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.
Top Ten Conservative MP we need to defeat!
December 21, 2011 - 10:43pm
After reading this article on Kitchener Centre MP, it had me thinking about which Conservative MPs we need to ensure we defeat in the next election:
Here are my top ten:
Harold Albrecht (Kitchener-Conestoga)
Rod Bruinooge (Winnipeg South)
Royal Galipeau (Ottawa-Orleans)
Gary Goodyear (Cambridge)
Roxanne James (Scarborough Centre)
Jason Kenney (Calgary Southeast)
James Lunney (Nanaimo-Alberni)
Brad Trost (Saskatoon-Humboldt)
Maurice Vellacott (Saskatoon-Wanuskewin)
Stephen Woodworth (Kitchener Centre)
Any other suggestions? What is your top ten Conservative MPs we need to defeat?
Here is a list from a few years back of anti-choice ('pro-life') MPs:
http://davidakin.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2006/5/12/1951995.html
While the politics of a number of those folks are very very right-wing, I still would not advocate wasting resources trying to defeat the ones in non-winnable seats. There are probably 60 other seats we should be looking at first.
What about Tom "THe A's are guys like me; the B's are homosexual faggots with dirt undertheir fingernails that spread diseases" Lukiwski?
He would definitely rank near the top of my ballot, for sure. ETA: my list of targets, of course I mean.
No Tony Clement?
I think that Kenney and Baird would be on my hit list - along with any seat that the Tories only hung onto by their fingernails.
But also note that Charlie Angus is # on their hit list. He's been a one man wrecking crew this last term.
That's weird. The National Post link at the beginning of the thread goes to a David Akin blog entry.
Here's a link to the actual National Post article.
I love this scare tactic:
Better protect babies from those darn pro-choice feminists. You know what they do? They go to maternity wards everywhere, murdering babies whose toes are still in "the birth canal".
"Hold on! Don't pull him the rest of the way out - I know I just went through 10 hours of labour and we can see the baby's entire body except his big toe, but I've changed my mind!"
Happens every single day, and it could happen in a hospital - or even a family - near you! Darn those feminists anyhow!
Are there any issues that a pro-life and a pro-choice candidate can agree on such as the fact that anything that causes a woman who chooses to go through a pregnancy to miscarry is wrong - and those things include toxic exposre, financial sabotage and people shoving you against the wall and threatening you - like what happened to one woman whoen the police went to the wrong house.
I am pro choice but believe that the choice to terminate should be left up to the mother - that corporations etc don't have the right to override a woman's choice whatever it is.
That said, the Tories are starting to act like they are bullet proof and, if they don't reel themselves in a bit can end up alienating even their base. Either way, if they are going to pass anti-choice legislation, it will be this time around rather than next time.
The NDP should try and defeat Jason Kenney, really?
Yeah, that's almost like, uh, la-la land targeting. Jason Kenney?!? Really?!? He got over 3/4 of the vote last time, you know--talk about wasting resources (then again, Scarborough-Rouge River used to be similar for the Liberals)
Besides, if any Calgary Tory is perennially top-targetable, it's Rob Anders.
Stephen Harper would likely be easier to defeat then Jason Kenney, the NDP should focus their attention on Edmonton. As for Scarborough-Rouge River, the Liberals had fallen off there in recent years and Derek Lee had been their only MP. With Lee's exit at the last minute Rathika Sitsabaiesan faced a last minute Liberal candiate, and with the Conservatives continuously increasing their support in the riding in recent years she was able to win thanks to vote splitting.
We need to defeat Wai Young (Conservative, Vancouver South), who bumped Ujjal Dosanjh out of the riding. Say what you want about Liberals and turncoats, but I thought Dosanjh was a really good MP. He's not returning to politics so now there is an opportunity for the NDP to move in without anyone appealing to vote "strategically" for the incumbent. Let's shut the Conservatives out of Vancouver again.
I think it would also be sweet to rid of the world of the excreable Maxime Bernier!
Chris Alexander squeaked by Mark Holland in Ajax-Pickering.
The guy is such a tool:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncUtF2E7D8Y
I'd like to say Dean Del Mastro, but he seems to have a stranglehold on Peterborough. Ditto Colin Carrie in Oshawa.
