Justin Trudeau = Harper with a smile

There will be plenty of time for JT to appear without advisers filtering his every move, lots of policy clarification, gaffes, etc etc,  but more than policy has affected public opinion, or else the Opposition NDP would be the first beneficiary of all the anti-Harper sentiment.

DaveW wrote:

There will be plenty of time for JT to appear without advisers filtering his every move, lots of policy clarification, gaffes, etc etc,  but more than policy has affected public opinion, or else the Opposition NDP would be the first beneficiary of all the anti-Harper sentiment.

Agreed.  He'll have two years to stick his foot in his mouth.  Initially there will be the stammering, then the odd verbal ticks, then the weeping, and finally the all-out temper tantrums.  Should be amusing.

Trudeau does have this instant "progressive" image. I think the media has stereotyped him as soft and young, which must mean he's going to create a friendlier Canada in some vague way as only a soft young person can. And meanwhile his policy proposals are tacking right. His "stereotype" allows him to tack right, earn votes there, without taking damage among progressives.

That is, unless his actual stances on issues come out.

Dispite what the media will do to help him, it will come out eventually. As will his incompetence.

And +1 on the JFK vs LBJ comment. Johnson was a 100 times the prez as JFK.

Yet who gets immortalized and mourned, whose court gets compared to camelot? JFKs.

It makes me sick People can be so fucking stupid when it comes to politics.

And it's a VERY open question as to whether JFK would ever have steered a real Civil Rights Act through the segregationist hierarchy of the U.S. Senate of 1964.

If you go and read what is being posted on the Huff Post regarding these columns by Bob Rae, everyone who is posting there is praising Rae as a great statesment and two posters who represented themeselves as indigenous people praised him as someone who was capable of ensuring their interests are addressed. I say we have to nail the Libs on their history. Do you think people will ever really care Trudeau us a flake. Given the overwhelming numbers of seniors who said they would vote for him (Trudeaumania Seniors), how much is it going to matter that Trudeau is a flake. I think we need to stress the real difference. Thoughts?

mark_alfred wrote:

Trudeau is a puppet for some backroom operators.  In fact (here's my conspiracy brain coming out), I think one of them is possibly Harper himself.  The whole Brazeau thing looked like it was staged by Conservatives to elevate Trudeau so that Rae would back down.  Rae, after all, could have been a problem since he's open to cooperation w/ the NDP and is not a complete puppet of business.  There'll be some attacks lobbed Trudeau's way, but nothing with the same vehemence that we saw with previous Lib leaders.  It'll all be for show to keep the NDP sidelined and to keep the focus on right-wing issues.  Trudeau is likely getting payola from Harper's cronies for the job of playing a luring decoy to potential NDPers.

Well I think Rae proved he could certainly be pushed around by business during his stint as Premier.

I think elites will be happy flock to Trudeau because Harper has certainly aroused a good amount of opposition. There was that column in the National Post of all places saying the Cons should act less like jerks. Trudeau would go along way is disarming the anti-Harper social movements at least for a little while, but that is all that is needed before more trade deals get signed and pipelines built. If Harper wins again in 2015 those movements will still be going, however business can rest assured that Trudeau and the Libs will not gut the Harper legacy. Plus the Liberals would be able to screw with elements of the welfare state that the Cons would never be able to get away with. Remember folks when Liberals cut things "there is no alternative."

North Star wrote:

Plus the Liberals would be able to screw with elements of the welfare state that the Cons would never be able to get away with. Remember folks when Liberals cut things "there is no alternative."

Agreed.  Things were as bad with Chretien/Martin as they've been with Harper.  I also agree that Rae was spineless at times.  However, the overlords of business don't even want to put up with an invertebrate.  They want a puppet, pure and simple.  Harper, like Pinocchio, has shown too much of a tendency of trying to be human.  So I believe the big bosses are moving to Trudeau as the choice to forward their agenda.  Harper's head will be on a platter, disposed of like so much smelly refuse that no longer adequately serves the big bosses' needs.  Trudeau will be their puppet.  The only thing possibly in their way now is Mulcair, the passionate sincere man from Outremont.

The 90's was not the best era for the NDP admittedly, we picked some duds for leaders. I think were doing better now to different degrees, although at times Darrell can be a bit of a throwback sadly.

Yeah, I'd like to think that the NDP getting beaten so badly in the 90s was our way of avoiding the "New Labor" strategy.

sherpa-finn wrote:

I suspect that on the conservative discussion site they have a thread entitled "Justin Trudeau = Mulcair with less facial hair"

This is a later edit, because my first one linked to a darned April Fool's joke that I took seriously.  Anyway, I have searched the online rightwing site of freedominion.ca to see what their opinions are of Mulcair and Trudeau, and from what I saw, they view Mulcair as the devil, whereas they're not happy with Trudeau, but (generally) feel far less hostile to him.  For instance, here's a link to a couple of posters discussing the expected attack ads against Trudeau.  Their feeling is that Trudeau will win both the leadership and become prime minister.  Their debate is whether the right should form a new party.  They disagree on whether a new party should (or will) be formed, but they agree that Trudeau will govern from the right.

