Harper Having Trouble

[jdobbin]

I would tend to agree, and yet, he still did twice as well as your party. So if Bush is bad, what does that make you guys?

I have no idea what you are talking about here.

[jdobbin]

Are you saying the Liberal Party of Canada takes its directions from Stephen Harper?

I always thought that Harper's desire was emulate the worst aspects of the Liberals.

[noahbody]

I always thought that Harper's desire was emulate the worst aspects of the Liberals.

I doubt Harper will be funneling taxpayer dollars to the Liberal party any time soon.

[eyeball]

I always thought that Harper's desire was emulate the worst aspects of the Liberals.

"The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected."

G.K. Chesterton

[jdobbin]

I doubt Harper will be funneling taxpayer dollars to the Liberal party any time soon.

Harper does funnel taxpayers money to the party with his rules on who funds political parties.

[jdobbin]

Article from Warren Kinsella in the National Post today.

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/f...ries-think.aspx

For quite a few months, then, senior Conservatives have been evaluating how to improve their position. The conclusion they have reached is tautological: as long as Stephen Harper is Prime Minister, he is Prime Minister.

In effect, Tory strategists explain to me - using small words and speaking slowly, because I am a Liberal type from Calgary - their objective is now to remain in government as long as possible. Even if that means maintaining the current minority government, they're okay with that. This represents a pretty big change from their previous way of thinking.

Circa January 2008, senior Conservatives say that one of their historic weaknesses – particularly when the party had fractured into warring factions, such as the Reform Party, the Canadian Alliance, and the Progressive Conservatives, thereby making nasty Liberal strategists deliriously happy – was the notion, propagated by nasty Liberal strategists, that they were “scary” and not to be trusted with the keys to 24 Sussex. Their social agenda, in particular, alienated (and alienates) loads of Canadian female voters.

Well, after poring through truckloads of internal polls and conducting extensive consultations with party activists and whatnot, the Tory strategists now believe (they tell me) that incumbency has the effect of diluting perceptions that the Harper regime is radical or to be feared. The longer they are in power, they say, the less successful Satanic Liberals will be in depicting them in an unfavourable light.

Boring might work for Harper. However, things happen in politics and sometimes you never know when they are going to explode in your face. Witness the copyright opposition came out of no where and the Tories quickly retreated.

[Michael Bluth]

Boring might work for Harper. However, things happen in politics and sometimes you never know when they are going to explode in your face. Witness the copyright opposition came out of no where and the Tories quickly retreated.

Or the Gomery commission putting a mercifully short end to Paulie Martin's inglorious stay in the PMO.

[jbg]

"The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected."

G.K. Chesterton

Clever quote, but modern-day "conservatives" such as Ronald Reagan and Stephen Harper do not make a habit of "conserving" liberal mistakes. I argue that modern-day "conservatives" such as Ronald Reagan and Stephen Harper are in fact forces for progress, despite the unfortunate label of conservative.

That, by the way, is why I call myself a progressive or left-winger.