[Canada] Politics of the Democratic Friedmanite Republic of the Government of Harper

Richy · May 2011

Robman wrote: »

So guys. Back to voter subsidies.

I kind of came up with a somewhat elegant solution: if a party gets a donation from person X in riding Y, then 75% of the donation from X has to be spent on efforts directly targeted at that riding. Not on nationwide ad campaigns, but only local ads on local television, radio or newspapers. If you want to buy time on a national paper or TV channel (as defined by some % of viewership living outside the riding) you must do so with federal vote subsidy money.

That way, rich people in Calgary can't fund Conservatives in Toronto. Conversely, rich Torontonians can't pay for the election campaigns of Liberal candidates in Newfoundland.

It's a pipe dream, but a nice idea.

I thought about that before too. The idea sounds nice, but the problem you hit right away is: what do you do about large cities with multiple ridings? Toronto has, what, 20-something federal ridings? If someone lives in Toronto and donates money in one of those ridings, how can we enforce that the money will affect that riding alone and not one of the other ones? Should we have TV and radio antennae broadcasting competing signals to block each other out in other ridings when political ads come up? Or have 20 different copes of the Toronto Star and the Metro newspaper for each individual riding?

saggio · May 2011

Robman wrote: »

So guys. Back to voter subsidies.

I kind of came up with a somewhat elegant solution: if a party gets a donation from person X in riding Y, then 75% of the donation from X has to be spent on efforts directly targeted at that riding. Not on nationwide ad campaigns, but only local ads on local television, radio or newspapers. If you want to buy time on a national paper or TV channel (as defined by some % of viewership living outside the riding) you must do so with federal vote subsidy money.

That way, rich people in Calgary can't fund Conservatives in Toronto. Conversely, rich Torontonians can't pay for the election campaigns of Liberal candidates in Newfoundland.

It's a pipe dream, but a nice idea.

I get the sense that everyone who is talking about the voter subsidy in this thread hasn't ever experienced what it's like to fund raise from within a political party.

Richy · May 2011

saggio wrote: »

I get the sense that everyone who is talking about the voter subsidy in this thread hasn't ever experienced what it's like to fund raise from within a political party.

I for one have not, you're right. So what are we ignoring?

saggio · May 2011

Richy wrote: »

saggio wrote: »

I get the sense that everyone who is talking about the voter subsidy in this thread hasn't ever experienced what it's like to fund raise from within a political party.

I for one have not, you're right. So what are we ignoring?

The solutions you guys are proposing will never fly. The current law is written in such a way as to be mainly of the benefit of local riding associations, but at least within my preferred party, riding associations must agree to give the entirety of the subsidy to the central office. Then there are internal rules and funding formulas that no statue can change that determine where and how much each riding association gets.

But most importantly, riding associations are almost entirely responsible for their own fundraising. At the federal level, my riding association gets 100% of the money donated (not provincially, though) to it. That means to run any campaign, the locals have to raise the bulk of the money. Have you ever tried to fundraise for a political party? It's fucking insane. No one donates.

CorporateGoon · May 2011

hippofant wrote: »

CorporateGoon wrote: »

I'm not sure I understand your alternative (are you raising taxes on someone or not?), but in fact, I do deny that most of those advantages truly exist.

I could, or I could not. It doesn't really matter. My point is that a government tax scheme could replicate the financial burden of democratic partisan politics on the Canadian population with minimal imposition on the Canadian citizen, thus negating any affirmative reason to enact this change.

It's entirely up to the parties how much time they spend fundraising. They don't have to spend any time raising money. They could conceivably put all their time towards it. In any case, regardless of whether or not a subsidy exists, they're still going to be spending at least some time raising money in other fashions. Possibly less, possibly the exact same amount, maybe even more because now their opponents have more money and the relative size of their war chests will have changed....

Your assumption that fundraising ability is anywhere near proportional to electoral support is also false. In 2009 the Tories raised about 45% of all funds, while the Bloc raised only 2%. I'm not sure what the 2010 numbers were, but considering the massive swings in support for the Liberals, NDP, and Bloc in the last three weeks of the campaign, I'd say their ability to raise funds has very little to do with their ability to get votes.

