Comments on: Herling

By: jay

jay — Sun, 28 Aug 2005 00:31:33 +0000

I love the idea of “scaring the voters away”. This is the point - the Tories have yet to figure out how to either have principles which might attract voters or a complete lack of principle which might lull them. Using both tactics at once makes the poor CPC look like utterly incompetent and, frankly, rather scary.

By: Sean

Sean — Sun, 28 Aug 2005 00:02:13 +0000

Methinks you are giving Mr. Herle too much credit. Let’s be honest, the ONLY reason that Martin became PM was because of the skulduggery Herle orchestrated with Liberal Party membership forms, stacking ridings, etc. THAT’S why someone as unelectable as Martin became PM — because democracy was thwarted within the Liberal Party.

It’s worth noting that there is no way to reproduce the tricks they used inside the party with the general electorate. What’s saving their skins right now is the fact that their competition sucks more than they do. Layton couldn’t look sane if he tried, and every time Harper gets his stuff together for five minutes (rare, to be sure) a Randy White clone in the CPC opens his mouth and scares the voters away again.

Basically, things are so bad on the opposition benches that even someone as dimwitted as Herle can coast to a victory right now.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Fri, 26 Aug 2005 02:04:25 +0000

Jay,

“So, instead of trying to play a defensive game, the CPC should be going flat out to outline a real vision of Canada with a minimal federal government and a greatly expanded scope for individual rights.”

I have tentative hope that this has started over the past week. They roled out the 4 policy ads, and then followed it up with the criminal justice announcements. For one week, that’s a nice start. Let’s see if the CPC keeps it up.

By: Gareth Igloliorte

Gareth Igloliorte — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 23:21:27 +0000

I have defended the CPC’s policies in the past and I will likely vote for them in the future, mostly on the basis that the Liberals are corrupt and my gut still reacts positively to Harper (I guess I like the dumpling denist look). I fell off Anonalogue’s band wagon though, because the CPC desparately need to start acting like a party with ideas and ideals.

The past winter was just plain horrible for the CPC. I can still remember the exchange between a Lib and CPC strategist on CFRA (with some “flavour”):

CPC: The liberals are spending like drunken sailors
LIB: Then why do you support our spending?
CPC: ….
LIB: chump

You can hear CPC spokesman practically choking on half the stuff they say because they don’t believe it themselves. Their ideas are limp and their policies are half hearted. Frankly, thats about all that seperates them from the Liberals.

By: Matt McIntosh

Matt McIntosh — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 21:48:59 +0000

“On Emery, the CPC should flat out say that the decision to prosecute a Canadian citizen for activities carried on in Canada is a purely Canadian one. They should be seeking status in the extradition proceedings and they should make it abundantly clear that if they are elected the proceedings will stop immediately.”

That would indeed be good, but the problem with this, of course, is that the socons couldn’t give the tiniest little crap about a pot king like Emery and mostly think he deserves it. That’s the problem with not having principles.

By: jay

jay — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 20:33:38 +0000

Thanks for the complete and coherent refutation there Anonalogue.

I was particularily impressed with, “The short, honest answer to your critique is that it does not behoove the CPC to have form right now”. The “black box” school of politics lives I see.

I would be surprised if sufficient Canadians will want to buy a pig in a poke for stealth campaigning to work; but in the face of analytic skills such as yours I hardly feel qualified to offer an opinion.

Just two small matters: my critique of the CPC comes from the right rather than the left. James Bow is certainly a bit squishy; but not in the pussy sense of that term.

By: Anonalogue

Anonalogue — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 19:11:40 +0000

Virtually every single idea expressed in this article is rubbish. And should I ever decide to take the time to engage the nonsense you regularly spew- I’m sorry Jay,there’s no “nice” way to say that and all of the esoteric references in the world cannot possibly mask horribly flawed reasoning; my pateince for left wing nonsense is gone - I hope you won’t be a pussy like James Bow and delete my post.

The short, honest answer to your critique is that it does not behoove the CPC to have form right now, but I doubt very much you can understand or want to understand why that is.

Of the top of my head I can think of $10,000,000 reasons why we, the Conservative Party of Canada, are going to fucking clobber the Liberals and I can’t wait for that writ drop. Free Markets heavily favoured the CPC during the budget showdown despite the Consent Manufacturing Gainsburger from the Globe you appear to subsist on; here in the reality based community we call that sort of reality gap “cognitive dissonance”.

Instead of wasting time trying to convince you, we’re just going to defeat you.

By: colino

colino — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 18:25:57 +0000

I agree with your position on what the CPC should do. However, I don’t agree that they can’t ditch the socons. I do not believe that they really want to. Harper has stated in the not-so-distant past that social conservatism is an important part of his own political philosophy. Furthermore, a number of current CPC MPs share this perspective. There weren’t just one or two MPs who stood up advocating the “traditional definition of marraige”(whatever that is), there were dozens. I’m not sure that the CPC can turn on a dime and start charaterizing themselves as the libertarian party.

Advocates of small government are effectively left with no-one to support.