Tom Mulcair will be Prime Minister #3

I doubt it. The chicken-hawk MPs who don't hesitate deploy the military's trained killers to bomb and shoot foreigners live vicariously through the heady violence of their "rough" champions.

We may never hear the last of it from the Libs. :)

While you're among them, whoever you might be talking about, maybe you could try listening to what they have to say and why they respond to these media messages in the first place. The fact is that people in general, including you and I, make decisions for emotional reasons much moreso than logical ones. You might think you've got the greatest argument ever written and no rational mind could deny it, but you'd be ignoring the fact that humans don't really have rational minds. We have very complicated minds that are capable of rational thoughts. If what you're saying doesn't have some resonance on a deeper level than the rational, you might as well be talking another language.

So I think that's an element you're missing in your formulations of "show the masses how wrong they are". Knowledge is just a tool you give someone to get them where they're going, but the will to get there comes entirely from the person, and without it no amount of knowledge will help. Canadians aren't lacking left-wing polemics. Anyone who wants to find such stuff will have no trouble doing so. What they're lacking is the spirit to stand up and be counted, the courage to resist government and corporate tyranny, and the belief that their efforts can make an impact. It seems to me that you want to browbeat people when you should be seeking to inspire them, and you won't do that by talking down to them.

Jacob Two-Two wrote:

While you're among them, whoever you might be talking about, maybe you could try listening to what they have to say and why they respond to these media messages in the first place. The fact is that people in general, including you and I, make decisions for emotional reasons much moreso than logical ones. You might think you've got the greatest argument ever written and no rational mind could deny it, but you'd be ignoring the fact that humans don't really have rational minds. We have very complicated minds that are capable of rational thoughts. If what you're saying doesn't have some resonance on a deeper level than the rational, you might as well be talking another language.

So I think that's an element you're missing in your formulations of "show the masses how wrong they are". Knowledge is just a tool you give someone to get them where they're going, but the will to get there comes entirely from the person, and without it no amount of knowledge will help. Canadians aren't lacking left-wing polemics. Anyone who wants to find such stuff will have no trouble doing so. What they're lacking is the spirit to stand up and be counted, the courage to resist government and corporate tyranny, and the belief that their efforts can make an impact. It seems to me that you want to browbeat people when you should be seeking to inspire them, and you won't do that by talking down to them.

I know you are directing this at Gaian, and probably rightly so, but for goddess sakes do you not see this equally applies to a wide cross section of babblers?  I read post after post from self-proclaimed defenders of the working class on this site yet they don't have a clue how the average person thinks, what their priorities are and how even to speak to them in ways that matter to the average person.  Look at the way they talk about rural people, if it even occurs to them that there might be rural people, an issue that has been brought up by a number of rural babblers -most of whom seem to have all given up and left.   Read about a bazillion posts in the NDP leadership threads for examples of people who don't know how to talk to the average non-politically obsessed.  So I guess I wonder why one is condescending while many others are swell.  It makes no logical sense.  

On the Huff Po, Part 2 "Trudeau not ruling out eventual run for leader". Couldn't the Huff Po at least pretend that aren't a Lib propaganda tool even a little bit?

NorthReport wrote:

It must have been the CBC, or the networks, that insisted people like ADQ's Dumont and and Libera-lover Yaffe moderate the debates. Let's remember to remind the networks about that when other parties have their leadership debates, eh! 

Actually I believe it was the NDP who approached them and wanted them to moderate to make the debate more entertaining and to increase ratings etc...I actually thought both Dumont and yaffe were very fair moderators, though the guy in Halifax did the best job of challenging people when they were being evasive.

Gaian wrote:

I'd have thought that Conservatives would have been more concerned with the vision of a tattooed, out of shape young Senator who will represent them in the Senate for another third of a century, ATBE.

As opposed to this?

bekayne wrote:

Gaian wrote:

I'd have thought that Conservatives would have been more concerned with the vision of a tattooed, out of shape young Senator who will represent them in the Senate for another third of a century, ATBE.

As opposed to this?

Yes, a good point, b, but he doesn't have a third of a century...

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NorthReport wrote:

A small surprise birthday gathering was held during the convention for Olivia Chow, at which she was presented with a huge painting of her late husband, Jack Layton, by Montreal artist Christel Marchand. The trick to get Chow to the room was to tell her she had one more interview with rabble.ca, an alternative news website. Rabble publisher Kim Elliott, a friend, says she was surprised that Chow, after a long day of non-stop network and print interviews, still agreed to show up.

Well we know that trick would never work on Tom Mulcair.

