one with the best ideas will probably win. It left the Quebec governement out, but it didn't leave Quebec out. A majority of Quebeckers supported and continue to support the CRF. Trudeau shut-out Levesque who mistakenly thought that the "beau risque" involved holding the rest of the country hostage. Levesque was eaten alive by his own party for his failure. A reality avoidant cult (legitimized by Mulroney) soon followed using the Holocaust diminishing "night of the long knives" argument. Free trade is a feather in the Conservative cap. But soft wood lumber shows how a deal is not necessarily a deal with the US. If only Williams would do the same over Churchill, they'd get a better "deal". He had the strength of his convictions. Now tell me which election he almost lost as a result of those. Yep, Canada having a flag was and is a bad thing. What was Pearson thinking? I've already pointed-out how your assessment is flawed, but let us recap the last few decades of Liberal limo riding: Health care CPP Bilingualism (I'd failed to note that one before) Referendum Constitution Referendum (the sequal) Fiscal sanity King wasn't the only one to be proven wrong on the Hitler score. Roosevelt and Stalin pronounced him as the cat's meow too. But King is to be distinguished by how quickly he righted his wrong assessment and got Canadian industry and shipping on a footing that saved the former mother country. Are you completely ignorant of our Atlantic lifeline? The Liberal party has an uncanny ability to stand for our next great challenge, something tells me they won't disappoint in 2008.

Look at France and the riots they experienced... Australia has had its own nasty bouts of unrest... Yet we in Canada have a far greater proportion and concentration of newcomers and the only bricks we see are when police forces seek to incite protesters. A majority of Canadians revealed that they harbour racist beliefs in recent polls conducted by Sun media. But other polls show that Canadians also support multiculturalism as a policy. Do these not contradict each other? Is one series right and the other wrong? Or is there a more nuanced explanation for this apparent contradiction? Multiculturalism has both allowed a kinder method of integration into the mainstream and largely denied us the misfortune of racially charged grievance politics. And this has not gone unnoticed in Europe and elsewhere.

But are they manufacturing fear? Is there a rise in Crime and will efforts to confront it be effective? "Doob suggested it was more about politics than crime. "Those things that Parliament is talking about ... they're not going to have any impact on crime," he said. "They're going to have an impact, maybe, on the way in which the justice system works. "They're not going to make us safer or less safe."

Dion was the better alternative in the end because Rae or Ignatieff represented a continuation of the Chrétien/Martin feud. With both establishment candidates missing out, the internal zero-sum game has largely disappeared. But Dion's camp lacked the organizational apparatus of either of these camps. That is changing with Dion bringing in Senator Smith (an Iggy booster) and John Rae (Bob Rae's his brother) to right the ship and bring order to the party. What we have recently witnessed with the public departure of Carroll and Proulx (and the quiet departure of others) is the removal of unseasoned amateurs that help get Dion the leadership in favour of the seasoned pros that might win him an election. The Conservatives are pushing for an election ASAP because they know that if the Liberals are given more time to regain their footing, the outcome is unlikely to fall in their favour. Dion has passed his testing phase without making dumb gaffs like mistaking the directional flow of Niagara Falls or appearing in hair nets or wetsuits. He has also shown willingness to stand-up for those who work for him and that, above all else, is drawing the Liberal brain-thrust to his side. All Dion needs is a platform containing a suitably divisive wedge issue that will pull support from both left and right. And that issue was revealed today in Jeffery Simpson's column in the Globe and Mail.

