babble is rabble.ca's discussion board but it's much more than that: it's an online community for folks who just won't shut up. It's a place to tell each other — and the world — what's up with our work and campaigns.
Support rabble | Advertise with us | Contact our staff | About rabble | Log-in or Register for a new account | Corrections | Privacy policy | Newsfeeds | Mailing lists
rabble: Features | Columnists | In Cahoots | Blogs | Books | Photos | What's Up | Polls
babble: Forum Topics | Active Topics
The rpn: About the RPN | Become a podcaster
rabbleTV: Program Guide | Features | Indie Inside | Best of the net
Copyright © 2001-2013 the authors
Syndicate
Gee, what great advice. Who writes your stuff?
Oh spare me the crocodile tears. We see this in every election. These same old hacks with a pathological hatred of the NDP who suddenly decide that if only the NDP would go back to being the principled party it was under - take your pick: Tommy Douglas, JS Woodsworth, Ed Broadbent, Alexa MacDonough etc...of course its so convenient to say that because when the NDP was led by these people it wasn't nearly electorally successful as it is today and if we time travelled back 20, 30 or 40 years, these rightwingers who like to tell us how "unprincipled" everyone from Jack Layton to Carol James to Darrel Dexter are - would all be telling us how horrid Broadbent and Douglas etc,..were and how they were betraying principles (what principles??? I assume the principle that the NDP should roll over and play dead and help Liberals win elections).
The idea that the so-called green party is going "eat the NDP's lunch" (sic.) is the dead give away. If there is one thing we don't havew to worry about in Nova Scotia its the utterly moribund Green party which will be lucky to get 2% of the vote.
ROTLMAO. Seriously. "that good sincere policy people like... Alexa McDonough .. get shoved off into ineffective support positions"
Alexa was leader of the NDP for 13 years at the provincial level, then federal leader for 7. If that's getting shoved off into ineffective support positions, that's a helluva new definition of 'ineffective'.
Went to sleep last night puzzling over that unlikely troika of Bill Blaikie, Howard Epstein, and Pat Martin.
Pat Martin?......
Did Pat ever have a beard?
Pat Martin? Really? Those aren't exactly the words that come to mind when I think of Pat Martin.
?!!?? Planet, please? The NDP was more successful under Layton than under Broadbent, on planet Earth, where rabble.ca is located according to DNS records. Provincially, the NDP ruled Ontario fifteen years ago, BC until eight years ago, could have ruled NS if Alexa had remained. Where are they in these places today? Certainly not further ahead.
On the rest, definitions:
1. "ineffective", "support":
1a. McDonough as leader of the federal NDP rather than as Premier of Nova Scotia, which she would have been had she remained in provincial politics.
1b. Bill Blaikie not being the NDP leader, instead ending up Speaker of the House
1c. Pat Martin not running a provincial party or the federal NDP himself
2. "eat lunch" = take a thin 2-5% of the vote directly away from people who pretend to the same values, but whose policies alienate people with those values, like opposing carbon taxes or tax shifting onto waste.
If it's great advice, why don't you follow it? Not one of the substantive policy points I brought up has been addressed by any of you.
"Troll" = one who wins arguments on the Internet.
"1a. McDonough as leader of the federal NDP rather than as Premier of Nova Scotia, which she would have been had she remained in provincial politics."
This is almost laughable. First of all, Alexa MacDonough - for all her merits - led the Nova Scotia NDP to the following seat counts - 1, 3, 2 and 3 and never more than 16% of the vote. Then she left and in every election since the NDP has had 30% or more of the vote and been on the brink of power. Are you seriously trying to argue that some "sinister powers" forced her to quit as NS NDP leader and become federal NDP leader all as part of a mad conspiracy to prevent her from being Premier of Nova Scotia???
I don't know why I'm even wasting time arguing with someone with such utterly delusional theories. Were the freemasons, the catholics, the Jews and Queen Elizabeth part of the plot as well?
Why are people so up in arms about Marritimarr's opinions?
He has every right to express them, just as we do.
We just have to put the opinions of such people in context.
I make it a rule not to get into a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent like Marritimarr.
Nor should other people bother.
