ONDP: Can Balance a Budget in Heels!

I don't find the ads particularly sexist, it's the economic conservatism and failure to offer anything even remotely progressive that bothers me. Even the environmentalist ad mocks environmentalists and tries to say the NDP is green but not too green.

Why can't Andrea create jobs in a hard hat and high heels or give all workers an extra week of vacation while wearing lipstick?

aka Mycroft wrote:

Why can't Andrea create jobs in a hard hat and high heels or give all workers an extra week of vacation while wearing lipstick?

Much as I think you're over-reacting, I think that would be hardcore awesome.

Sunday Hat wrote:

"... we do not want Bolivia to be a pauper state, so that when we reach October, November, December, the ministers in the area of economy with their small hats travel to the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and ask for alms because there is a budget deficit.

One week ago, we were revising the figures, and the economists, the experts in the issue of finance where able to inform us, companeros, this year, until now at least, we can demonstrate with figures that there will not be a budget deficit but rather a surplus of 1.5%, companeros.

It seems that this year we are going to put an end to the pauper state that Bolivia was and we are not even yet applying all the things that we would want, there is still much to be done."

- Evo Morales, Bolivian President

 

Someone should tell the US State Department that Morales is a right-wing sloganeer who plans to attack government services.

This is funny.  You're defending Andrea's "Business is not a Four letter word" add by posting a speech by a guy who nationalized mining companies.  

Sunday Hat wrote:

"... we do not want Bolivia to be a pauper state, so that when we reach October, November, December, the ministers in the area of economy with their small hats travel to the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and ask for alms because there is a budget deficit.

One week ago, we were revising the figures, and the economists, the experts in the issue of finance where able to inform us, companeros, this year, until now at least, we can demonstrate with figures that there will not be a budget deficit but rather a surplus of 1.5%, companeros.

It seems that this year we are going to put an end to the pauper state that Bolivia was and we are not even yet applying all the things that we would want, there is still much to be done."

- Evo Morales, Bolivian President

 

Someone should tell the US State Department that Morales is a right-wing sloganeer who plans to attack government services.

That's odd, I could have sworn that Morales was elected on a radical program of eliminating poverty. I didn't realise his main campaign plank was balancing the budget.

No one is saying the NDP shouldn't promise to balance the budget, just that that shouldn't be their core promise. An NDP that runs on an anti-tax, balanced budget, anti "tax and spend" platform might as well be telling people to vote Tory. The NDP didn't almost win in 1975 by promising a balanced budget and tax cuts, they did it by running on rent control and workers health and safety and did so well they forced even the Tory party to move left. In 1990, they didn't win by promising to not spend and to balance the budget, they won on the Agenda for People tha promised public auto insurance.

What actual social gain will the NDP run on in 2010?

I like Andrea, Scott. It's the posters which we're talking about here. They are offensive and pandering.

No one complained about them to you. Did you have an opinion about them? They're the topic of this thread.

Sunday Hat wrote:

But, seriously, are people really grumbling, "Business IS a four letter word" "I don't ever want a balanced budget"? I mean... are New Democrats really as far into cloud cuckooland as their right-wing critics claim they are?

It's repeating right wing messaging.  It's weak and defensive, rather than proactive.  The central point of an NDP campaign should never be "don't believe what they say about us."

If balanced budgets are the best the NDP can offer then why bother?

Unionist wrote:

I like Andrea, Scott. It's the posters which we're talking about here. They are offensive and pandering.

No one complained about them to you. Did you have an opinion about them? They're the topic of this thread.

 

When I saw them, I thought, "Cheeky, but I'm sure that someone is going to complain about them."

But, so what? They're posters, not policy.

I'm aware of the topic of the thread. I was responding to the babbler who talked about the huge backlash that the posters allegedly generated at Council.

Scott, I was just responding to Fidel's claim that we'll never see the poster again (and therefore should pretend they never existed) and to a rumour that they had been removed due to complaints. If they didn't cause a stir and are a harbinger of the party's messaging next year than all the worse.

Sunday Hat wrote:

Besides ridiculous discussion boards like this one (where the debate seems to on a cul de sac far removed from reality) the NDP under Horwath is mostly characterized by fights for control over mineral development, solidarity with First Nations, ensuring "buy local" policies for infrastructure projects, opposing the creeping privatization of our electricity and health systems, opposing nuclear power, nationalizing pensions, banning scab labour and fighting a fairly massive tax shift from business to consumers.

I'd love to see posters about that stuff.

The claim that the mock-up ads indicate an ONDP plan to run to the right demonstrates why so few babblers would make effective political communicators.

For electoral success, virtually all politicians have to innoculate themselves against one or another political weakness / vulnerability.  For Count Ignatieff, it's his capacity to connect with regular folk.  For Harper it was and is the perception of the extremist agenda.  For New Democrats generally, it's the accusation (not borne out by actual facts, mind you) that the NDP can't manage a budget.

Pre-election periods are a good time to do innoculation work.  The execution aside (and the arguable sexism), the messaging of these ads would be good for New Democrats in a pre-election period.

As to the arguable sexism - and especially the "heels" reference, female candidates and female leaders have a tightrope to walk that men generally don't.  It isn't right, but that doesn't mean it isn't true.  If a woman is overtly feminine, she's "not tough enough."  If she's overtly hardnosed, she's "not woman enough."  I think the ads are a (not very well thought out) attempt to square that circle.

That said, a female candidate can survive "not woman enough" better than she can survive "not tough enough."  Witness Mrs. Thatcher, who was routinely depicted in Spitting Image as very mannish - even once using the urinal.

Malcolm wrote:

For electoral success, virtually all politicians have to innoculate themselves against one or another political weakness / vulnerability.  For Count Ignatieff, it's his capacity to connect with regular folk.  For Harper it was and is the perception of the extremist agenda.  For New Democrats generally, it's the accusation (not borne out by actual facts, mind you) that the NDP can't manage a budget.

I don't think that works. All you have to do is look up a general news article about the government in Manitoba and people are commenting all over the place about how the NDP is draining the provincial finances. This after several verifiable balanced budgets and an innoculation campaign like you're describing. Same with crime, the NDP is constantly blamed for the fact that Manitoba is near the top in this category, despite having adopted nearly evey tough-on-crime idea that the PCs have come up with.

I think you should just focus on your strengths. I remember seeing an interview with Harper questioning him about environmental policy, and he shrugged off the question by saying that environmentalists will never vote Conservative anyways. The NDP needs to shrug off its critics in a similar process. I'm worried that the posters here play into critics hands. Plus, does anybody really think that someone is going to look at the poster and think, "you know, I always thought those NDPers couldn't balance a budget, but wow, that poster really changed my mind."

Closing for length. If any future threads on these unfortunate posters could start from a more sensible and engaged place--as well as avoiding digressive forays into Afghanistan--that would be grand.