Political Compass

As the US election rumbles into its final 2 weeks, the name-calling from the right has become shriller and stupider than ever. Wingnuts on both sides of the 49th have taken to continually and inaccurately and irritatingly referring to Barack Obama as a "Marxist" and a "Socialist". Therefore, I thought it would be instructive to take a look at where all the parties and candidates, Canadian and USian, stand on the Political Compass.

First, Canada's political parties:

Stephen Harper is to the left of his own party:

Now here's the chart for the US election, with Stephen Harper added to show where he stands in relation to the American candidates. And... whoops! Harpercons take note: Barack Obama is just slightly more Marxist than Stephen Harper (but not nearly as Marxist as the Pope).

Dion announces he'll step down (later)

Kady O'Malley liveblogs his speech here.

Sad. Where do the Liberals go from here, I wonder.

*UPDATE: He'll step down when an interim leader is decided, not immediately. Whenever.

Dion expected to step down Monday

Really, this time. Unless he changes his mind over the weekend, Stephane Dion has called a press conference for Monday where it's expected he will step down:

"Stéphane Dion's short and troubled career as the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada is expected to come to an end on Monday.

Liberal insiders say that unless Mr. Dion changes his mind over the weekend, he will be stepping down, having been persuaded to show himself and his family some mercy after nearly two years of being punched around in the political arena.

Mr. Dion, who vowed in the closing days of the election campaign that "I am not a quitter," had wanted to remain opposition leader, fight for his leadership and face an automatic postelection leadership review in May.

However, during several days of secluded reflection and consultation with party officials, friends and colleagues, the 53-year-old Montreal MP was persuaded that such a battle would create turmoil in the party, would cost too much money and could fail."

It's the only reasonable course. There's no point in Dion carrying on to a leadership review that he couldn't possibly survive, at the helm of a party that's lining up behind him not in support but to push him overboard. Delaying the inevitable would only cause more disarray and damage to the Liberal brand.

The Liberals need to prove to supporters and to the electorate that they're a viable and robust party rather than rigor-mortised roadkill on the Canadian political highway. That won't happen as long as their leader is Harper's punching bag.

What next -- Part II

What a difference a day makes:

"Stephane Dion is expected to announce today that he will step aside as leader of Canada's Liberal Party following a loss in this week's federal election, the Toronto Star reported."

Too bad, because I think he's actually capable in the ways that count -- it's just that at this time and in this political environment, voters apparently want someone who's capable in the ways that don't count.

WTF? UPDATE: Dion won't step down. (CBC changed the article at the link, so I replaced it with a Bloomberg article. Bad CBC -- updating is okay, down the memory hole isn't.)

What next?

Given the NEW New Government we woke up with this morning (meet the New New Government, same as the Old New Government), there's obviously some work that needs to be done to remedy the stasis in Canadian politics. What?

Liberal leadership review? (Hate to say it but "Dion is not a leader". Nice guy, but not a leader.) Who? Who's our Obama?

Coalition left-ish party? (Pretty extreme and unlikely, and according to yesterday's numbers, no guarantee of electoral success since the CPC won more ridings than the Liberals, NDP and Greens combined.)

New strategy for progressive parties, like maybe, uh, start attacking the CPC instead of each other?

Or how about every voter just shows up at the next election and refuses their ballots on the grounds that nobody deserves their vote? (Heh -- a dream of mine, just had to throw it in there.)

Discuss.

Networks call Conservative minority

Well that was exciting! So nothing has changed, except that Harper has extended his mandate by a couple of years.

How much money did this cost us!?!??

UPDATE: In other news, the CPC's Naked Mayor lost her bid for the seat in Skeena-Bulkley Valley. (Just thought you'd want to know.)

READ EM & WEEP: By the numbers:
CPC - 143
Liberal - 77
BQ - 49
NDP - 37
IND - 2

Holy cow, only 12 seats shy of a majority for the Cons. And some of these races are squeakers -- Keith Martin was re-elected for the Libs in Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca by 68 votes!? Yikes!

Attention British Columbian voters

Ross K has a post up on endangered BC ridings that require strategic voting action.

Sorry this is so late, but I've been sick in bed all day (I voted in the advance polls thank god, so I didn't have to drag my ass out to vote), but anyone on their way out the door to vote might want to have a look at this first.

Then get out there and stop those cons!

Countdown to Election Day

Yes, there is an election going on in Canada tomorrow. I admit to being completely and utterly mesmerized by the election south of the border -- in part because of the drama, but also because whatever they do affects the world, which means us. This is no doubt one of the reasons Harper chose the timing he did -- get the thing over with while nobody's paying attention.

But I am paying attention, and something that really stands out about this election is the diversity of those who are unimpressed with Harper. That includes the usual -- liberals, greens, NDPers -- but also social conservatives, who appear to be staging a bit of a revolt. Perpetually-aggrieved Socons are unhappy with Harper because he won't address their pet issues, and they rightly feel that helping to give him a majority would just prove to him that he can continue to ignore them. Some are talking about voting CHP, some about forming another party. Excellent ideas if you ask me! No, seriously.

Why not? If there was a real socon alternative, they could vote for it and stop asking why their issues are always ignored -- the reason would be glaringly obvious, since they'd have no chance of winning a seat anywhere. The CPC could return to red tory glory, the only viable form of Canadian conservatism. Whoever held power could stop wasting time and taxpayers' money farting around with idiocy like "fetal homicide" bills and concentrate on the real issues -- hello the economy? Everybody's happy!

