Today, the National Post has an article titled 'Social conservatives watch campaign from sidelines'.
Stephen Harper's promise Monday that a Tory majority would not open the debate on abortion or gay marriage is likely the final proof that social conservatives have become a spent political force in national politics, observers say.
"We're now just seen as eccentric," said Link Byfield, a long-time social conservative activist and current provincial candidate for the Wildrose Party in Alberta. "I understand why political people avoid these topics. Politicians are not there to be imaginative or perceptive; they're there to be popular. Whatever makes people angry they're going to avoid.
"Harper has made it abundantly and compellingly clear that the social conservative agenda is not to be contemplated in his government and not to be advocated or advanced. And he will have come to this conclusion because he has seen it necessary to get centre voters. As long as he's leader that will remain the case."
'Spent political force'. 'Eccentric'. Lovely words, yes?
The so-conneds have finally had it. Mind, Harper played them like a bunch of banjos for quite a while, repeating the mantra 'Next year in Majorityland'.
Mr. Byfield said Mr. Harper concluded early on that the social conservatives would stay with him because they had no other choice in the political landscape -and if they did not they would not jump to other national parties. The Prime Minister then made it clear to his MPs that they were not to raise these issues, he added.
They sucked up that KoolAid long enough, it seems.
They're pissed.
Here are two threads at the Freaks in which the painfully obvious manifests itself to the painfully oblivious. This one, on 'not even in MajorityLand will we revisit abortion and equal marriage' and an older one I've linked to before on Harper's hidden agenda.
There may not be a lot of them, but they're loud. They're sitting on their wallets, their hands, and voting fringe or spoiling ballots.
They're talking about a new Reform Party. They're talking about ousting PMSHhithead ASAP.
Woo-hoo!
(One 'woo-hoo' does not a happy dance make. I'm still très nervous.)
8 comments:
I dunno, kiddo; I doubt very much that they've lost so much as an iota of influence in Harper's inner circle. Their whole modus operandi is to toil away lobbying under the radar. They're also reaching out to the influx of socially conservative immigrants who share the same regressive social policies if not the same religious beliefs. The Religious Reich may not be threatening to rescind abortion or same-sex marriage rights while campaigning, but if a majority is won, you can bet your Tim Bits they'll be setting up shop on Harper's doorstep and demanding Canada be remade into a Baptist version of Iran.
N.
Well, the eccentrics, or crazies as I prefer to call them, can choose to believe what they want, but I will not believe that Steve will not open the abortion "debate" until he makes a positive statement affirming the reproductive rights of women.
Happy dance, no, but perhaps one of these might be OK.
ThinkingManNeil and Anonymous: Yeah yeah, I know. I've also considered the old 'reverse psychology' whammy. 'We'll tell everybody we aren't voting for the Cons, then we will and the Cons will be so grateful to us. . .'
OB: One never know what one is going to get when one clicks on your links. I live hard by a school and for decades there has always been at least one kid who has that perfected. The continuity is amazing.
Frankly, given what Harper has allowed the wingnut fringe of his caucus to get away with, I don't think he's dropped that - he just knows that it's political suicide to be open about it.
He's done more to advance the TheoCon agenda than any previous politician - and if he gets a majority, it will come to the forefront. He won't reopen the abortion debate at all - he'll outlaw it flat out. There will be no debate.
Remember income trusts. Harpie may not bring up the abortion/gay marriage himself, but you can bet there will be private members bills aplenty if he gets another minority. Perish the thought that he gets a majority because he'll be like a kid in a candy shop. Every progressive social advancement will be undone.
Harper and his contempt party will lie about everything just to get their majority and then we'll see their true colours. At least with the wacko extreme right wing parties in Europe, they wear their agenda on their sleeves with pride. That makes it easy for rational voters to runaway in droves (at least so far).
I may be overly optimistic, but from patrolling the Dark Side, it seems to me that the so-cons feel like fools. And once people feel they've been taken advantage of, it's hard to win their trust back.
And their issues are more than abortion and gay marriage. The 'speechies' are pissed that he hasn't taken down the Human Rights Commissions. Gun nuts seem to be getting it that if Cons were serious about abolishing the long-gun registry, they'd put forward a government bill, not some private member's razzle-dazzle.
The fiscal conservatives are appalled by the spending. The libertarians ditto on the G8/G20 abuses.
In short, they figure after five years, there should be more to show for their loyalty.
It's funny. In what seems like my very long campaign to divide the right, far left and far right have met. Both distrust SHithead and don't believe a thing he says.
True, though, there are die-hards on the Dark Side. They're the ones Harpo is counting on. The ones who say: 'Well, who else am I going to vote for?' The really pissed-off ones are working on them, though.
Warms the heart.
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