First of all, the correlation between fundraising and electoral success is a) evident in the actions of politicians and political parties, b) well-ensconced in common sense understanding of democratic politics. If you're going to deny such a correlation, I suggest you'll have to do better than to cherry-pick a single statistic.

Second of all, the statistic you did cherry-pick supports, rather than refutes, the correlation. The Conservatives trounced the Bloc in fundraising... and then they trounced the Bloc in electoral wins and popular vote. In fact, the Tories won 39.62% of the popular vote while the Bloc won 6.04%, figures that closely correspond to the fundraising numbers you presented. (Note I did not say that the correlation was strict nor linear nor causative, though the latter is implied.)

Except I didn't bother to quote the Liberal or NDP numbers. The Liberals raised around 30% of the money, and the NDP around 20%. Those figures are more than 10% off. There is no correlation between amount of money raised and percentage of the popular vote in Canadian Federal politics, period. People may feel like there is, but the data does not bear that out.

Now, you could say that beyond certain financial thresholds, the total doesn't matter so much as how it's spent, and I'd agree with that. But, I was under the impression that you were going to attempt to hand out the $25 million based on percentage of the popular vote, and that would clearly be unfair to all the parties.

Third of all, and I have no evidence to support this offhand, but I very much expect political fundraising to increase with this change. The political parties have electoral machines built up in certain ways with certain budgets, and given that an election is a zero-sum competitive game with incomplete information, one can only expect a build-up, not a ramp-down, for the same reason that opposing militaries also ramp up. I would be utterly and completely shocked if political fundraising numbers did not increase over the next four years, and feel free to quote this post and rub it in my face in 2015 if that does not happen.

Of course that's going to happen now that the subsidies are going to disappear. It would probably happen simply due to inflation.

The money's not coming solely from upper bracket people, either. The first $400 you donate comes with a 75% credit, so unless you're paying practically nothing in taxes, you can donate considerably more than the average donor does for only $100. The mean donation to the Tories works out to less than $44 after the rebate. That's nothing. Your idea that the money comes only from high income brackets is completely erroneous. It may not come from the bottom 10%, but it certainly comes from all the rest. For instance, the Conservatives spent a lot of time appealing to rural folks -who tend to have relatively low incomes- in order to get cash to "help kill the long-gun registry".

Fourth of all, I was just trying to simplify it. If you want, I can reframe the alternative as: determine the amount of money donated to political parties by each income tax bracket in Canada. Find income tax rates for each bracket such as to fix the proportions taxed from each bracket to match the proportions in political donations. Scale these tax rates so as to achieve the desired amount of money to be spent by the political parties in an election campaign. This way, the financial burden for political parties is born roughly the same as it would be without government subsidies, which removes any such incentive to enact this change.

(It is, of course, not necessarily true that this is the ideal distribution or system, but my point is such a system could exist that negates any positive effect from this change.

Also, it is easier to frame this as a new tax, so I don't have to explain where the money would come from, but it's equally viable without raising taxes though that requires a broader, more comprehensive view of the entire Canadian federal budget, which seems a bit unnecessary for this conversation.)

I'm not entirely sure it's worth it to go to all that trouble to come up with what is a surprisingly small amount of money. I think the total for fundraising + subsidies across all the parties is something like $65 million. A $2.50 increase across the board would probably go over a lot better than raising the top income bracket's taxes by $13 and the bottom's by $0.27 or whatever.

Fifth of all, many Canadians pay no income tax. ~7.3% of Canadians are in households with incomes <=$10000, effectively paying no federal income tax according to Stats Can, 2000. More individuals pay no income tax, though I'm unable to find an amount. The percentage is 47% for Americans. Thus a non-refundable tax credit does nothing for them.

I'm sure a lot of those non-payers could afford to kick in twenty bucks if they so desired. Poor people obviously aren't going to be able to have as much of a financial influence on politics, but there really isn't a good way to fix that. No party is going to advocate solely for the poor.

