Election 2015

[Lumber]

Two editorial cartoons from Brian Gable in the Globe and Mail that neatly sum up these last few days of the campaign:

This may be weighing on the minds of many voters when they vote tomorrow.

Source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/editorial-cartoons-for-october-2015/article26577881/

Am I the only one that doesn't care about  this and wouldn't care no matter what party was doing it?

 

[Rocky Mountains]

Am I the only one that doesn't care about  this and wouldn't care no matter what party was doing it?

The hypocrisy of running on the Communist Manifesto and cozying up to business at the same time doesn't concern you?

 

[PPCLI Guy]

The hypocrisy of running on the Communist Manifesto and cozying up to business at the same time doesn't concern you?

Using your favourite approach again I see....

hy·per·bo·le
hīˈpərbəlē/
noun
exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally.
synonyms: exaggeration, overstatement, magnification, embroidery, embellishment, excess, overkill, rhetoric;

 

[Rocky Mountains]

Using your favourite approach again I see....

hy·per·bo·le
hīˈpərbəlē/
noun
exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally.
synonyms: exaggeration, overstatement, magnification, embroidery, embellishment, excess, overkill, rhetoric;

Exactly- Trudeau ran on a campaign way to the left of the NDP.  Trudeau employs hyperbole as do I.

 

[Kirkhill]

Am I the only one that doesn't care about  this and wouldn't care no matter what party was doing it?

No Lumber - you're not.  Most of your cadre reacts the same way.  The campaigns targeted to getting your vote play on emotions. 

It is all about Stephen Harper, as described by Saul Alinsky in 1971

Rule 1: Power is not only what you have, but what an opponent thinks you have. If your organization is small, hide your numbers in the dark and raise a din that will make everyone think you have many more people than you do.

Rule 2: Never go outside the experience of your people.
The result is confusion, fear, and retreat.

Rule 3: Whenever possible, go outside the experience of an opponent. Here you want to cause confusion, fear, and retreat.

Rule 4: Make opponents live up to their own book of rules. “You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity.”

Rule 5: Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It’s hard to counterattack ridicule, and it infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage.

Rule 6: A good tactic is one your people enjoy. “If your people aren’t having a ball doing it, there is something very wrong with the tactic.”

Rule 7: A tactic that drags on for too long becomes a drag. Commitment may become ritualistic as people turn to other issues.

Rule 8: Keep the pressure on. Use different tactics and actions and use all events of the period for your purpose. “The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition. It is this that will cause the opposition to react to your advantage.”

Rule 9: The threat is more terrifying than the thing itself. When Alinsky leaked word that large numbers of poor people were going to tie up the washrooms of O’Hare Airport, Chicago city authorities quickly agreed to act on a longstanding commitment to a ghetto organization. They imagined the mayhem as thousands of passengers poured off airplanes to discover every washroom occupied. Then they imagined the international embarrassment and the damage to the city’s reputation.

Rule 10: The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative. Avoid being trapped by an opponent or an interviewer who says, “Okay, what would you do?”

Rule 11: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it. Don’t try to attack abstract corporations or bureaucracies. Identify a responsible individual. Ignore attempts to shift or spread the blame.

Tell me that you do not see those rules in play just now.  We are not being asked to play by Roberts Rules but by Alinsky's Rules.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Am I the only one that doesn't care about  this and wouldn't care no matter what party was doing it?

You're profile says you are 28 ... ten years ago Mr Justice Gomery was giving us a guided tour of Liberal corruption in the "AdScam" scandal and the media were exposing more of it in the Grand-Mère affair. My suspicion is that 18 to 25 year olds weren't much interested but I think there should be little doubt that it, the whole corruption issue, resonated with many, many Canadians and, I suspect, it still does.

It's why I asked, a couple of days ago, if this, the exposure of M Gagnier's improper "advice," was one of those "events" that can shake a sitting government or a government in waiting. It's the voters behind those "lace curtains" that I have talked about, the ones who gave prime Minister Cameron his "come from behind" and "against the polling" victory in the recent UK election, who can change things. Some of them were NDP or Green supports who were all set to vote strategically to "throw the rascals out," but I wonder if they are going to show up, at all, or, if they do, if they can bring themselves to vote Liberal when this stench of corruption is so fresh. The other group behind the lace curtains are disaffected Tories who planned to sit this one out ~ will the Gagnier business bring them out to vote for Prime Minister Harper, just to keep the Liberals out?

