Bryan

They have no choice. That spending must be reduced. They can either be honest and explain why, or they can lie just to get elected, and do it anyway once they get in. Cutting spending does not have to mean cutting back on care, or on infrastructure. There is a lot of waste in government, this provincial NDP especially so. Disband WRHA, allow private diagnostic clinics (more private healthcare across the board) so that people of means are not taking up the public resources needed by those without. Get rid of cost-plus infrastructure contracts. We have projects where the winning bid was a fraction of what the final bill is. Other provinces don't do this -- if you're over-budget that's on you. That's because they were keeping two sets of books, posting official balanced budgets that were really deep in the hole. They changed the laws so that they only had to post the real numbers once every 4 years. The previous PCs were faced with the same situation they are now -- cleaning up the NDP mess. Massive cuts are absolutely required whether anyone likes it or not.

The PCs will most likely be campaigning on spending cuts, living within our means, getting our credit rating back, etc. Do you support that?

Selinger was the same guy with the same policies then as he is now. You voted for him because the NDP more closely represents your political worldview than the federal or provincial conservative parties do.

It does not describe me whatsoever. Not even remotely.

We have PCs (and Liberals) in Manitoba and he voted NDP.

Indeed. Opposition supporters didn't think Harper would be able to stay on in 2006 or 2008 either.

From the article you linked to:

You certainly won't see any of that from me.

You play this game every election cycle (federal and provincial) -- feign passing interest in conservatism between elections, then snap right back to voting to the left of them, pointing to conservative policies as the reason why you won't vote for them.

Translation: you're not a conservative.

Please. You are an NDP voter. You've mentioned it more than once.

Everything changes eventually.

Very few. There has been no movement whatsoever at any of the conventions nor at the EDA level for a change.

A small piece of a big pie is still a lot of crust. Losing $50 to me could be the same as losing $50,000 to someone else. The difference is, I'll shrug and complain but still pay it, whereas the guy set to lose $50k will make sure it doesn't happen.

People on this board are not exactly a representative sample. You'd be surprised how many people have literally no idea what side a party or leader is on a given issue. It would be interesting to do a study on the correlation between media endorsements and who wins a given election. I suspect it's much stronger than we would think. Granted, even if that were true, much of that could be attributed to editors going where the wind blows in an attempt to look smart after the fact.

If it were even remotely true, he'd have already left. Harper is the CPC's biggest strength. Appointed Prime Ministers don't generally do well at the ballot box. Ask Kim Campbell what it's like to replace a long running Prime Minister. Also, ask her what it's like to lead a right wing party in Canada when you don't have control of the Quebec vote. Ask Joe Clark, Preston Manning, Stockwell Day, Jean Charest, and Peter Mckay too. Stephen Harper can still do one thing none of them could -- virtually guarantee at least 30% of the vote, with any campaign being solely about how much more than that they can get.

It's a mixed message because it reminds people that those people can be dominated -- probably not what you're going for on the sports field.

Except it rarely works that way. Tax increases on people of means usually result in lower government revenues because people with money find ways to keep it.

It's such a weird thing to get upset about. Most of the supposedly offensive racially derived names are actually paying homage to that race. Sports teams usually pick them because they symbolize strength.

Isn't that EXACTLY what Harper did? He expressed outrage at Duffy and Wright, both of them were removed from their positions (one suspended, the other resigned).

Campaigning politicians of all stripes promise the opposite of what they plan to do once in office all of the time. It may not seem to make sense, but it's what they do. Mulcair's strategy would most likely be to blame it on Harper -- that things were left in such a way that he had no other option but to ratify the deal. Blaming the last guy is also what politicians generally do.

He's right, but I doubt it will get much traction.

To some degree I'm inclined to agree, but I know my teachers really tried to engage the kids in politics. All it did was turn most of the kids off even more -- they just did not want to hear about it at all.

Kids just don't care about politics. It was no different when I was young. Coming out of high school, I was the only person I knew who paid any attention to it. Even the ones who are sure they want to stop (fill in conservative villain of the day) don't have a clue why for the most part. You can make up anything and they believe it.

This is true, their Conservative numbers are always 5-6% lower than what actually happens at the polls.