On Dion and "gaffes"

So Dion had an awkward interview moment -- part of an interview that was supposed to have been re-done and not aired -- and over that the CPC, enabled by CTV, goes apeshit? Their reaction seems a little mean-spirited and overwrought to me. And the National Post (yes, that National Post) concurs:

"Liberal leader Stephane Dion misunderstands a complicated question and the Conservatives trot out leader Stephen Harper to declare it the definitive proof this Liberal leader is unfit to serve as prime minister." [...]

"Aside from the questionable ethics of CTV airing a segment when both Mr. Dion and interviewer Steve Murphy twice agreed to restart the interview to clarify the question, this is a damning insight into how desperate the Conservatives have become in their battle to belittle a Liberal leader they never dreamed could pose a threat to their government.

Before showing the unedited video that both sides had agreed not to air, CTV host Mike Duffy urged Canadians to fire up their video recorders to capture a moment he predicted would haunt the Liberal leader for the rest of the campaign."

The CPC called this election thinking they'd sail straight to victory and a majority government. Now they're not so sure they'll even win a minority, and this kind of picky nastiness just highlights their rapidly-evaporating confidence. But hey, looks good on them to show their true colours, however inadvertently.

Oh yeah, and Mike Duffy is a douchebag and CTV blows dead bears.

HAHAHAHAHAHA!

Just go read. (But down the coffee first.)

Some great stock-buying opportunities

Woohoo! Buy stocks while they're down! That's Harper's economic strategy?

"I think there's probably some great buying opportunities emerging in the stock market as a consequence of all this panic," Harper told reporters as the S&P/TSX fell for the fifth straight day.

Although he's probably right about that, I'm not really interested in investing at this moment, I'm interested in keeping what I've got. I suspect most people feel the same way, especially those with huge balances owing on their mortgages. Good time to buy stocks? Riiiiiiiiight.

What, if anything, has Harper said about how he'll tackle the real economic challenges of the next few years? This is the one and only thing I'm interested in this election cycle. Anybody got a Coles Notes version?

What about the Canadian election?

All I can say is, "what Bruce said".

Yep. That's the gist.

BushHarper

Ha. Look what's popping up on TPM (for Canadian ISPs, anyway): "BushHarper".

Harper's Canada in 60 seconds

New from ACR



Good work!

Bad math

With his new proposal to get tough on 14-year-old criminals, Harper's definitely clicked into something that resonates with his pitchfork and flaming torch-wielding base. Nobody seems to really care that a lot of kids make mistakes and do stupid things, and that wrecking their lives by sending them to hardcore prison probably won't result in a better citizen when it's all said and done.

It should be obvious to anyone with two halves to rub together why this is a bad idea, but it seems like a lot of people are okay with it -- "if you don't want to get gang-raped, don't do the crime" is the rationale. What I find curious is that most of these are the same people who were all in favour of raising the age of consent to 16.

So 14 is old enough to get gang-raped in prison, but not old enough to have consensual sex with a 21-year-old girl or boyfriend -- that sound about right? Because to me, something about this doesn't quite compute. But again, maybe it's just me.

He loves it

And so do I:

"A provincial pro-life group is endorsing two federal Conservative candidates in Winnipeg -- even though one doesn't want to be publicly identified, the group's leader says." [...]

"One candidate is Conservative Rod Bruinooge, who is angling for re-election in the Winnipeg South riding. Slykerman said a second candidate -- identified by a media report as Trevor Kennerd, running in Winnipeg South Centre -- doesn't like his name being used.

"I can't say for one... he doesn't like to have his name stand, but Rod Bruinooge does," Slykerman said." [...]

"Slykerman said Bruinooge has happily accepted her offer to help.

"He loves it," she said. Slykerman said, however, she was unable to divulge the identity of the other candidate after that candidate told her not to disclose it."

Little late for that, wouldn't you say? Fuck, these fetus fetishists are so cataclysmically dull-witted. Trevor Kennerd's name and endorsement by Campaign Life Coalition are all over the internets, including in that same article.

So who is this guy Kennerd? The Globe & Mail says he's one of the ones to watch. Can't say I disagree, especially if he's being endorsed by Campaign Fetus Fetish but isn't being forthcoming about it. What else might he not be upfront about?

Harper's flawed fundamentals

From A Creative Revolution:




(Nice work, guys!)

Stay classy, Conservatives

Oooh, right out of the gate the Conservative Party shows its class!!! 

First there was the commercial that featured a puffin taking a dump on Stephane Dion (I thought my sense of humour was sophomoric) and worse, "Dionbook" (which seems to have conveniently exceeded its alloted bandwidth).  "Dionbook" isn't necessarily a bad idea (again, sophomoric, but so what) -- except that it targets Liberal bloggers as well as Dion.  These bloggers aren't politicians, they're private citizens, and as such one would think they'd be off-limits.  What. The. Fuck!!??   PSA has the dirt (but not as much dirt as the Conservatives, obviously).

It looks like Harper is making good on his prophesy that this will be a "nasty" campaign.

Heehee

Sweet.

I wonder if Steverino will be able to stall Couillard's book like the McCain campaign is stalling Troopergate? Different scenarios, yes, one's before the courts and one's private enterprise, but still... could the government get an injunction to keep it from being published before the election?

Here goes

Get ready for more crap than ever in the mail:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper arrived Sunday morning at Rideau Hall to formally ask Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean to dissolve Parliament for the country's 40th general election on Oct. 14 on grounds it has become "dysfunctional."

Mr. Harper is left 24 Sussex Dr. for a drive down the street to Rideau Hall, the governor general's official residence.

"I feel good," he told reporters as he walked into the hall.

I knew that you would, Steve.