So, you don't think Alexa was responsible for exponential growth in the NDP's popular vote? If she was so hapless, why do you think she was elected federal NDP leader? Which is it? Was she extremely effective and destined to become Premier, after breaking a two-party system apart, or was she ineffective, in which case, the federal NDP was sabotaging itself to elect her? "The brink of power"? What does that mean? Is that where the NDP-NS is now?
Conspiracy? Never explain with conspiracy that which can be better explained by stupidity. In this case, the blind belief that federal is "better" than provincial or municipal politics and should always steal the talent. Thankfully a few wiser people, like David Miller, stick to the arena where they can actually be effective rather than let themselves get booted upstairs to where they will be on the sidelines forever.
Here's some Genuine Progress Indicator questions from GPI Atlantic
http://www.novanewsnow.com/article-335430-ELECTION-09-10-Questions-on-Ho...
Here's NDP answers to the CFIB questions, ideological opponents answering each other's questions is at least not cronyism
http://www.cfib.ca/legis/novascot/pdf/NDP_SurveyResponse.pdf
Some stuff about transport
http://www.cresthalifax.org/archives/conserve-ns-great-on-homes-but-wher...
Here's a generic news feed with other items
http://www.metronews.ca/halifax/keyword/Nova_Scotia_Election
This seems to be a tracker but not always working
http://nsrtkelection08.blogspot.com/
Here's a story about carbon offsets - looks like Greens and Liberals offset, NDP and PCs don't (I guess ideology saves the climate)
http://thechronicleherald.ca/Election/1121351.html
And some quotes from the first debate
http://www.metronews.ca/halifax/local/article/231571--notable-quotes-fro...
What's happening to indymedia.org? It reports invalid security certificates in Firefox. Strange.
JaneyCanuck, is someone going to capture video or audio of this and post it to YouTube or bittorrent or eMule or somewhere else easily accessed? Shame if no one did, MSM rarely covers such issue debates adequately.
Re my comment re the Greens. Even the Sierra Club rates the NDP plan as better environmentally. The scientist in me refuses to quote anything not so even if I want it to be. I like Elizabeth very much actually and have had numerous debates with her and other mutual friends, all friendly, over whether her party is taking votes from the NDP. (for the record, it is hard to say yes. I suspect many former former Red Tories at the fed level vote Green as do protest votes and possibly new voters or those who are unsure.)
I am aware the prov Greens seem not to have a complete package and I can recall when we had to find candidates. I almost became the candidate in Guysborough once, lol (and I'd been there once) Thank God I said no and smarter heads prevailed. I thought the idea absurd to be honest but we were getting desperate and it was when four members was a great victory! We always did have a good platform however and that is one area the Greens seem to not be clear on and this is not a bias - I sort of want them to at least look good as someone who has personally but my money and principle where my mouth (or computer) is and taken a chemical company to court (and won on appeal). So it does sadden me to see them not as good as some of their contemporaries in Europe - Ireland, Israel, etc. In Israel when I was working to help elect Tzipi Livni, the Greens came to US to make a deal - their excess votes, since there was no way they would get two per cent of the vote(the amt req to be recognized as a party), they would give us their votes. Parties can do that there if both agree. Parties who do not specify where their votes do not go simply loose them. (as so many do here).
For decades now (and I am not THAT old, lol), I have been saying one does not loose one's vote if one votes for one's belief but in reality, we do actually lose a vote. They are helpful under various vote for money laws like the PPFA in NB and the one in NS and so forth but that is not what comes to my mind when I go to vote. I do think if an NDP candidate does well in one election, it does bode well for a future one but that is not always true either. I have sometimes seen votes go down - often due to circumstances out of the candidate's control.
I actually doubt Alexa would have become Leader - it would have been wonderful BUT the fact she was federal Leader gave impetus to so many federal seats in the Maritimes and I do think in that way she is largely responsible for what we see today! With so many federal MP's and more resources, people started to take second and third looks at our party! At all levels! And that was Alexa's doing!
On a final note, I do think we can debate without so much criticism and rancour. I loathe snarky comments- it says more about the writer than the comment and never wins anyone to one's cause.
Actually, my point was that you might want to follow it yourself.