Sixth of all, if, as you suggest, that the money donated to political parties does not come strictly from upper bracket people, that anybody and everybody can and does donate to the political parties, then this why enact this change? Will this change shift the burden of political party funding down the income scale? Surely not; it will shift it upwards to some degree. I can only assume, then, that any supporter of this change wants to redistribute the burden of political party funding, and this can only mean a desire to tie the success of political parties more closely to the whims of those with more disposable income, and who are thus more likely to donate more money to political parties.

Again, we're talking about minuscule amounts of money here. If you don't pay any taxes, you probably won't be throwing in $1100. But the mean donation is nowhere near that much. The goal of most parties is to increase their donor base, so they'll take whatever they can get from whoever they can get it from. I know of very few people who actually vote who would not be able to kick in $2. So, if poor people mobilized, in aggregate they could donate far more than the wealthy currently do. They won't, but that's hardly the fault of the fundraising process.

Seventh of all, if the Canadian government refunds much of the amount donated to political parties... then what the hell does this change accomplish anyways? So now the Canadian government will only be paying $20M to the political parties? By your own arguments, if political donations represent such a small burden on individual Canadians, then it, in turn, could only represent a similarly small burden on the Canadian federal government, and a broad, general levy on all Canadians can only represent an even smaller individual burden on individual Canadians.

If the point were to decrease the burden on individuals, then your plan would work. That's not the point, though. The change is meant to screw over the opposition parties because the Tories are currently better at fundraising. It is -however tangentially- related to the principles of small government, and those are things that Tories espouse, so you can't really fault them for following through on that. For once the Conservatives are actually doing something fiscally conservative. It's for spurious reasons, but still...

We're still going to have to monitor election financing rules because shenanigans will still ensue. Elections Canada would only have to deal with about half the paperwork regarding donations, but they'd have to keep whatever department they use to deal with the subsidy disbursements. Overall, I think they'd save some money by keeping the subsidies, but I don't know how much.

Eighth of all, with more donations from more people and an increased dependence on donations for electoral success, this can only increase the burden on Elections Canada. Even a conservative model would predict more occurrences of election financing malfeasance due to simply more events for such malfeasance to occur, either intentionally or accidentally. It'll also increase the burden on Revenue Canada, the tax industry, and taxpayers in general, due to a slight uptick in the amount of paperwork. Minor effects, but still.

I agree. Ideally, the tax savings will more than offset this increase in paperwork.

You are, however, correct in saying that a party that appeals solely to the poor could not exist without subsidies. But, such a party does not exist now, and in order to qualify for the subsidy you need to get at least 5% of the vote in the ridings in which you run candidates, or 2% nationally, which is a pretty big hurdle to overcome when you don't have any money to begin with. That's also why you couldn't support parties merely with per-vote subsidies: Any new parties would be totally fucked over. I suppose you could hand out money based on how many members a party has, but I'm not certain how the number of registered members correlates with the number of votes a party gets, so it could be wildly skewed.

Ninth of all, I simply suggested that as an extreme example. But I will note that here, you recognize that new parties that don't receive funding would be "totally fucked over", yet above, you denied a correlation between fundraising and electoral success.

Yes, they would be totally fucked over if they were not able to fundraise and only supported by per-vote subsidies. That's not saying that they wouldn't enjoy any electoral success, just that it would give already-established parties a leg up. The only correlation between fundraising and electoral success is that a lot of money is better than no money. Beyond that, you can't say anything. My point was always that replacing fundraising dollars with subsidies based on vote percentage wouldn't be fair, and it's not.

In any event, I still don't think losing the subsidies is all that big a deal. We got by without them for 135 years, and we'll get by without them again.

Tenth of all... first this is a straw man. I never suggested that it was a big deal or that the country will collapse now. I simply believe that this is a step in the incorrect direction. Second, it's also a non-sequitur: we got by without the Internet for thousands of years, but that doesn't mean we should abolish that too.

I never suggested that you suggested it was a big deal. I simply suggested that I don't think it is. And it's not. Losing the subsidies isn't like getting rid of the internet. It's like getting rid of taxpayer-funded universal internet, and making people who want it pay for it directly. And, you can pool your money with a bunch of your friends to get better bandwidth.