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janfromthebruce wrote:

read this in the link to the article above - the road to govt for the NDP via the vaniety article

Ahead of the convention, Nova Scotia premier Darrell Dexter published an op-ed in the Globe and Mail touting his government’s many economic achievements. Indeed, Dexter’s government is one of the few in Canada to be running a budgetary surplus. New Democratic governments, past and present, in Manitoba and Saskatchewan have also enjoyed many successes. As the New Democrats look towards the 2015 election, they should aggressively recruit current and former cabinet ministers from these governments to run.

 

But but aren't those old outdated ND govts who were unprogressive NDP govts, especially in Sask., just can't understand why now we would trot them out as something to emulate - thought they were old, outdated and not modern, and anybody who would have been even remotely associated with them - why they are part of the old guard. Hmm, just a couple of weeks ago, that all I heard on these boards during the leadership race that those govts and those people/leaders associated with such needed to be discarded, and really they were not progressive. The negative association was constantly linked here by some posters, and now, why it's a different story - interesting that.

Touting former prominent Saskatchewan NDPers is the best way to ensure the federal NDP never wins a seat here again.

What about Mulcair's front bench? Do we need changes. I just watched David Christopherson on Power and Politics and again to me he seemed weak, and unable to really dominate the discussion. The Lib was much more polished. Is it simply we aren't used to being Oppostion or does Mulcair have to look at moving people around. I can tell you I have seem Christopherson 5 or 6 times and he hasn't impressed me at all. It's like his persona is one of "oh well, they won't let me talk, so ok". That is just not going to work in my opinon. Anyone have thoughts, or can you straghten me out on this? I am willing to listen but I would sure like to know what people think who know more about this then I do.

KenS wrote:

Ditto with mtm Jan, I didnt understand what you were saying about Dexter, etc.

What I understood was snark about the leadership race just passed.  If I understand correctly, the fact that a certain candidate didn't win is indicative that the Party is not proud of its provincial governments' past accomplishments in Saskatchewan and, by extension, those of every other province which the Party has governed.

I agree with Angus about Twitter.  I've never been able to get into it.  I don't really get how people can have real conversations in nothing but 140 character soundbites.  It's okay for following real-time events as they're happening with people reporting from them in quick bursts, but I don't find it a very friendly medium for political discussion.

There is an incredible amount of wishful thinking going on here.  Mulcair will move the NDP towards the centre and guarantee the split of the centre left vote in the next election.  Sure, it's possible that the Libs will collapse and disappear.  It's also possible that we'll get wiped out by a massive asteroid that will end civilization.  I'm not betting on either.

So, I see a big smile on the face of Stephen Harper.   He's looking at a Dipper leader who's a former Lib and a Lib leader who's a former dipper.  The voters will have to be forgiven for getting confused as to who is right and who will be left.  Meanwhile, Harper's base has nowhere to go and he's throwing them exactly the right amount of red meat to keep them interested while not moving so fast as to alienate the centrists.  Most Canadians are so politically naive that unless he seriously upsets the applecart, Harper will not scare them off.

Bad Mojo.  Look for another Con majority in 2015.

Stockholm wrote:

I think the Liberals will fall into the low teens next election and be reduced to about 12 seats and the NDP will scoops almost all of that sliding Liberal vote. Let's face it, the Liberal Party is now nothing more than a pathetic vanity project for Bob Rae. In a head to head CPC vs. NDP battle, the NDP will win.

That's not fair to the Liberals. If the leadership race will show us anything, they're capable of more than one vanity project at a time.

ReeferMadness wrote:

 

So, I see a big smile on the face of Stephen Harper.   He's looking at a Dipper leader who's a former Lib and a Lib leader who's a former dipper.  The voters will have to be forgiven for getting confused as to who is right and who will be left.  Meanwhile, Harper's base has nowhere to go and he's throwing them exactly the right amount of red meat to keep them interested while not moving so fast as to alienate the centrists.  Most Canadians are so politically naive that unless he seriously upsets the applecart, Harper will not scare them off.

Bad Mojo.  Look for another Con majority in 2015.

Man, do you really think that any swing voter out there cares who identifies themselves as left or right? I suspect that those who don't find the distinctions meaningless find them at least confusing. I don't believe such labels make any impact on their vote.

But more importantly, I think you're vastly overestimating the appeal of the Conservative party, and I don't say that just because I don't like them. I say that because the Liberals have been a sad joke for almost ten years now, arrogant, incompetent, and out of touch. And a broad majority of voters have simply never seen the NDP as an option (until recently). Basically there has been a political vacuum for the past decade where Canadians have been staring at three choices that they didn't feel good about, and the result was the string of minority governments.