You'd be hard pressed to find anything similar when they speak of Mulcair.  I have found no posts that express anything besides disdain for Mulcair on this site.  They do not view Trudeau and Mulcair as being similar.

Left-wingers (even those with a puritanical streak) should get solidly behind Mulcair and the NDP, and not be distracted by the Liberals.

Centrist wrote:

Stockholm wrote:

The fact that JFK was assassinated has a lot to do with that...if he had lived he would probably been narrowly re-elected in '64 and gone down in history as a very mediocre forgettable president.

But the Republican challenger was Goldwater - whom even Republicans considered both nutty, dangerous, and waaaaay out there. That's why LBJ had the largest landslide in terms of popular vote share in U.S. history IIRC. So JFK would likely had an easy win as well.

Too bad the Cons don't replace Harper with their equivalent of today's "Goldwater". With Trudeau basically a flake, would make Mulcair's majority gov't win ohhhh so much easier.

Parties that are in power don't pick Goldwater types as their leaders or candidates...they go with the safest, blandest people possible-unless they're already sure they're gonna lose, they they might pick a crazyhead just to put the blame for the loss on the party's "out crowd". 

I love how people are so hard on Mulcair....  yet we all have to remember a few things:

A) Many people loved Jack Layton....can't compare apples and oranges here (no pun intended) Mulcair is no Layton.

B) Layton expanded the party in Quebec.... their next hill to conquer would have been the West... as proven by the NDP's efforts to create the Lethbridge, AB declaration.  The West, outside of Manitoba is very hard to conquer for the NDP right now.  Look, Mulcair attempted to cosy up to Alberta, but failed after saying only one wrong thing. If you looked at the polls before the Duth disease, the NDP was actually hovering in the low to mid 20s in Alberta and Saskatchewan. Because of the relentless attacks by Redford and Wall, the NDP support there has collapsed. The task is not easy my friends, you try it out!

C) Now Mulcair has the "rejuvenated" Liberal party being led by a "handsome - irresistble" man at his heels. Now he has to put up with two people attacking him. When he should be worrying about opposing the government, he will now have to worry about defending the NDP's policies as if the NDP were in government. Layton never really had to worry about that. Oddly enough, this is isn't how it supposed to work, but Trudeau will try to cut Mulcair and the NDP down before he'll go after Harper. Trudeau and the Liberals know the only way to governance is through the "Orange gate".

So please people, spare me the "I can't stand Mulcair" but I'll vote for the NDP anyways "bullshit" because like it or not, Mulcair goes down, so does the NDP.  Most soft NDP support will bleed to the Liberals if we don't rally around and work with the current NDP leader. Just look at what happened to the Ignaieff Liberals, thousands left supporting the Liberals because they disliked the Ignatieff. The same will happen to the NDP if we are not careful!

PS last time I checked BC was not in the Prairie provinces.  I know from Ottawa it is really hard to see the difference but the Continental Divide does exist in more than just geography.

One of pet peeves is central Canadians lumping BC in with any of the provinces east of the Rockies because our history and politics are not at all alike.

NeedToVote101 wrote:

I love how people are so hard on Mulcair....  yet we all have to remember a few things:

A) Many people loved Jack Layton....can't compare apples and oranges here (no pun intended) Mulcair is no Layton.

B) Layton expanded the party in Quebec.... their next hill to conquer would have been the West... as proven by the NDP's efforts to create the Lethbridge, AB declaration.  The West, outside of Manitoba is very hard to conquer for the NDP right now.  Look, Mulcair attempted to cosy up to Alberta, but failed after saying only one wrong thing. If you looked at the polls before the Duth disease, the NDP was actually hovering in the low to mid 20s in Alberta and Saskatchewan. Because of the relentless attacks by Redford and Wall, the NDP support there has collapsed. The task is not easy my friends, you try it out!

C) Now Mulcair has the "rejuvenated" Liberal party being led by a "handsome - irresistble" man at his heels. Now he has to put up with two people attacking him. When he should be worrying about opposing the government, he will now have to worry about defending the NDP's policies as if the NDP were in government. Layton never really had to worry about that. Oddly enough, this is isn't how it supposed to work, but Trudeau will try to cut Mulcair and the NDP down before he'll go after Harper. Trudeau and the Liberals know the only way to governance is through the "Orange gate".

So please people, spare me the "I can't stand Mulcair" but I'll vote for the NDP anyways "bullshit" because like it or not, Mulcair goes down, so does the NDP.  Most soft NDP support will bleed to the Liberals if we don't rally around and work with the current NDP leader. Just look at what happened to the Ignaieff Liberals, thousands left supporting the Liberals because they disliked the Ignatieff. The same will happen to the NDP if we are not careful!

Nailed it. Trudeau is the enemy, not Tom!

