kEiThZ
Superstar
I meant with their environmental policies...a la green shift. I think the Canadian public would support a more European style industrial policy. It would sell well in Ontario and Quebec.
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Who's going to be the next Liberal leader?
- Thread starter Moonmoth
- Start date
I meant with their environmental policies...a la green shift. I think the Canadian public would support a more European style industrial policy. It would sell well in Ontario and Quebec.
kEiThZ
Superstar
keithz says everything and anything to be confrontational, so I wouldn't read much into it.
I would love for others to compare our posts and assess who is the more confrontational one here. You spew quite a lot of opinion and rhetoric in your posts.
MetroMan
Senior Member
Although I would morn his loss as Ontario Premier, Dalton McGuinty would make an excellent choice.
adma
Superstar
Schwing.
Brandon716
Senior Member
Schwing.
Who is that?
Prometheus The Supremo
►Member №41+⅜◄
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jon stewartism
no disrespect, but i'd like to mine just a little south of those mountains and find me a nice red juicy ruby. ohhhhhh! bada-bing! no disrespect. i'm just sayin', no disrespect.
no disrespect, but i'd like to mine just a little south of those mountains and find me a nice red juicy ruby. ohhhhhh! bada-bing! no disrespect. i'm just sayin', no disrespect.
afransen
Senior Member
A certain MP from Brampton, by the looks of it.
Prometheus The Supremo
►Member №41+⅜◄
Member Bio
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2007
- Messages
- 4,107
- Reaction score
- 5
- Location
- a strange reality, bizarro toronto
kEiThZ
Superstar
http://www.maxim.com/Girls/3RubyDhallaCanada/slideshow/41029/4151.aspx
Much better profile!
Belinda Stronach made that list too...seems the Liberals certainly have a knack for getting the hottest women pols in the world....
Much better profile!
Belinda Stronach made that list too...seems the Liberals certainly have a knack for getting the hottest women pols in the world....
Brandon716
Senior Member
H
Hydrogen
Guest
Only re-energized crew can bail out sinking Liberal ship
Lost in debate over leadership is the fact that party has failed to mobilize membership
Oct 18, 2008 04:30 AM
THOMAS AXWORTHY
For three elections the Liberal party has been slowly drifting down from Jean Chr̩tien's era of majority governments Рa decline that goes beyond the tactics of a particular campaign or the personality of a given leader. There is a structural defect in the DNA of the Liberal party itself. Until this is addressed, no quick fix will arrest the decline.
The Liberal party had allowed itself to become a flagship of convenience for passing traders, like David Emerson, and in so doing it has lost much of its crew. It still has a captain and several first mates anxious to move up the ladder but very few stokers in the boiler room.
Political parties are volunteer organizations. With volunteers' time being so pinched, intense motivation to commit to a cause is needed. Less than 2 per cent of Canadians are members of political parties and even those who take out a membership are not very active. Survey results show that most members attend only one meeting a year. And a mere 59 per cent of Canadians voted on Oct. 14 – the lowest percentage in Canadian history. Our mass democracy is losing mass.
While all parties in Western democracies are experiencing a decline in participation rates, the Liberal party is in particular trouble. It is a centre party as opposed to true believers on the right and left who make up in zeal what they lack in popular support. Fundraising data proves this point: from 2004 to mid-2008, the Conservative party raised 2 1/2 times more than the Liberals ($73 million to $28 million). The Conservatives did this through small, widely distributed donations. In 2007, they received 159,000 donations, the NDP 53,000 and only 36,000 gave to the Liberal party.
In assessing campaigns, the media tend to focus on the air war – the leader's tour and the coverage it generates, advertising and the debates. This aspect of campaigning is obviously critical, but without a ground campaign to get voters to the polls the best advertising will not be enough to swing a close election. Parties still need active members. The Liberal party needs them more than most because it has a large potential voter base that needs more encouragement to vote.
In their preoccupation with leadership, media and party insiders are missing the real issue. The primary challenge for the Liberal party is that its cause is no longer compelling enough to persuade Canadians to give up their leisure time to join its ranks.
Party renewal, therefore, is not some romantic notion pursued by idealists. Renewal demands hard-headed realism that requires a Liberal party overhaul; rebuilding itself brick by brick, riding-by-riding so it is once again competitive on the ground.