I know that Bruinooge is an easy target if a strong candidate runs against him. That didn't happen last time. He barely defeated Reg Alcock and that was during the heated AdScam pitchfork days.
Unfortunately, as Robert Fife said on CTV on the night of the election, the increase in the NDP vote in that riding split the vote and allowed the Conservatives to take it.
Hopefully the Liberal vote will come back in the next election and we will be able to take it back.
Uh no- it was the collapse of the LIBERAL vote- which went more than one direction. Why Liberals refuse to take ownership of their own failure continues to elude me. If they did it, just once, they might not find themselves as an increasingly moribund rump in today's parliament.
1. It was Robert Fife who said the NDP split the vote in Vancouver South, not just me. And it is obvious that the same thing happened in other ridings like Moncton, Winnipeg South Centre, Ajax-Pickering etc. These were all Liberal-held ridings that only the Liberals can prevent the Conservatives from winning, and they all went Conservative because of an increase in the NDP vote. You can just look at the math for each riding.
2. The Liberal Party is much bigger right now than the NDP has been at many times in its history, and I'm not sure why a party that could never get above third place for 50 years (and was as low as 5th place) is putting down another party as 'moribund'.
1. Those Liberals never take responsiblity for anything and try to take credit for everything. The LIBERAL vote collapse. It went in two directions. In some ridings that helped Conservative candidates, in other the NDP. There are plenty of ridings now were the obvious successor the the beat the Conservative crown in the NDP, not the Liberals, but please keep up the pretence. The longer your party does the more stuck in reverse you will be.
2. Have you looked at the relative age of the Liberal caucus? Increasingly moribund and absent of fresh ideas and fresh talent is exactly what the Liberals have found themselves in.
BTW: Moncton and Winnipeg South Centre are both ridings that will be top NDP targets and should be very winnable. Liberals need to wake up and smell the coffee and realize that they can only ever compete in about a dozen ridings across Canada that are extremely wealthy with a lot of university educated professionals.
The reason Harper won a majority is that the Liberal collapse isn't yet totally complete. Next time we need to drive the Liberal national popular vote down to single-digits and rally all the people who vote Liberal for no other reason than hatred of Harper behind the NDP standard. If people would wake up and realize that having a Liberal party is a luxury Canada cannot afford and would get with the program all join the NDP - we could give Harper the boot in 2015!
Nice try.
Moncton-Riverview-Dieppe was a close 3-way race, that the Tories squeaked into - there were only a thousand votes separating the NDP and Liberals, so I call bullshit on that one.
Winnipeg South Centre is my riding, and I can tell you we basically only ran a presence campaign (though with a strong candidate) - we were not phoning, and very little canvassing was done. Our vote only went up in the eastern part of the riding, where we took back the Green votes that bled from us in 2008. Our end result was still several per centage points BELOW historical averages. Anita and the Liberals lost this riding all by themselves, and not because our vote went up. Poll after poll in River Heights - polls that Anita won with 60%+ of the vote in 2008 - went Tory by a sizable majority. So I call bullshit here too!
What about Bramalea-Gore-Malton, where the incumbent Liberal came third, and the Tory beat the New Democrat by less than 500 votes? This type of situation repeated all through Ontario (esp SW Ontario).
Clearly the problem was that NOT ENOUGH LIBERALS STRATEGICALLY VOTED - for the NDP! Or put otherwise, too many Liberals strategically voted for the Tories!
Winston would you not agree that now that the Liberals have been knocked out in Winnipeg South Centre - with the right candidate and with the NDP now being the national official opposition - in 2015 it would actually be a very winnable NDP seat. River Heights might be a tough not to crack, but most of that riding is very small "l" liberal progressive and votes massive NDP provincially.
Do they, really? I'd suggest that their "strangleholds" come mainly through incumbency--unlike Alexander, who faced a Grit incumbent. But should Harper's iron grip wane in Ontario, I'd suggest that both seats are more NDP-winnable than Ajax-Pickering--don't roll over and play dead just because the Tories have skunked the opposition thus far...
Oh, and I find it funny I'm thus far the only person to name-drop Rob Anders in this thread.