As an analogy, if you go to university, you get a loan from the government. Firstly, it'd be easier if you didn't have to do that, if the government simply subsidized you, the amount of paperwork and administrative overhead on your, the government, and the university's parts would be reduced. Secondly, imagine if you couldn't get a sufficiently large loan from a single organization, but instead had to get 10 loans from 10 different organizations. Imagine how much extra work you'd have to do, how much extra paperwork would have to be completed, how much extra overhead would exist, how many more restrictions you'd have imposed upon you, how many more disputes, errors, and miscommunication issues would arise between all the various parties, how many more court cases over these issues and others. That's basically the same direction we're pushing our political parties in; I cannot understand why anybody who's not incredibly shortsightedly selfish would think that's a good thing.

In short, money is power. By mandating that political parties get their money from individual donors, we are shifting power over political parties to individual donors, who are more likely to be affluent and furthermore will be more likely to be more affluent as time passes and new fundraising closes the financial gap left by the subsidy removal, and for what? So the government can, instead of paying $25M in subsidies, refund $20M in income taxes, while spending more money on regulatory and administrative overhead and inviting/encouraging electoral financing malfeasance?

You use "affluent" in a very broad sense. Calling the people who donate "not impoverished" would be much more accurate. Now, in general donors would tend not to be poor, but that need not be the case. Post-Secondary students are generally pretty poor, while at the same time being more interested in politics than average. There are about a million of them, and $20 from each would be more money than the Tories raise in a year. If they cared enough to organize, then they could form the Poor People's Party and throw cash around willy-nilly. It wouldn't necessarily translate to electoral success, but they could do it.

Ultimately, politics can only be controlled by the wealthy to a very small degree in this country, and not at all if poor people actually gave a crap. Removing the subsidies doesn't need to have any effect whatsoever on the policies of the parties beyond the immediate need to raise more cash. As a bonus, the Tories themselves will be out $10 million, which means far fewer ads of the type Robman posted earlier.

darkphoenix22 · May 2011

Richy wrote: »

darkphoenix22 wrote: »

I know who Rove was. I disagree completely with his goals, but his campaign tactics (aside from the phonecalls, which I will never do) were ace. His overall campaign strategy of:

"The first is to take your opponent's strong point and make it a negative."
and
"To take your own weakness and turn it into a plus."

were genius. If the left ever wants to get ahead, it's going to have to look at how the right is doing things and copy the legit stuff. Which is what I intend to do.

"The first is to take your opponent's strong point and make it a negative."
The NDP candidate was nominated on patronage and is spineless on HST. Completely true.

"To take your own weakness and turn it into a plus."
The fact that I am currently located in S. Ontario. I'm focusing on using social media as a result. If asked, the reason why I moved down here was to avoid the gay bigotry back home. I'm coming back to help expose it and help fix it. Completely true.

Wait, it just dawned on me that if you're running in the provincial election in Thunder Bay, then you're running against Mike Gravelle.

Mike "Minister of Mines, Forests and Northern Development" Gravelle

Mike "I breathe, eat and bleed the North" Gravelle

Mike "The North is my world and my life" Gravelle

And you're "spinning your weakness" as "I went to Southern Ontario to escape from you Northern homophobic hicks and now I'm back to rub it in and expose you for what you really are".

Wow, this is going to go well :^: I can hardly wait for the campaign now.

Mauro.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Mauro

In the provincial election of 2007, Mauro was re-elected by a dramatically reduced margin of just 50 votes over Rafferty.

Bill Mauro is the Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Government Services as well as being Chair of the Liberal Northern Caucus and is a member of the Standing Committee on General Government, and the Justice, Intergovernmental and Aboriginal Affairs Cabinet Committee.Mauro previously served as Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Northern Development and Mines, and was a member of the Standing Committees on Social Policy, Public Accounts, and for the Legislative Assembly. In addition, he was a member of the Small Business Agency of Ontario; Health and Social Services Cabinet Committee; and the Energy Conservation Action Team.

