. . . blame.
Jack Layton is dismissing as "absurd" the idea that voting for the resurgent New Democrats could result in a Conservative majority government.
Really, Jack?
This is how Election Prediction Project sees things at the moment:
Conservative Party 119
Liberal Party 61
N.D.P. 29
Bloc 38
Too Close 61
Sixty-one seats too close to call.
Hanging in the balance: democracy.
Vote-splitting: absurd.
Vote strategically.
10 comments:
Oh, give me a break.We're not supposed to vote NDP because the Cons might win? So we should vote for Harper-lite instead?
What about not voting for the Liberal spoilers? They're trailing the NDP, after all. If they'd just withdraw gracefully, as you seem to want the NDP to do, we'd have a strong NDP opposition controlling a Con minority.
Carry on your way and we'll never get out of the jackpot we're in.
In a very, very few races I'd have less problem with strategic voting--if the Libs and the Cons are neck-and-neck and the NDP has never polled above 10%, for example. But the problem with "the NDP will never" is that it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Luckily Quebec voters--for example--are breaking out of the box. So should you.
Long-term--support rep by pop. What we have now as an electoral system is a joke.
No, the electoral system isn't a joke. It's a racket. And we're being played.
And now EMay has joined in the 'don't be scared of the Harper majority, vote your silly little heart' ploy.
All I care about at the moment is the outcome of this election. Because I am fucking TERRIFIED of a Harper majority.
I think you would have to actually look at all those seats in play, consider what the 08 numbers were, whether the same candidates are competing, what NDP surge does, what stronger Liberal base, individual strength of candidates in each riding does etc. etc. to know for sure what's really going on. Personally I can see lots of races where its just CON vs NDP or CON vs Liberal in the big picture of who can win and the 3rd place contender takes votes if they are a strong candidate. Setting aside my bias, I'm happy for any riding that CONS lose. Saskatchewan is looking interesting. Just my 2 cents.
You are absolutely right, bionic liberal. I was just going to post about strategic voting -- how to do it right.
Two independent groups Catch 22 and Project Democracy have crunched the numbers and they're staying on top of things. According to a member of CRUSH, they agree on EVERY riding. Well, she actually said except for one, but I checked that and they are both calling for the Bloc candidate.
People should be reassured by that agreement, but should also do their own research in their riding.
I'm amazed that so many self-declared progressives don't have the good sense to examine their assumptions about the Liberals being a left or centre-left party. Do some research. Start with the 1995 federal budget.
Unbelievable.
The lesser of two evils is still evil. I am not voting for evil. So you can blame me too. As I said elsewhere, not voting for what we want all these years has probably given us the governments we deserve.
Before the last US election, Noam Chomsky was asked about the lesser of two evils. He said to vote for lesser evil means less evil. Harper is very evil. Iggy or Jack are mere pikers in the evil department.
"The lesser of two evils is still evil. I am not voting for evil. So you can blame me too. As I said elsewhere, not voting for what we want all these years has probably given us the governments we deserve." karen at 2:46pm April 25 2011
And I do blame you and those like you, because you fail to understand that most people view silence as CONSENT, not opposition, and not voting is being SILENT. As to evil being evil and therefore should simply be avoided, well I guess then the allies should not have joined up with the "evil" USSR when they turned away from their former Axis allies in WWII to fight Hitler, because that is where your reasoning/logic takes us. The ugly truth about reality is that there are rarely ever truly good choices open to us, just less bad ones more often than not and not just in politics either. It may feel all moralistic to speak the way you do, but the ugly truth of it is that it underscores the truth of a cliche with a lot of sad history supporting it, that for evil to triumph takes nothing but good people to do nothing.
Not to mention evil is all too often misused as a characterization to describe something you may disagree with but it not truly evil, just different or wrong. Indeed, Harper is the closest to real evil I have ever seen on the national political leadership stage, and that is because of his naked contempt for the basic rules/laws of governance more than ideological policy agenda based concerns.
Sorry karen, people like you have not helped matters, you have made them worse by dropping out, and your pious "evil is still evil" rationalization makes it no less true. It is too bad you do not appear able to grasp this, both for yourself and for the rest of us who pay for the evil that you and those like you help enable to rise to power.
Fern Hill:
Sorry if I sounded a bit harsh here, but this is an argument that has irked me for decades and now with the first real evil to actually threaten us on the national stage in Harper this mindset really pushes buttons for me. One of the biggest reasons politics sucks these days is more people prefer tuning and dropping out than the hard work of getting involved and participating in more than just voting and then whine about how their voices are never heard or that there are no good choices for them to support. It really frustrates me.
Scotian: Harsh away. We like harsh here.
The lazy whiners bug me, but worse are the ideologically correct. 'I'm a socialist and I could NEVER vote Lib.' I wanna SHRIEK: 'So, it's OK that we're flirting with unstoppable corporatism because you are too bloody pure to help us stop it?????'
Or you could blame the Liberal for not being able to create a message that resonates with the majority of Canadians across the country. You could blame them for picking a leader that waxes academic during the middle of an election campaign. You could do that. But I guess you could also blame Jack Layton, who has not shifted drastically to the right, for attracting the votes of people on the left.
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