Monday, April 25, 2011

Stephen Harper might well be...

...the best thing ever to happen to the federal NDP.

I believe this is called a boomerang effect.

6 comments:

sunsin said...

Even if Harpy gets a majority, the NDP will be solidly established as the Sane Alternative and will eat him alive come the election after this one. He'll just get to do more damage before being flushed down History's toilet, that's all.

Naturally, I hope the sod loses this one, but it's important to recognize that he's killed the Conservatives in Canada, no matter what date is on the official epitaph.

A Eliz. said...

Yes and if no strategic voting goes on, then Harper could go up the middle and get his majority

Alison said...

Interesting caution from Pundit's Guide on the methodology behind strategic voting sites and how they go wrong. Well worth a read.

I would add one more reason to hers.
It's obviously a complete fuck up that our fptp system makes strategic voting necessary in some ridings. I think there's a danger that strategic voting allows us a sense of reclaiming some of that lost democratic right - the personal satisfaction of feeling we are using a bad system against itself - when often it doesn't.

Vote safe out there.

Joe Visionary said...

Having witnessed Mulroney and what happens when Canadians give a rube a second term, it may very well be that the Calgary cowpie will become at least as reviled when he goes to implement mandatory catechism classes for non-Christian immigrants.

A second term would embolden him to such monkeyshines, and I'm sure it would warm his heart.

Dana said...

You could just as easily flip your post title around as well. This NDP surge could well be exactly what Harper has been needing.

One way or another the landscape has changed for certain.

I can only hope that the morning of May 3 doesn't dawn on a Harper majority. He only needs one 4 year term to achieve what he wants. And once he's done it there won't be any going back to the way things used to be. I mean that just as strongly as it sounds too. Once the provinces have been ceded tax points they won't be giving them back. Once the US HMOs are here they can't be booted again. Once the corporatists own Parliament hill lock, stock and barrel ther won't be any getting rid of them...

...short of armed insurrection...

...and that ain't gonna happen in dear, old passive, presbyterian Canada.

rev.paperboy said...

I fear Dana could be correct. The problem isn't that the NDP are surging or that the Liberals are collapsing. The problem is that, in Ontario - you remember Ontario, the province with all the seats in the House of Commons? - the Liberals haven't collapsed enough that all their votes are going to the NDP and the NDP aren't surging quite enough to win 50 seats here. What we have is a classic vote split and unless people start voting strategically by riding, or jump en masse to one party or the other, Harper is going to get his majority and it isn't going to matter who the opposition leader is.