Polling Thread : Volume 4 Part 14

Thanks. I'll take note of that in future.

Steve_Shutt wrote:

Not sure what will produce the next shift in the currently stagnant electoral dynamic but one area that I suspect everyone is looking at is the Bloc voters.  With the PQ set to come to power in Quebec would Duceppe return to become a cabinet minister - I don't know whether Marios has any personal relationship with him but it would be hard to deny Quebec's longest-serving "Ambassador" to Canada.  I think that Duceppe has gained a great deal of personal political capital in Quebec, if only from his long tenure and a new Bloc leader may not be as personally popular.  If Iggy and Harper are still around a Munclair-led NDP might shift the dynamic - something that I suspect Jack may already be considering.

The PQ is not "set" to come to power.  It may be several years before the next election in Quebec!

By that time the polling numbers may change.  At the moment the PQ is in the lead because of all the scandals Charest is involved in.  If he ends up departing down the road and a new leader takes over the PLQ, the PLQ will probably move back up in the polls again before the next Quebec election.

Pauline Marois is not very popular in Quebec - the only reason she is ahead right now is because Charest is even more unpopular.  If the PLQ gets a more popular leader, they can stay in power.

remind wrote:

well cue, it is pretty damn hard for you to claim purity of heart and action, while condemning others for their lack thereof, according to you, eh, whilst you are espousing rampent sexism.

 

For that reason alone, the lack of foresight aside, your words and and intent in this instance, mean pretty much sfa, as judgement and progressive awareness is non-apparent.

I see so you weren't really advising me on what you felt was "sexist" terminology, you were just using a feminist analysis of language to attack me because I criticized the NDP. I had my suspicions that this was the case.

Yes, well anyway. That has nothing to do with anything that the No Difference Party has any control over, so, really, they are going to have to come up with something else, other than the hope that the BQ will collapse and the NDP will get a mriaculous vote swing from there.

Cueball wrote:

The most sensible solution, as far as benefit for the general public is concerned, is straight amalgamation, and "working within" the Liberals in governance, sitting on committees and actually having a shot at getting former NDP MP's in minister portfolios.

That's where things are headed if electoral reform fails in Canada during the next decade.

I think if the two parties amalgamated, or had some kind of gentleman's agreement, the odds are that the combined support of both parties would likely fall somewhat, for a couple reasons. 

1st) There will be those on the left of the NDP, and the right of the Liberals, who won't support the amalgamated party, because its too mainstream or radical.

2nd) We might have a parliamentary system, but we don't have any doubts as to who is Prime Minister when whatever party wins an election. People don't want Iggy as Prime Minister, they'll vote strategically accordingly. 

The Liberals, if they had any sense of vision or charisma about them, can and should be able to win a minority government. Once that happens (and assuming the NDP can also gain seats), the NDP can start bargaining for policy concessions, and possibly a coalition arrangement. 

Yes. Then the "channelling the legitimate aspirations of socially minded voters into a sinkhole of a party, where all such sentiments disappear into nothingness" will no longer occur.

The idea that fewer choices would work in a system where already some 40% don't want to get out and support the parties that currently exist is curious.

So too is this idea that we must create a monolithic majority in order to govern. Surely parties can get together and govern representing their programs and voters without the need to become one bland thing.

In any case the idea of amalgamationis ridiculous as it supposes that politics is a fixed thing we create rather than a work in progress. If you amalgamate today, new break-offs will form and there will be a new party tomorrow. The answer is not to try to artificially reduce choice but to find a way for groups representing different points of view to come together and negotiate a government.

I see no problem with this particular discussion in this thread as it is relevant to the polls anyway and likley the appropriate context to review them in when they come.

Sure he is not some kind of deep cover WCP mole?

Myself, the only party I am FORMERLY of, is your own.

Bear up with what? That your party gets soundly trounced by a FORMER communist time and time again in Quebec?

Who cares about what anyone "used to be"??? Mussolini was a socialist before he became a fascist. many of the most ultra-rightwing neo-cons in the US were Trotskyists in the 1960s. What matters is what you believe in now - not what views you once had and have since renounced.

Boy, that sure killed the conversation.

Half of elligible Canadians vote. you are polling at 16%. Therefore 8% of elligible voters vote NDP. 8% is 8 out of 100, or 80, out of 1000.

Bookish Agrarian wrote:

Nice try - but that is not what you implied as Stockholm was clearly talking about ballot box votes.  You are cute though I give you that.

By the way for the record in the last election the combined total vote for the Communists and the Marxist Leninist was 12,137 votes or less than point 1 percent.  What exactly was your point again.  It seems there is more support for the CHP than there is for Canada's hard left.  Again what exactly was your point?

Why is it that when someone makes a criticism of the NDP being insufficiently left-wing that people automatically assume that they are calling for the party to adopt a Communist platform?  I've been following Cueball's posts for some time and he is definitely not a Communist.

Also, the constant red-baiting makes you look somewhat pathetic, frankly.

