Captain Caveman returns (and why Brad Trost should be worried)
Jim Pankiw is running in his old riding of Saskatoon-Humboldt. As an independent.
Oh, Lord. Where to begin? For those of you who don't know who Pankiw is, ask your nearest Saskatonian and watch them shudder. While he *might* not be an out-and-out racist, he certainly panders to people who are. His hobby horse du jour is how First Nations and how they're getting it easy, although goodness knows what else he'll pull out of his tickle trunk in the coming months. My wife remembers him as an MP writing to her and saying he was fighting for French not to be on the side of cereal boxes. Even now, she wants to kick him somewhere that *really* hurts.
Brad Trost should be very, very worried because in the 2004 election Pankiw was able to poll over 7,000 votes, resulting in a tight race where Trost barely got home (with, incidentally, Nettie Wiebe hard on his heels). And that was with a strong Liberal campaign, where all three (CPC, LPC and NDP all finished within a few hundred votes of each other). Now that the Liberals are on a road to nowhere in the riding (in 2008, they got less than half the votes they did in 2004), the NDP has shifted up gears as a definite pick-up seat opportunity. A lot of Pankiw's support will likely come from the same places as Trost's, which could spell trouble next time around.
His campaign will be fascinating to watch, but for all the wrong reasons.
well, if the guy wants to do an "end-run around the media" by having a website, he's boned. How many people do you know that actually visit a candidate's website?
Especially when his website looks like this: http://www.jimpankiw.com/index.php
Nice unformatted excel chart there. And I love the way the background looks horrible and makes it hard to read. And the video - my god, the guy looks and sounds drunk
There are already 2 Facebook groups:
No thank you, Jim Pankiw (1,014 members)
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=7712211932
NO PANKIW! NO THANK YOU!!! (818 members)
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=287295937890
The second in particular seems to have a particular first nations focus and group administration, but they both do to a large extent.
I'm torn between being thrilled at the prospect of getting rid of Trost so we can put in our own progressive NDP candidate, Denise Kouri; and feeling awful about what the first nations in the area will have to listen to for up to a year if Pankiw stays in the race.
I see his spell-checker isn't working any better than his anti-FN checker.
You're such an elitist "expert", Unionist ! You betcha! LOL
I'm afraid my elitist credentials palin comparison to yours, oo!
I give up, you win. That was a beaut!
His campaign will be fascinating to watch, but for all the wrong reasons.
This has a 4.3% of the vote feel to it
This has a 4.3% of the vote feel to it
That 4.3% of the vote could be crucial. You need only look across the river at Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar to see what a difference 4.3% of the vote might well have made last time around. If Pankiw had run there in 2008, Nettie Wiebe would be the MP for that riding right now.
I have an uneasy feeling that his vote share will be larger than 4.3%, however.
Mulcair is attending a meeting in Saskatoon (FB page). I believe Layton was supposed to attend, until his cancer forced him to cut down his hectic schedule. Sending in a big name like Mulcair indicates to me that the NDP is definitely stepping up the pace in Saskatchewan, with a view to easing Trost and even Block out of their seats next election.
That's good to hear. The NDP should have a realistic shot at winning in at least 3 or 4 Saskatchewan seats in the next election. The results in 2008 illustrated some of the many, many vagaries of first-past-the-post: in Manitoba, the NDP won 24 percent of the vote and 4 seats, while next door in Saskatchewan the NDP won a higher share of the vote (25.6 percent) and got no seats. By comparison, the Liberals got an anemic 14.9 percent in Saskatchewan (their third-worst result after Alberta and the Northwest Territories) but still elected an MP.
We can hope that Pankiw splits enough of the conservative vote to allow a Nude Em to squeeze through. Pankiw, of course, is horrible, but I don't really know much about Trost other than when Mme. Qa'bong worked for the program to shove French down peoples' throats, Trost was one of her a regular students.