A retreat involves surrendering ground or gains. I don't think Dion or the Liberals have made gains (nor have the Conservatives for that matter) and the polls have not shown a consistent surrendering of ground either. The current stalemate remains amenable to the Liberals for many reasons, just as it is undesirable to the Conservatives for the own varied reasons. I see the equivalency argument hit a nerve. So, methinks thou doest protest too much. The vision debate will arise when the Liberals begin to offer their alternative course for the direction of the country. This will occur sometime before they decide to pull the switch on the government and it will be interesting to see how the Conservatives will respond. The party that brought the country out of the Depression, masterfully administered our war efforts in WWII, gave us the St-Lawrence seaway, extended healthcare to all and gave us CPP, repatriated our Constitution and gave us the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, adopted a multiculturalism policy that is the envy of all pluralistic nations, successfully countered two referendums on Quebec separation, kept us out of Iraq and pulled us from the breeches of fiscal doom has no vision!? Say what you want about their motivations, but the Liberals have an impressive habit of accomplishment and goal attainment. And that takes vision.

I agree on your first point, but not necessarily the second. If the Conservatives were to eek out a slim majority with Dion simultaneously managing to raise the Liberals popular support and seat counts, then I think it would be difficult for the Liberals to cut him loose. If her were to be badly beaten, then he would be unlikely to be given a second chance.

I wouldn't over-react on that score. The Liberal brand was stained outside the Montreal area because of sponsorship. They will do well to build on what they have and, if I were a betting man, I'd say that mulclair will lose in the (higher turn-out and less coordinated assult) general election. A realistic aim for the Liberals in Quebec is 22 - 26 seats.

It's not about pride as much as optics. Killing a Speech from the Throne (which I don't believe has ever been done BTW) is like killing a kitten. Nothing can be gained by squashing something cuddly.

I don't know where you get your scuttle, but Dion certainly isn't going to be made to resign. Anyone who asks that he do so would be killing their own political future. His caucus is going to say that they fear an election, he's going to say that fear is a mark of either ignorance or unpreparedness. Thus, let us prepare.

Mark Twain and Paul McCartney where both presumed deceased, not a bad club I'll say. Dion is hardly done. The fact that Conservatives persist in advancing such ideas when the polls have him consistently holding the 2006 support only shows how much they fear him.

Of course it could work. School yard rules: you don't pick a fight when you aren't prepared to win. As for being the guardian of values, I've seen a good number of conservative groups questioning Harper's values (Fraser Institute, Gerry Nicholls, etc...). But as Reid put it (a person whom I rarely agree with BTW), we are approaching a clash of vision. And if the election can be held-over while the vision debate emerges, then the Liberals could very well have the momentum.

To be fair, police officers on the street don’t feel much safer with another officer riding shotgun. And there are reasonable arguments against a dualist approach to patrol. But I will say that rural detachments need to take a serious look at call response protocols and back-up policies. An officer should never have to report to dispatch that they are entering a residence or pursuing a suspect without back-up being (at a minimum) on-route. Further, any call response should involve a second unit.

And that is why he will ultimately fail.

Well I'll be damned. Inducted March 21, 2005 Next question is: why?

Most Canadians are recognizing that Quebec is ordering the chateau briand with an empty wallet. Great argument. So you concede that the fiscal imbalance was nonsense but contend that the limiting of federal spending power is worthy because it is "different". And so how is this vacuous argument different from the other nonsense advanced? Good point. I say, not. Equating federal spending power as evil when, outside Alberta, the fed is the only government that seems to have its fiscal act and capacity in order is a losing argument. Nice. Presume the opinion. That ott'a win votes. You have a rather one dimensional understanding of public debt. I, for one, am pissed at the generation that preceded me and left a huge debt tag for all the services they consumed. Those tax dodging baby-boomers are worthy of my (and the following generations) contempt for leaving the state of affairs worse off than which they found it. Yet you like to argue that the cycle should continue. I say ENOUGH! Accountability begins here, now and for perpetuity. Debt is a vehicle for investment, not tax avoidance. Indeed, let us financially Costco another generation into unemployment and bankruptcy. August, you are beginning to reveal yourself as a crank with each post.

The extent of this thread shows to great lengths how far Conservative supporters will go to defend a stupid mistake; a mistake that has been exposed in at least three temples that I am aware of. The Rabbis in each warned the gathering about flattery and cautioned them about a government that readily identifies them as a Jew. As the goy in the crowd, I could still sense the unease felt by the message delivered.