 

[Edward Campbell]

And there has been a last minute change, in the Liberals' favour, in the Ekos numbers:

Source: http://www.ekospolitics.com/index.php/2015/10/penultimate-check-up-on-election-42/

 

[Lumber]

You're profile says you are 28 ... ten years ago Mr Justice Gomery was giving us a guided tour of Liberal corruption in the "AdScam" scandal and the media were exposing more of it in the Grand-Mère affair. My suspicion is that 18 to 25 year olds weren't much interested but I think there should be little doubt that it, the whole corruption issue, resonated with many, many Canadians and, I suspect, it still does.

It's why I asked, a couple of days ago, if this, the exposure of M Gagnier's improper "advice," was one of those "events" that can shake a sitting government or a government in waiting. It's the voters behind those "lace curtains" that I have talked about, the ones who gave prime Minister Cameron his "come from behind" and "against the polling" victory in the recent UK election, who can change things. Some of them were NDP or Green supports who were all set to vote strategically to "throw the rascals out," but I wonder if they are going to show up, at all, or, if they do, if they can bring themselves to vote Liberal when this stench of corruption is so fresh. The other group behind the lace curtains are disaffected Tories who planned to sit this one out ~ will the Gagnier business bring them out to vote for Prime Minister Harper, just to keep the Liberals out?

I am,  and while I was even  "younger" when the Gommery commission took place, Ive always paid  more attention to politics and Canadian events than most my age (why do you think I'm so involved with THIS thread?)

Like I've said on many occasions, I don't expect any party to operate very differently than any other. We don't arrest  politicians  for what amounts to stealing ;instead, we hold commissions that end up costing ten times what the actual infraction was.

Complaing about liberal corruption is like complaining about conservative attacks ads or the economic untenability of an NDP platform; you're not wrong,  but I'm tired of hearing it.

Im more interested in seeing the uproar from whomever's party loses this election than anything else in this election. Nothing significant is going to change. The bureaucrats  will keep the legislature in line.

 

[Brad Sallows]

The bureaucrats do not keep the legislature in line.  If they could, they wouldn't need to become politically engaged.

Trudeau is not necessarily going to be held in check by bureaucrats or other elected members.  All Trudeau needs is a strong CoS who enjoys putting other people in their places and to whose advice Trudeau defers.  We could end up with a northern version of Obama/Jarrett.

The only thing holding the parliamentary agenda in check is parliament, if the members decide not to be the ciphers many people accuse the current CPC bench-warmers of being.  It is not difficult for the PMO to demand and reward loyalty, and to withhold and remove position and advancement for disloyalty.

 

[Edward Campbell]

I am,  and while I was even  "younger" when the Gommery commission took place, Ive always paid  more attention to politics and Canadian events than most my age (why do you think I'm so involved with THIS thread?)

Like I've said on many occasions, I don't expect any party to operate very differently than any other. We don't arrest  politicians  for what amounts to stealing ;instead, we hold commissions that end up costing ten times what the actual infraction was.

Complaing about liberal corruption is like complaining about conservative attacks ads or the economic untenability of an NDP platform; you're not wrong,  but I'm tired of hearing it.

Im more interested in seeing the uproar from whomever's party loses this election than anything else in this election. Nothing significant is going to change. The bureaucrats  will keep the legislature in line.

Maybe it's an age thing, or maybe just a matter of preference, but ...

    1. Misrepresented or missing or just plain silly "costings" for election promises are just a fact of campaign life ... no one, not even the governing party, in most cases, has a really good, "bomb proof" cost for most things;

    2. Attack ads are an irritant. I wish they weren't so effective but, if they weren't we wouldn't see so many. I'm tired of them, but resigned to them, too; but

    3. Corruption (and yes, I often emphasize it when i discuss it in the China thread, too) is a problem of a whole different order for me. Corruption tells me about the very DNA of a political party. It was never surprising that the Liberals were more corrupt
          than the CCF/NDP or the PCs/CPC; they were, always, the big party and the party of Big Business, the Big Banks, Big Labour and Big Special Interests; until recently, until the Chrétien reforms to election financing (2003) they took a lot more money than
          the other parties ... and they dispersed a lot more, too ~ too often illegally. The Liberals felt self-entitled and they got careless; but curruption was endemic in that party and I know that many, many Canadians found it more than just "business as usual"
          or something "they all did."