-edited to remove technical jargon-
It's true. And they keep throwing away every solid policy they ever agreed on, and every method of creating a solid platform. The original Nova Scotia green platform in 2004 was the Halifax municipal platform called "Imagine Halifax" (you can still find some of that material on the web). In 2005 the Green Party of Nova Scotia expanded that collaboration to cover a lot of rural and provincial policy areas. Then when they were formally formed in 2006, they basically *threw all this stuff away* (?!!) and let a tiny group rewrite the policy book, resulting in nothing good. They have done that again, twice since, usually with noisy departures (like when leader Ken McGowan quit the party). GPNS 2008 policies weren't even ratified, and the 2009 ones were written by another group.
The federal Greens were no better - their 2004 platform was written in a wiki called Living Platform with participation from over a hundred experts (not all of them Green Party members). They expanded this approach to run the party using social media, but then in 2005 some hired insiders took over, *shut down* Living Platform, and the party collapsed (many elected officers quit with nasty resignation letters, there were even some lawsuits), and (what a surprise) a tiny group rewrote the platform. They threw away all the momentum that the Greens had achieved with the more democratic approach. So they were tossed out in turn and Elizabeth May's group was elected. Meanwhile the entire Internet got sued. It's really quite amazing the lengths the Green Party went to, to be undemocratic. They probably had a five year lead on every other party in social media, today they're probably five years behind.
Not sure why, but the Canadian Green Parties do not seem to be capable of actually collaborating on writing and costing policies that fit together. They pass separate resolutions that aren't well costed or reconciled in conventions - ignore what they passed, let their leaders contradict it in speeches, then they fight over that in public. A lot of international Green Parties have commented on this lack of discipline and incoherence. It may just be that you can't attract serious disciplined people into a party until it has the ability to win seats, which won't happen for the Greens in Canada until electoral reforms kick in (someone better invent some soon that the public will pass). While on paper the Green Party policy approval system is superior to the NDP's (the "Bonser method", ratifying all convention decisions with a followup vote), the lack of collaboration before resolutions go to the membership, lack of followup and of accountability makes it all useless. In practice the Green Parties are just leader-run parties like Liberals or Conservatives.
Drooling incomprehension and mindless sneering does not constitute criticism. To become a critic, you must criticize something specific. If you actually wanted to debate a policy point, I'd owe you respect. If you don't, I owe you contempt for wasting everyone's time for posting comments that make no policy nor any process point. Notice JaneyCanuck gets respect and agreement while you get what you deserve.
My goodness, but aren't we erudite this evening.
So, to be clear, I think anybody who would even consider the words ""consistently appealing to a single segment of the population, the clueless poor" cannot then write "Rather than psychoanalyze your critics and sneering at them, you might consider actually responding to the real issues that they raise" without looking like a complete arse.
In case that wasn't sufficiently clear, I just called you a complete arse. But don't worry, it's not personal, just like it's not personal when you call people "abusive, stupid, ignorant, manipulative, hypocritical, and so on" if they dare offend your tender sensibilities.
Me, I am not above calling someone an arse. Hell, that's actually tame compared to what I get on about by times. But I don't whine about it when people fire back.
As for commenting respectfully on the content of your posts, post something that isn't pretentious gas and I'll give it a go. In the meantime I'll just continue having some fun as I dodge the pearls you cast before us swine. It's not just entertainment; whether you understand it or not, sticking pins in puffed up blowhards is a public good.
Thanks for the links, especially since you were the only one to answer my question.
But as to your criticism of why the NS NDP isn't doing well on the South Shore and how they ought to listen to their critics... well, I'd give them the benefit of the doubt seeing as they're, barring a spectacular collapse, probably going to be forming the first NDP government east of the Ontario-Quebec border regardless of what happens on the South Shore. While I'm more than willing to criticize the NDP when its being ineffective and lame, just take a look at my posts on the BC NDP and its leader Carole James extremely incompetent strategy in the run up to and during the election, I believe that success speaks for itself. And seeing as the NS NDP seems to be solidly ahead in the polls, seems to have all the campaign momentum, seems to have the most Premier-like leader and seems to have a well-oiled ground game I don't see why they'd need your advice.
Yeah I'm not quite sure what some people mean on this thread when they say that the NDP is more successful under Layton than Broadbent. Obviously that is not the case. Jack Layton has not yet acheived the seat count (43) or the popular vote (20%) that Ed Broadbent did. Jack's best result today is 37 seats and 18% of the vote. Ed still holds the record.