And yet, even with barely any competition to speak of, still the Cons have laboured and strained to actually be accepted by the electorate, and have never truely gotten there. Even this last election where they finally got their majority, they just barely squeaked it out, and now it seems they had to cheat to do it. And a few months later, their numbers are back out of majority territory. I've been saying this from the very beginning and I stand by it. Canadians have never wanted to vote for the Cons, but they just felt that they had no options.

Obviously, that has changed. The Liberal party is as lost as ever, thank god, (I still think a charasmatic Liberal would sweep the nation, but it appears that's not going to happen in the near future) but the NDP under Jack finally started gaining the trust of the masses, and that same trust will carry through Mulcair's leadership and translate into big gains. All Canadians needed was someone they could feel good about voting for, but it's a slow-moving beast, this electorate. It took us a while to build this momentum, and one misstep could still wipe it all out, but barring that, it still rests with us. The Cons were just a default for a frustrated populace, but it's not the same ball game anymore.

Stockholm wrote:

I think the Liberals will fall into the low teens next election and be reduced to about 12 seats and the NDP will scoops almost all of that sliding Liberal vote. Let's face it, the Liberal Party is now nothing more than a pathetic vanity project for Bob Rae. In a head to head CPC vs. NDP battle, the NDP will win.

Spoken like a true sports fan.  Yay, team.  Those other guys are bums.  Bums, I tell ya!

Jacob Two-Two wrote:

ReeferMadness wrote:

 

So, I see a big smile on the face of Stephen Harper.   He's looking at a Dipper leader who's a former Lib and a Lib leader who's a former dipper.  The voters will have to be forgiven for getting confused as to who is right and who will be left.  Meanwhile, Harper's base has nowhere to go and he's throwing them exactly the right amount of red meat to keep them interested while not moving so fast as to alienate the centrists.  Most Canadians are so politically naive that unless he seriously upsets the applecart, Harper will not scare them off.

Bad Mojo.  Look for another Con majority in 2015.

Man, do you really think that any swing voter out there cares who identifies themselves as left or right? I suspect that those who don't find the distinctions meaningless find them at least confusing. I don't believe such labels make any impact on their vote.

No, I don't think that.  In fact, I never refer to myself or any individual as right or left - it's a two-dimensional stereotype.  I was only referencing centre-left as a population, not as individuals.

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But more importantly, I think you're vastly overestimating the appeal of the Conservative party, and I don't say that just because I don't like them. I say that because the Liberals have been a sad joke for almost ten years now, arrogant, incompetent, and out of touch. And a broad majority of voters have simply never seen the NDP as an option (until recently). Basically there has been a political vacuum for the past decade where Canadians have been staring at three choices that they didn't feel good about, and the result was the string of minority governments.

I hope you're right just for the sake of getting rid of the Cons.  But in fact, they haven't lost significant support despite the scandals.  Maybe Mulcair will prove wildly popular and NDP support will zoom.  I doubt it but maybe.

Quote:

And yet, even with barely any competition to speak of, still the Cons have laboured and strained to actually be accepted by the electorate, and have never truely gotten there. Even this last election where they finally got their majority, they just barely squeaked it out, and now it seems they had to cheat to do it. And a few months later, their numbers are back out of majority territory. I've been saying this from the very beginning and I stand by it. Canadians have never wanted to vote for the Cons, but they just felt that they had no options.

I think you talk from the heart more than the mind.

Quote:

Obviously, that has changed. The Liberal party is as lost as ever, thank god, (I still think a charasmatic Liberal would sweep the nation, but it appears that's not going to happen in the near future) but the NDP under Jack finally started gaining the trust of the masses, and that same trust will carry through Mulcair's leadership and translate into big gains. All Canadians needed was someone they could feel good about voting for, but it's a slow-moving beast, this electorate. It took us a while to build this momentum, and one misstep could still wipe it all out, but barring that, it still rests with us. The Cons were just a default for a frustrated populace, but it's not the same ball game anymore.

Maybe it's obvious.  Or maybe it's just obvious to people who desperately want it to be so.

Here's something else for you to chew on.  If the NDP should by some fantastic miracle find itself in government, it probably won't be significantly more progressive than those Liberals you love to hate.  In order for Mulcair to win, he'll need to do 3 things:

• Annihilate the Liberals
• Make the NDP more centrist
• Overcome historical bias against the NDP on the part of many centrists

Number 2 is the killer.  Based on the records of actual provinical NDP administrations, an NDP government will be not much more progressive than the Chretien Liberals and probably less so than the Trudeau Liberals.

If your goal is for your team to win, then I suppose an NDP victory makes sense.  Yay team.

If your goal is to make Canada a more caring, progressive place, then the attitudes of the citizens are much more important than the title of the party.