Definition of unpopular careerist hanging onto his office by a thread.

darkphoenix22 · May 2011

saggio wrote: »

Richy wrote: »

saggio wrote: »

I get the sense that everyone who is talking about the voter subsidy in this thread hasn't ever experienced what it's like to fund raise from within a political party.

I for one have not, you're right. So what are we ignoring?

The solutions you guys are proposing will never fly. The current law is written in such a way as to be mainly of the benefit of local riding associations, but at least within my preferred party, riding associations must agree to give the entirety of the subsidy to the central office. Then there are internal rules and funding formulas that no statue can change that determine where and how much each riding association gets.

But most importantly, riding associations are almost entirely responsible for their own fundraising. At the federal level, my riding association gets 100% of the money donated (not provincially, though) to it. That means to run any campaign, the locals have to raise the bulk of the money. Have you ever tried to fundraise for a political party? It's fucking insane. No one donates.

This.

Richy · May 2011

darkphoenix22 wrote: »

Mauro.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Mauro

Definition of unpopular careerist hanging onto his office by a thread.

Damn, you'll be one riding over from me. I won't have the pleasure of voting you down. So close.

darkphoenix22 · May 2011

Remember: They're not real Tories. They're cons.

I am a pure blooded Red Tory. Who has not sold his soul to the fundies.

I am also a close descendent of Louis St. Laurent, the man who brought equality to the Quebecois. Digging deeper, I am a descendent of the founders of Quebec, including Abraham of the "Plains of Abraham". Politics is in my blood.

Aussi, je peux penser en francais.

darkphoenix22 · May 2011

Bill Mauro (Lib) == Careerist politican. Has done basically nothing for the 8 years he has held his seat. I know his son from high school.

Mary Kozorys (NDP) == Patronage nomination. Was John Rafferty's campaign manager. Has done nothing but get Rafferty elected.

Fred Gilbert (PC) == Former student union president. Proud Harperite.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunder_Bay%E2%80%94Atikokan_(provincial_electoral_district)

oldmanken · May 2011

darkphoenix22 wrote: »

Mary Kozorys (NDP) == Patronage nomination. Was John Rafferty's campaign manager. Has done nothing but get Rafferty elected.

How are you defining this a a patronage nomination? She's obviously accomplished something in getting Rafferty elected, was the executive assistant to the previous NDP MP, has a pretty lengthy community record, and subsequently looks more than competent.

Perhaps some of us were wrong about you. It looks more and more like you understand Rovian campaigning quite well... ignoring policy and debate, and falsely denigrating the accomplishments and character of your opponents. Well done son, you'll go really far... :rolleyes:

darkphoenix22 · May 2011

I've written Liberal policy on Open Internet. I wrote parts of OpenMedia.ca's platform. I have direct contact with the Liberal Policy Manager.

I'm a member of the Liberal Immuninati. They even gave me a card.

Screw conventions. I just send e-mails and BAM, my ideas become Liberal policy.

oldmanken · May 2011

darkphoenix22 wrote: »

I've written Liberal policy on Open Internet. I wrote parts of OpenMedia.ca's platform. I have direct contact with the Liberal Policy Manager.

I'm a member of the Liberal Immuninati. They even gave me a card.

Screw conventions. I just send e-mails and BAM, my ideas become Liberal policy.

Your point?

darkphoenix22 · May 2011

I have the contacts to actually do stuff like getting funding to turn the Harbour Expressway into a freeway, turn the intercity bus routes into a rapid bus transit line, and bring Via back. Mary, Bill, and Fred don't.

They may be able to get table scraps, but I can get Thunder Bay the bread loaf.

oldmanken · May 2011

darkphoenix22 wrote: »

I have the contacts to actually do stuff like getting funding to turn the Harbour Expressway into a freeway, turn the intercity bus routes into a rapid bus transit line, and bring Via back. Mary, Bill, and Fred don't.

They may be able to get table scraps, but I can get Thunder Bay the bread loaf.

AH! I see it now. You have a ridiculously overwrought sense of self-importance. This running for office malarky isn't about representing the people in the riding, but about stroking your over-blown ego.

darkphoenix22 · May 2011

I want a soapbox. I fully admit it.