Broadbent only achieved 20% and 44 seats in his fourth election (when there were only three parties as opposed to the current four) and after THIRTEEN YEARS as NDP leader - and on top of that when he first became NDP leader, the party had won 15.5% of the vote. Jack took over when the party had won 8.5% and he has already almost matched Broadbent's record in 1988. I might add that for all the lionization we see of Broadbent, we should remind ourselves that he became leader in 1975 and was generally regarded as an embarrassing liability for the first none years of his leadership (ie: until the 1984 campaign). I'm old enough to remember how he was dismissed for years as a loquacious political philosophy professor from Oshawa wwho was SUCH a let down compared to larger tha n life NDP leaders like Douglas and Lewis. By early 1984, the NDP was in single digits in the polls and there was talk of dumping him as leader. Western NDPers hated him for going along with the constitution repatriation and the left of the party thought he betrayed all principle for not wanting Canada to immediately withdraw from NATO and for being too moderate etc... Its funny how now, people retrospectively write about him as if he was the gold standard of what an NDP leader should be.
I'm 100% certain that 10 or 15 years from now when the NDP is led by someone or other who is probably now in their 30s, we will see all the editorialists and pundits and malcontents crying crocodile tears about how the NDP had strayed from its roots back when they had a larger than life fantastic leader like Jack layton and blah blah blah...
Yes, that is true - Ed was competing in a 3 party system as opposed to a 4 party system. However, the 4th party (the BQ) only runs candidates in Quebec and so it doesn't really affect the NDP seat count. The Green party is probably the 4th (or 5th) party that affects the NDP more than the BQ since it does take votes away in key ridings and finished ahead of the NDP in about 6 ridings in October.
One could also argue that it is harder to win seats in a 3 party system because there is not as much vote-splitting and ways to slip through with a small margin of the vote as is the case today for all parties. Therefore, Ed could not rely on vote-splitting as much as Jack.
Jack also had the advantage of competing against the weakest Liberal leader in history last year and so one could also argue he should have picked up more seats.
Anyway, there are pros and cons that each leader had to contend with - you are right about that, but in terms of how the political scientists and statiticians and most people measure it, Ed Broadbent has the record. 43 seats (not counting the by-election in 89) remains the NDP's general election record.
"Jack also had the advantage of competing against the weakest Liberal leader in history last year and so one could also argue he should have picked up more seats."
Actually by many measures, John Turner was the weakest Liberal leader in history and Ed got to run against him!
The clueless poor are likewise not critics - they are victims of the people being criticized, selling them policies that are not in their best interests, or plainly lying to them. Like for instance the federal NDP lie that a cap and trade scheme would cost the poor nothing while a direct carbon tax would, and amazingly that they should vote against low income tax cuts and for lower fuel prices?!? No real issues were raised in that debate, it was a simple case of predators taking advantage of poor folks trusting them.
Calling someone clueless might be the only way to wake them up - it's nicer than calling them suckers, prey, stupid or whatever else they are called by NDP fulltime staff who come up with these strategies in the back room.
They may well form a government without any South Shore members, or with just one out of the three seats, or with well under 50% of the popular vote in that region when they might have had a clear majority. But success is not just about province-wide polls, nor popular majorities, nor dominance of the capital region where decisions are made.
"The most Premier-like leader"? Totally absurd, whatever you think that might mean. McNeil is six and a half feet tall. MacDonald is already the Premier. Both looked better than Dexter in the debates, and one has a track record. If you think "Premier-like" means "makes the most promises", or "panders the most shamelessly" or 'has been around the longest", well, ok, you're entitled to those views. But they're not going to convince any person not already inclined to Dexter.
"All the campaign momentum"? An odd claim as the Liberal resurgence has been by far the biggest news of this election. And given Liberal votes are better distributed, their seat gain will almost certainly be better for the same vote gain as the NDP, even if both gained equally from the PC decline. Talk like this is what loses elections. You better go back and study your riding/poll maps.
Success only speaks for itself in performing in office and in keeping government. Look at the Ontario NDP if you don't believe that. It is not a successful party. It held office once, more or less by accident, and does not appear ever likely to hold office again.