Not to quibble, but in fact the NDP took about 18% not 16% in each of the last two elections and lately a number of polls have had support as high as 20%. Whatever it is - I can attest that NDP support is infinitely higher than is support for the Communist Party. It appears that demand for a party far to the left of the NDP in Canada is virtually non-existent.

On that Cueball, you are quite right.

The one point up one point down excitement is obviously entertainment and hope driven in varying quantities.

It also should be accepted that up or down of 20% this range of support is not success and the party needs to figure out how to bring more of the population towards its positions. There is a combination of developing new policies based on party principles and public education that is required. This is quite different from adopting the principles of other parties and aping their policies. It is easier to do that but that does not offer either more choice or advance those things that bring us to the party in the first place. Those who want to be like the Liberals should join that party. Others who want to work with the Liberals as two parties have a place in the NDP.

I won't dispute either that there are more important things to discuss, not the least of which is the direction of the party in terms of positions.

I am annoyed at times by the persistent idea that in order to cooperate with the Liberals or other parties the NDP has to be more to the centre, more like them. Indeed, that is not true-- any party can explore what it has in common without giving up on its differences. There is no reason why the NDP cannot be extremely different form the Liberals and work with them in a governing coalition. In fact one could argue that without those differences there would be no point having two parties and without those differences it would be harder to maintain a purpose in such an arrangement.

I have long favoured the NDP working with others to the goal of being in government while rejecting pre-ballot arrangements and deals which restrict voter choice. I see no reason why the NDP holding strong and different views on some things causes difficulty in making a governing coalition.

Can it possible be considered a discourse. A discourse requires not only a sender, but a receiver who is able to make a meaningful interpretation of the text. All I am getting here at my end is something like a disorganized cacophany of grunts, whistles and the occasstionally banging noise, none of which make any sense.

I would have voter farther left but I didn't have much choice. No one ran for anything but the big 4(3.5 greens aren't really there yet without a single seat)

I like the NDP I vote for the NDP, but i am not a dipper. I think there should be a shift to the left and stand by your convictions. The problem is the rights answers are much easier to frame in a 30 second sound bite. Tax Cut or Tax Cut or Tax Cut, or Send them to jail. Naunaces of nationalization and benefit of high wages and what taxes are paying for requires a lot more..except for some reason the Military. Then its blow your wad on some overpriced second hand table scraps from the states.

Even going door to door to canvas its difficult to get the message out without being tied down for hours at a time with only a few converts.

Thorin if you want another choice why leave it to others?  Join the political debate by being a candidate for one of those other choices, or join the NDP an advocate for change within.  The NDP is hardly perfect, just better than the alternatives in my books.  Nor is it static- policy change is a near constant, around some basic principles and advocating for policy change is nothing unusual.

And Cueball, I don't know who gave you the power to decide what is properly left or not.  We all ave the right to define such things for ourselves.  However, since you seem to have aquired divine like powers could you pass along the numbers of the next Lotto 6/49.  We have some major expenses coming up and a lottery win right now would really be handy.

We live in a representative democracy.  We have elected members to represent our views and to advocate for the issues we care about.  I am willing to trust in the good sense of people like Libby Davies and Joe Comartin, who were two of the three NDP negoitators (Jack Harris being the third) to review those documents for me and then let me know what they contain.  Unless you are suggesting you are going to personally go through all the document and then pass them on to your neighbour and so on.  At some point your contentions get illogical and completely impractical- which is why we elect people to do this 'work' for us.  At some point you have to trust they will do their job (as you do any other employee) - as most of us do not have the time to micromanage everything. 

Let's think about where do we normally learn about such things?  Of course it is usually through a proxy doing that work - either a reporter directly, or an opposition MP or a lobby/watchdog group of some sort.  Very few of us do this for ourselves. Maybe we should, and that is a reasonable contention, but I am willing (and I expect most people are willing also) to let people like Libby Davies and Joe Comartin take up the task, until they prove they are incapable of it, or fail. 

A representative democracy is far from perfect, but it is better than all the alternatives to paraphase Churchill.  

We'll have to agree to disagree, although I will admit to not really understanding your specific complaint as it seems to be all over the map.  But that might be my failing, so there is no judgement in that.

Bookish Agrarian wrote:

Oh give it a rest.  I am not red baiting at all I am only following Cueballs logic.  It is Cueball that contends that the NDP is really a centre-right party disguised as populist - or something like as it is sometimes hard to tell as the goalposts are constantly on the move.

Cueball advocates for a party quite a bit left of the NDP.  More power to him/her.  Knock yourself out even.  He/she has the right to advocate for what they like.  However if you are going to constantly taunt you should be prepared to have your claims examined.

We do already have some parties to the left of the NDP.  Cueball's contention is that a hard left turn would pretty much guarentee a spectatular rise in NDP fortunes.  Those parties of the harder left are instructive as to whether there is a public appetite for the direction Cueball advocates.  As their vote total in the last election, using Cueball math, was somewhere in the range of 1 in 20, 000 eligible voters it demostrates rather conclusively that based on empirical evidence that is nonsense. 