Brachina wrote:

The Word Western Province was used not Praire Province, BC is to the West of the other Provinces.

Socialdemocrat wrote:

I'm not sure there's any net negative for the dutch disease comments. We have 3 seats between Alberta/Manitoba/Saskatchewan, if I remember correctly. I sincerely doubt the NDP will do any worse over there.

Actually the prairie provinces were listed and the word western did not appear in the original post. Some center of the universe Ontarian lumped BC in with the three individually named provinces. Any other nits you would like to pick out of my hair.

Good grief people!!!! I made an error when typing my comments. It was supposed to read "The west, outside of Manitoba and BC". And saying that people from central Canada have a problem with distinguishing what is west is just incorrect. Though I must agree, I should have used prairie, instead of west. Often times in the media, and the pollsters "west" is considered as Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Not entirely sure why they remove BC from it. I don't care.

I apologize for making the small, tiny, insignificant error. BC in my mind is a part of the West, but as aforementioned, I forgot to include it with Manitoba.

In other words Alberta and Saskatchewan are very difficult for the NDP to conquer.

Why is there so much tension on this forum over tiny little errors?

I should also note, that the NDP are attempting to increase its number of seats in the Prairie provinces, so failure do so could be considered a "collapse" in potential increase in support for the party. I wish Saskatchewan would embrace the NDP provincially again! :-(

JKR wrote:

mark_alfred wrote:

NeedToVote101 wrote:

Why is there so much tension on this forum over tiny little errors?

That's a good question.  The infighting and hypersensitivity here is something.  I don't notice such things in right-wing forums.

Infighting and hypersensitivity plagued the right back when the PC's and Reform Party were slitting the right-wing vote.

Perhaps now when the blue-washed Liberals under Trudeau and the CPC split one another's vote allowing the NDP, the one left-wing party, to emerge victorious, we'll see the same sort of infighting and hypersensitivity occur on the right again.  Or as Douglas would have put it, while the cats fight each other, the mice go on to victory.

mark_alfred wrote:

JKR wrote:

mark_alfred wrote:

NeedToVote101 wrote:

Why is there so much tension on this forum over tiny little errors?

That's a good question.  The infighting and hypersensitivity here is something.  I don't notice such things in right-wing forums.

Infighting and hypersensitivity plagued the right back when the PC's and Reform Party were slitting the right-wing vote.

Perhaps now when the blue-washed Liberals under Trudeau and the CPC split one another's vote allowing the NDP, the one left-wing party, to emerge victorious, we'll see the same sort of infighting and hypersensitivity occur on the right again.  Or as Douglas would have put it, while the cats fight each other, the mice go on to victory.

It will be interesting to see if the polls start to show whether Trudeau's leadership causes a consolidation of the left wing vote toward the NDP while the Conservatives and Liberals split the right-wing vote.

Many people on the centre-left are fond of the Trudeau name so the Liberals may be able to move rightward under Trudeau without paying a political price for doing so. Conversely many on the centre-right hate the Trudeau name and this might prevent the Liberals from benefitting from a rightward lurch.

NeedToVote101 wrote:

Good grief people!!!! I made an error when typing my comments. It was supposed to read "The west, outside of Manitoba and BC". And saying that people from central Canada have a problem with distinguishing what is west is just incorrect. Though I must agree, I should have used prairie, instead of west. Often times in the media, and the pollsters "west" is considered as Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Not entirely sure why they remove BC from it. I don't care.

I apologize for making the small, tiny, insignificant error. BC in my mind is a part of the West, but as aforementioned, I forgot to include it with Manitoba.

In other words Alberta and Saskatchewan are very difficult for the NDP to conquer.

Why is there so much tension on this forum over tiny little errors?

Thank you. And thank you for posting.

One of the things that's made Trudeau so dangerous IS the narrative that he represents progressive change. (Really? Anyone under 50 years old represents "progress"? Son of Trudeau represents "change"?)

He's been able to tack right on oil, the environment, foreign ownership, and the gun registry... and he's still treated as a left wing alternative to Harper.

I don't think the counter-strategy is to paint Trudeau as right wing. I think the counter-strategy is to point out that he talks out of both sides of his mouth constantly.

kropotkin1951 wrote:

Jean Chretien and Paul Martin were also trumpeted as being progressive.  The Canadian people might buy it again given that in comparison to Harper they look way more progressive.  That is what happens when the political discourse is allowed to drift steadily to the right.  All three of the major parties are using much the same messaging with the same buzz words like sustainability and job creation.

Non partisan voters only hear the message and by the next election they will have had almost a decade to forget the corruption of the Liberals.  Let us not forget that the Liberal Party imploded because of a corruption scandal not because the voters all of a sudden rejected their policies. If the NDP sounds too much like the Liberals they are going to be sadly disappointed when the voters opt for the real Liberal party not a pale imitation.

Yep, couldn't agree more. I think this pretty much nails it. We need to force a really serious discussin this time, or Le Dauphin will ride the fluff train right into 24 Sussex.