And I'll help Thunder Bay in the process of getting it.

hippofant · May 2011

Oh God, make it stop, make it stop.

darkphoenix22 · May 2011

hippofant wrote: »

Oh God, make it stop, make it stop.

Just wait until I get my seat. It won't just be the forums.

dobilay · May 2011

darkphoenix22 wrote: »

Eh. I'm tired of this.

darkphoenix22 · May 2011

Well you guys do kind of egg it on.

Richy · May 2011

darkphoenix22 wrote: »

Well you guys do kind of egg it on.

That's because you show up here with a shirt with a bullseye painted on and a giant ACME arrow sign with lightbulbs all around held on a stick pointing to you and reading "THROW EGGS HERE". It seems the only kind of human interactions you know is the kind where you beg people to egg you.

Pro-tip: people don't vote for egg targets.

darkphoenix22 · May 2011

-- Deleted --

Tube · May 2011

darkphoenix22 wrote: »

I come on here to get a sample of the attacks my opponents will use against me. So I can be prepared.

Thank you.

Feel free to resume the thread at this time.

Be prepared for the "Hey check out this idiot who posts about his 'political career' all over internet forums. He clearly has no idea what the fuck he's doing! It's a good thing for him that his account got banned because he didn't know when to shut the fuck up or he could have fucked over his non-existent political career more than he already has!"

darkphoenix22 · May 2011

Transparency and honesty.

Tube · May 2011

That'll be why you post under your real name then.

CorporateGoon · May 2011

To be fair, he has posted his real name as well as his photo. When he doesn't get the Green Party nomination, I expect him to return to reality.

In actual political news, the Conservative and Liberal backrooms are both in conflict over how their new leaders ought to be chosen.

The Tories are in a minor dispute over whether to allow riding associations with low membership to send a full slate of delegates to leadership conventions. That was one of the big sticking points during the merger because a number of the old PC associations in the east aren't as large as the Reform associations out west. Peter MacKay is trying to keep it from becoming an issue at the Tory national convention next month, but a couple riding association presidents are pushing for a vote on it.

The Liberals are arguing over whether or not to allow their interim leader to eventually become the permanent leader. The current frontrunners for the interim job are Bob Rae and Marc Garneau, both of whom are 62, so I don't see either of them sticking around to hold the permanent position.

Richy · May 2011

The Tories were unified to try to get power, and now that they have it they are breaking apart as each faction tries to keep all of it for itself and put down the other factions. It's like they're a league of cartoon supervillains.

Meanwhile, the Liberals are pushing themselves further into irrelevance with these manufactured problems. Shouldn't the question to answer be "do we have an interim leader who can and wants to be the permanent leader" before debating "do we want to allow it"?

Disco11 · May 2011

That's part of the problem. The liberals have never been in the position of not being in charge or the official opposition. They have no framework on how to adapt and if recent history is to be believed they will just keep standing there wringing their hands instead of making tough choices.

Aegis · May 2011

Richy wrote: »

Meanwhile, the Liberals are pushing themselves further into irrelevance with these manufactured problems. Shouldn't the question to answer be "do we have an interim leader who can and wants to be the permanent leader" before debating "do we want to allow it"?

This really seems to come off as "how do we keep Bob Rae out of the leadership position"? CBC even seemed to implicitly take that undertone when they interviewed Rae about the whole thing a week or so ago.

Doesn't seem to be all that helpful to actually coalescing as a party to regroup.

Richy · May 2011

Aegis wrote: »

Richy wrote: »

Meanwhile, the Liberals are pushing themselves further into irrelevance with these manufactured problems. Shouldn't the question to answer be "do we have an interim leader who can and wants to be the permanent leader" before debating "do we want to allow it"?

This really seems to come off as "how do we keep Bob Rae out of the leadership position"? CBC even seemed to implicitly take that undertone when they interviewed Rae about the whole thing a week or so ago.

Doesn't seem to be all that helpful to actually coalescing as a party to regroup.