Now it could be that Cueball is really advocating for a party that is somewhere between left (NDP) and hard left (CP/ML).  I am not sure what you would call that, but lets pretend there is this gigantic room for such a party.  However, based on the empirical evidence there is no real likelihood of sucess- as Cueball defines the term- so the argument seems circular at best.  That's why some of us prefer to direct our energy through the NDP.  It would be nice to see you jump to disclaim the taunting that goes on for those who choose this route for their activism in good faith and conscience, but I learned long ago such a thing is impossible on babble.  Those admonishments only ever go one way. 

That's my point, BA.  The whole basis of your comment, is that anything to the left of the NDP is somehow a drift towards Communism.  I don't agree with a lot of the left-wing folks that are outside the NDP, but I would never accuse them of being Communists.  Their political ideology, to the extent that I understand it, totally rejects the kind of pseudo-centralized planning that characterized the Communist governments in Eastern Europe.  Frankly, I am a bit depressed about the NDPs stance on the war in Afghanistan.  Rather than questioning the entire moral basis for being there in the first place, we have legalistic arguments about the national security of the country being threatened by a bunch of farmers in Central Asia who may or may not even be Taliban supporters.  Not that it matters, really.  We supported a US invasion that wasn't justified by international law.  Oh wait, I forgot, we're peace keepers.  Carry on.

Incidentally, since the NDP doesn't have any of it's policies available on it's website, how is it that anyone knows how left-wing we are in the first place?  

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

The idea that fewer choices would work in a system where already some 40% don't want to get out and support the parties that currently exist is curious.

So too is this idea that we must create a monolithic majority in order to govern. Surely parties can get together and govern representing their programs and voters without the need to become one bland thing.

In any case the idea of amalgamationis ridiculous as it supposes that politics is a fixed thing we create rather than a work in progress. If you amalgamate today, new break-offs will form and there will be a new party tomorrow. The answer is not to try to artificially reduce choice but to find a way for groups representing different points of view to come together and negotiate a government.

These arguments are similar to the ones some right-wingers made against merging the Alliance and the PC parties into the new Conservative Party. But at the end of the day, right-wingers decided that they wanted to have a chance at forming a government and establish real change in Canada. Five years of Harper as PM shows that the merger was a huge success for the right of centre. Without the merger, Prime Minister Martin would still be with us.

Left of centre parties already get two-thirds of the vote but have no power. They cannot "come together and negotiate a government" because the Conservatives have by far the most seats in the House of Commons.  How can the Greens "come together and negotiate a government" when they don't have a single seat in Parliament?

Unfortunately, under FPTP, the role of the Greens and NDP is one of splitting left of centre votes and marginalizing progressives. Harper's ultimate dream would be to see the Liberals and NDP tied at 22% apiece with the Greens at 12%. That would insure a Conservative majority.  If the Greens and NDP disappeared, Harper would feverishly try to reinvent them.

If the Conservatives continue to cling to power with little more then 1/3 of the vote while Canada does not get electoral reform within the next decade, left of centre supporters will demand an amalgamation of the NDP and Liberals.

Most Liberals are not left of centre.  I'm getting the strong sense that this conversation is going to go around in circles forever.

adma wrote:

Veering hard left may not reduce the NDP to perpetual Communist/M-L levels--however, it *could* reduce it to perpetual Audrey McLaughlin levels.

In which case, maybe we should heed the case of the one-mighty French Communists, which have spent the past generation mired deeper and deeper in an Audrey McLaughlin-esque muck...

So, "hard left" is what to you: Audrey McLaughlin? Ed Broadbent? Tommy Douglas was a Communist? What?

I find it amusing that the repeated assertion is that somehow Audrey McLaughlin's short reign as leader of your party, and her poor performance is immediatly equated with the political positions of the party. For one thing of all there wasn't a lot that was striking about Audrey in the first place as a public speaker. Secondly, there wasn't a whole lot of difference between the parties position then as now, yet opportunistically, right wing forces in the NDP repeatedly use this example of how being "left" undermines party support.

The abandonment of Social Democratic ideas began in ernest after Broadbent, when the feeling was that the party might feasibly be able to soak votes away from the Liberals and become a viable alternative, and really have a shot at power. However, the result has been the total loss of traditional left wing support for the party. That is probably what contributed most to Audrey McLaughlin's poor performance, notably the right-wing sellout of Bob Rae in Ontario. Since then, this support has been somewhat replaced by small "L" liberal support from the left of Liberal party.

In the end, you are really shooting yourself in the foot by mining history for evidence to support your views, because the NDP has never been more popular, more effective, or closer to power than when it held clearly social democratic policy positions, such as those under Broadbent, and prior to that.

The numerous defections of the right wing of the NPD to Liberals, clearly shows the interchangability of the right of the NDP and the Left of the Liberal Party. At this point all the NDP really does is split the Liberal vote.