So, while I agree that all three are "problems," they are, for me, problems of much different orders.

 

[Jarnhamar]

If he wins, he will be:

    1. Surrounded by a pretty good, solid "front bench" of, mostly, seasoned politicians, many of whom are fiscal conservatives; and

    2. Advised by a strong, smart, professional and unbiased public service, the Mandarins, who are neither afraid of nor impressed by politicians and who have the good of the country at heart and in mind.

It still troubles me greatly that our countries leader would be nothing more than a figure head puppet.  Who are the Mandarins?

 

[PuckChaser]

When I think of Trudeau, I think of the movie Manchurian Candidate. Same guy, without the backstory to legitimize his run to be Prime Minister.

 

[Edward Campbell]

It still troubles me greatly that our countries leader would be nothing more than a figure head puppet.  Who are the Mandarins?

Broadly speaking the Clerk of the Privy Council and the deputy ministers of departments and some other officials of similar stature and position. In practice it's the Clerk and a relatively small, close group of very senior officials who advise the PM and the most senior ministers and who have access to the best available strategic information, which is often economic intelligence, about Canada and the world. They are apolitical but very, very politically savvy and ultra-sensitive to the interplay of policy and politics. I would characterise them as socially moderate, fiscally prudent and internationalist, as that word was used about, say, 50 years ago, when Lester B Pearson was prime minister.

 

[dimsum]

Stephen Harper is the scapegoat in this election. His downfall – should it come to pass – will be likened in some quarters as a restoration of the natural governing order. But any celebrations should be leavened with a dash of humility. Anyone who thinks getting rid of Harper will restore social harmony among Canadians might want to read a little more Girard.

Post-sacrifice harmony is fragile. New desires bring new hatreds. Four years from now, you can bet voters will look for a new scapegoat.

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/politics/sibley-scapegoating-stephen-harper

 

[Edward Campbell]

Unlike Ekos, which has a statistical tie, Ipsos gives the Liberals a substantial lead over the CPC:

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

It still troubles me greatly that our countries leader would be nothing more than a figure head puppet.  Who are the Mandarins?

From Yes Prime Minister (a documentary):

Bernard: "It (we) is a democracy after all.

Sir Appleby: "Whatever gave you that idea !!! We are an aristocratic government tempered from time to time by general elections.

 

[Edward Campbell]

The bureaucrats do not keep the legislature in line.  If they could, they wouldn't need to become politically engaged.

Trudeau is not necessarily going to be held in check by bureaucrats or other elected members.  All Trudeau needs is a strong CoS who enjoys putting other people in their places and to whose advice Trudeau defers.  We could end up with a northern version of Obama/Jarrett.

The only thing holding the parliamentary agenda in check is parliament, if the members decide not to be the ciphers many people accuse the current CPC bench-warmers of being.  It is not difficult for the PMO to demand and reward loyalty, and to withhold and remove position and advancement for disloyalty.

1. Very true ... it is the cabinet whose views they "inform" and, when necessary, "moderate."

2. Also true ... but even when there is a very strong CoS (think Trudeau/Coutts and Chrétien/Pelletier) the Mandarins found ways to assert their point of view: through ministers and, now and again, through the media.

3. Yes and that's the way it needs to remain.


Edit: punctuation

 

[Edward Campbell]

Now, in its final report for Campaign 2015, Ekos says, "Deadlock Broken, Liberals Surging:"

Source: http://www.ekospolitics.com/index.php/2015/10/deadlock-broken-liberals-surging/

My final word for this evening: those of you who have not already done so, please go out and vote for the candidate or party of your choice.

 

[PuckChaser]

Interesting that 22% have an invalid response or undecided. That could be a turning factor in either parties' fortunes.

 

[SeaKingTacco]

I echo My Campbell- if you have not already voted, please get out and vote tomorrow, whomever you chose to vote for.

I'm sure Monday night/Tuesday morning, we will have lots to discuss again!