Well I don't know much about Bob Rae, since I was out of Ontario when he was Premier, but my impression is that there is a lot of bad feelings left over about his time as Premier, whether it's justified or not. And since Ontario is crucial for the Liberals to re-take to push the Cons out, I don't think he'd be the best choice for leader. A campaign that starts with "I know you don't like him, but really here's why you shouldn't feel that way" won't end well.

shryke · May 2011

Yeah, it doesn't matter what actually happened or how accurate it is, Bob Rae is not well liked by wide swaths of Ontario.

He's not the guy the Liberals want to be running.

Richy · May 2011

shryke wrote: »

Yeah, it doesn't matter what actually happened or how accurate it is, Bob Rae is not well liked by wide swaths of Ontario.

He's not the guy the Liberals want to be running.

Unfortunately the same logic disqualifies Justin Trudeau. Pierre Trudeau is hated in the west (how dare he ask them to share with others? Clearly he's to blame for the international oil price crash in the 70s and the subsequent failing of the oil-centric and undiversified economy of Alberta) and not very popular in Québec (October Crisis, etc., though I'll grant that one is a bit more justified than Alberta).

In fact Justin Trudeau will face a worse battle than Rae - while his opponents will have a field day smearing him through his father, any defence he makes of his father will make it look like he's trying to get elected based on his father's successes rather than his record. Any time he spends talking about his father will distract from his message and his platform. His only alternative is to not talk about his father - leaving his opponents unchallenged as they smear Pierre and him by association. It's going to be a near-impossible fight to win for Justin.

hippofant · May 2011

Are we talking about Rae as interim leader or permanent leader? My understanding was that the Liberals are, currently, only talking about an interim leader, in which case Rae wouldn't be leading them into the next election anyways. (Or is highly unlikely to, given it'll take place in 2015.)

As for a permanent leader... the best choice might also depend on where the Liberals want to be retaking ground - Ontario or Quebec. The election strategies might be highly different depending: for example, choosing Rae or Trudeau (if those are the only choices) would be highly dependent on where the Liberals want to be retaking ridings.

Richy · May 2011

hippofant wrote: »

Are we talking about Rae as interim leader or permanent leader? My understanding was that the Liberals are, currently, only talking about an interim leader, in which case Rae wouldn't be leading them into the next election anyways. (Or is highly unlikely to, given it'll take place in 2015.)

As for a permanent leader... the best choice might also depend on where the Liberals want to be retaking ground - Ontario or Quebec. The election strategies might be highly different depending: for example, choosing Rae or Trudeau (if those are the only choices) would be highly dependent on where the Liberals want to be retaking ridings.

They need to retake ridings around Canada. Québec and Ontario are crucial of course, but so is the West - they cannot allow to leave a large and wealthy chunk of Canada go Conservative unchallenged. It's Harper's powerbase, and so long as they don't bring the fight to him he'll bring the fight to them.

They don't even need to win the West. Just campaigning will force Harper to move resources back there rather than siphoning western resources into his eastern campaign, and that will weaken him in the east and allow them to break through.

saggio · May 2011

hippofant wrote: »

As for a permanent leader... the best choice might also depend on where the Liberals want to be retaking ground - Ontario or Quebec. The election strategies might be highly different depending: for example, choosing Rae or Trudeau (if those are the only choices) would be highly dependent on where the Liberals want to be retaking ridings.

...because a guy named Trudeau is ever so electable in Quebec.

oldmanken · May 2011

Why are people even talking about Trudeau... the man is not ready.

Richy · May 2011

saggio wrote: »

hippofant wrote: »

As for a permanent leader... the best choice might also depend on where the Liberals want to be retaking ground - Ontario or Quebec. The election strategies might be highly different depending: for example, choosing Rae or Trudeau (if those are the only choices) would be highly dependent on where the Liberals want to be retaking ridings.

...because a guy named Trudeau is ever so electable in Quebec.

I think that's what he meant. Ontario or Québec, Rae or Trudeau. Rae is not electable in Ontario but would fare as well as any other Liberal in Québec, Trudeau would be popular in Ontario but hit a brick wall in Québec.