In every sense Broadbent appears to have been not only the most successful federal leader but to have presided over a high tide of NDP success governing more population in provincial governments than any other NDP leader. Which matters in the NDP since it is one party federally and provincially. Also Broadbent appears to have had more influence in retirement than almost any other federal leader of any party, though admittedly he did come out of retirement again until recently. The darkest mark on his record is the loud condemnation of pre-election seat dealing he made after the May-Dion deal, which put MacKay (and other bad cabinet ministers) back in, and cost the NDP several seats including South Shore. Of course after the election, deals were just fine again.
One would have to be pretty clueless to fall for this kind of "principled" stance.
This we agree on, Stockholm. But I think it's true for the usual reason, that is, the NDP is dominated by unthinking emotional older people who think seniority equals vision and the ability to swing a room of already-committed NDPers constitutes insight and integrity.
"In every sense Broadbent appears to have been not only the most successful federal leader but to have presided over a high tide of NDP success governing more population in provincial governments than any other NDP leader."
That's not true at all. When Broadbent first became leader, the NDP was in power in Bc, Sask., and Manitoba - within months they lost BC and not long after Manitoba was lost, then in 1981, the NDP regained power in Manitoba, but then six months later were wiped out in Saskatchewan. then for the next few years, manitoba was the only NDP ruled province, then that was lost in '86...so for the last few years of Broadbent's leadership, the NDP was not in power anywhere. It was AFTER Broadbent had retired and McLaughlin was leader that the NDP won power in Ontario, BC and Saskatchewan. Does that mean that Audrey deserves credit for Rae, harcourt and Romanow winning their respective provincial elections? I think not.
Broadbent was very principled when he condemned the shady dion/May deal and millions of canadians will be eternally grateful to him for calling a spade a spade and helping to short circuit Elizabeth May's mad power trip!
Sierra Club of Canada has consistently been an NDP front, even when Elizabeth May, then an NDP member, ran it. Their "analysis" is often very strange (feed-in tariffs preferred over aggressive conservation, no endorsement of any kind of tax shifting, over-focus on nuclear as the source rather than grid intelligence or efficiency), suggesting they just don't understand much physics or economics. I would trust Greenpeace or WWF more regarding platform quality.
Sometimes, I was never sure Elizabeth - who I really like as a friend- knew herself who she supported and she would admit that - before the Green Party gig came along at an oppotune time. She was a Red Tory for a time as well, sigh
TFF, same damn arguements being expressed only this time by "new" others that were being expressed in the BC election. It frankly sickens and disgusts me when lies like the Sierra Club is a front for the NDP is spread, and it is but one of many in this thread
You spout more nonsense than I have time to deal with. So I don't know why I pick this one- since its not even of secondary importance.
You could say that any of the major NGOs is a 'front for the NDP'... ['could' as in just run of the mill exagerration that of course has some greain of truth to it]. Dippers cyccle in and out of their staff positions [Greepeace the most I would say]. But May has always been hostile to the NDP. Not to mention she's not the 'member' type. She has always preferred the Liberals- usually if not always strongly so; but I doubt that she was a member of any party before the GPC- unless she joined to vote for someone's nomination or something like that [which she could even have done in the NDP]. [BTW: I have yet to see any evidence that her 'Red Tory' past is any more than one of the many coats she wears for whatever reason suits her at the time. I think you'd have to know May very well to parse how much she means a lot of things she says... even in private.]
Stockholm, the NDP ran in Central Nova to prevent a Green toehold and satiate its whining provincial wing that smelled false majority government power in Halifax, there were no principles involved. Notice the NDP ran against Bill Casey, too, pointlessly unlike May who backed off there too, and got trounced. The NDP is not going to win rural Nova Scotia by pretending that it is the only way forward - we have decades of vote-splitting that elected Brian Mulroney, Mike Harris, Rodney MacDonald, you name it, to prove this is totally wrong.
I stand corrected on Broadbent provincially though, I forgot McLaughlin had already taken over by the time Ontario (which in terms of population overwhelms all of BC, SK, Manitoba) went NDP. I would not claim Rae had any "momentum" due to Broadbent in 1990 - it was fluke.
I wouldn't say a leader "deserves credit" for wins but maybe a federal NDP leader does have potential to alienate people from a combined federal/provincial party. In which case they deserve blame for losses, and your point regarding Broadbent would stand.