Torso Boy · May 2011

Not only is Trudeau's suitability a huge question mark, he's been very hesitant about the leadership publicly. On the CBC, just after the election, he gave the impression he didn't want to put his children in the situation his father put him in. Maybe I'm reading into it a bit, but he seemed pretty adamant that the job wasn't for him in the near future.

Edith_Bagot-Dix · May 2011

Richy wrote: »

Aegis wrote: »

Richy wrote: »

Meanwhile, the Liberals are pushing themselves further into irrelevance with these manufactured problems. Shouldn't the question to answer be "do we have an interim leader who can and wants to be the permanent leader" before debating "do we want to allow it"?

This really seems to come off as "how do we keep Bob Rae out of the leadership position"? CBC even seemed to implicitly take that undertone when they interviewed Rae about the whole thing a week or so ago.

Doesn't seem to be all that helpful to actually coalescing as a party to regroup.

Well I don't know much about Bob Rae, since I was out of Ontario when he was Premier, but my impression is that there is a lot of bad feelings left over about his time as Premier, whether it's justified or not. And since Ontario is crucial for the Liberals to re-take to push the Cons out, I don't think he'd be the best choice for leader. A campaign that starts with "I know you don't like him, but really here's why you shouldn't feel that way" won't end well.

The problem is that if the Liberals select Bob Rae as their leader, two things will happen:

1) People will think they're not a serious party, like the NDP

2) They'll only win 30 or so seats in Ontario

:winky:

Seriously, though, Bob Rae is a divisive figure in the party, since he's one of the Dippers who joined the Liberals for the perceived legitimacy, and he would face a problem in Ontario (for things that were, at best, partially his fault). Selecting Rae as a permanent leader would indicating a profound willingness to continue to fight in a burning house. The internal Liberal power struggle will likely resolve itself in the near future, anyway, as Bay Street/Martin/Ignatieff Liberals will probably decamp for the Conservative party, as the Liberal party apparatus is only useful to them due to its proximity to the seat of power. Folks like that won't be around for a long period spent in the political wilderness.

shryke · May 2011

Edith_Bagot-Dix wrote: »

Richy wrote: »

Aegis wrote: »

Richy wrote: »

Meanwhile, the Liberals are pushing themselves further into irrelevance with these manufactured problems. Shouldn't the question to answer be "do we have an interim leader who can and wants to be the permanent leader" before debating "do we want to allow it"?

This really seems to come off as "how do we keep Bob Rae out of the leadership position"? CBC even seemed to implicitly take that undertone when they interviewed Rae about the whole thing a week or so ago.

Doesn't seem to be all that helpful to actually coalescing as a party to regroup.

Well I don't know much about Bob Rae, since I was out of Ontario when he was Premier, but my impression is that there is a lot of bad feelings left over about his time as Premier, whether it's justified or not. And since Ontario is crucial for the Liberals to re-take to push the Cons out, I don't think he'd be the best choice for leader. A campaign that starts with "I know you don't like him, but really here's why you shouldn't feel that way" won't end well.

The problem is that if the Liberals select Bob Rae as their leader, two things will happen:

1) People will think they're not a serious party, like the NDP

2) They'll only win 30 or so seats in Ontario

:winky:

Seriously, though, Bob Rae is a divisive figure in the party, since he's one of the Dippers who joined the Liberals for the perceived legitimacy, and he would face a problem in Ontario (for things that were, at best, partially his fault). Selecting Rae as a permanent leader would indicating a profound willingness to continue to fight in a burning house. The internal Liberal power struggle will likely resolve itself in the near future, anyway, as Bay Street/Martin/Ignatieff Liberals will probably decamp for the Conservative party, as the Liberal party apparatus is only useful to them due to its proximity to the seat of power. Folks like that won't be around for a long period spent in the political wilderness.

You really think so?

Those types have never struck me as being at all comfortable with the socially conservative wing of the Conservative party who are very obviously running the show over there. They'd have maybe decamped for the PC party, but not for Reform.

And even their economic views aren't much overlap with Conservatives.

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