On election night I watched the returns with Barney Danson, Dorothy Davey and several other veterans of past Liberal campaigns. Danson, a former defence minster, recalled that he would send his most experienced volunteers into the large apartment complexes to ensure turnout. Davey, a legendary organizer, recalled inviting undecided citizens for coffee. Others emphasized the importance of signs to raise morale among the troops and help name recognition. None of these tasks can be accomplished without active volunteers.
Social scientists back up the insights of these veteran campaigners. In Politics is Local: National Politics at the Grassroots, R. Kenneth Carty and Monroe Eagles assess elections from 1988 to 2000 and their data confirm the common-sense observations of experienced campaign managers: Good local campaigns can influence 4 per cent to 5 per cent of the vote; the addition of 100 volunteers shifts votes; signs shift votes and local campaign spending shifts votes. In the 2000 election, for example, Liberal candidates spent only 72 per cent of their allowed local limit. On average, candidates could have spent $19,000 more. If every Liberal candidate had spent to their legal limit, the Liberal vote could have increased by 5 per cent. And since public subsidies give the parties $1.75 per vote, unharvested votes cost the Liberal party millions.
Further, early data show that only three percentage points determined the winners in 25 ridings across the country last Tuesday. In southwestern Ontario, for example, five ridings were separated by 1 per cent. Four of these were won by the Conservative party and, had the Liberal party won them instead, Stephen Harper would be even less satisfied and Stéphane Dion less worried about the results of Canada's 40th election.
So, how can the Liberals get these 100 volunteers per constituency or ensure that a local fundraising campaign reaches the legal limit? Local ridings that raise money should keep more of it, rather than sending it to central headquarters. And party members should have a real say in policy direction. If the Liberal membership, as a whole, had been given the opportunity to debate issues like the Green Shift, the election results might have been different.
A reformed policy process should begin with a thinkers conference, preferably in Kingston, to remind Liberals of Lester Pearson's great initiative in 1960; every riding should debate the directions suggested and then there should be a great party rally or mass Internet vote to decide on priorities.
More than a leadership convention, the Liberal party needs a period of self-examination. The good ship Liberal is taking on water and needs to energize her volunteer crew to bail her out.
Thomas S. Axworthy is the chair of the Centre for the Study of Democracy at Queen's University.
http://www.thestar.com/FederalElection/article/519696
Lost in debate over leadership is the fact that party has failed to mobilize membership
Oct 18, 2008 04:30 AM
THOMAS AXWORTHY
For three elections the Liberal party has been slowly drifting down from Jean Chr̩tien's era of majority governments Рa decline that goes beyond the tactics of a particular campaign or the personality of a given leader. There is a structural defect in the DNA of the Liberal party itself. Until this is addressed, no quick fix will arrest the decline.
The Liberal party had allowed itself to become a flagship of convenience for passing traders, like David Emerson, and in so doing it has lost much of its crew. It still has a captain and several first mates anxious to move up the ladder but very few stokers in the boiler room.
Political parties are volunteer organizations. With volunteers' time being so pinched, intense motivation to commit to a cause is needed. Less than 2 per cent of Canadians are members of political parties and even those who take out a membership are not very active. Survey results show that most members attend only one meeting a year. And a mere 59 per cent of Canadians voted on Oct. 14 – the lowest percentage in Canadian history. Our mass democracy is losing mass.
While all parties in Western democracies are experiencing a decline in participation rates, the Liberal party is in particular trouble. It is a centre party as opposed to true believers on the right and left who make up in zeal what they lack in popular support. Fundraising data proves this point: from 2004 to mid-2008, the Conservative party raised 2 1/2 times more than the Liberals ($73 million to $28 million). The Conservatives did this through small, widely distributed donations. In 2007, they received 159,000 donations, the NDP 53,000 and only 36,000 gave to the Liberal party.
In assessing campaigns, the media tend to focus on the air war – the leader's tour and the coverage it generates, advertising and the debates. This aspect of campaigning is obviously critical, but without a ground campaign to get voters to the polls the best advertising will not be enough to swing a close election. Parties still need active members. The Liberal party needs them more than most because it has a large potential voter base that needs more encouragement to vote.
In their preoccupation with leadership, media and party insiders are missing the real issue. The primary challenge for the Liberal party is that its cause is no longer compelling enough to persuade Canadians to give up their leisure time to join its ranks.
Party renewal, therefore, is not some romantic notion pursued by idealists. Renewal demands hard-headed realism that requires a Liberal party overhaul; rebuilding itself brick by brick, riding-by-riding so it is once again competitive on the ground.
On election night I watched the returns with Barney Danson, Dorothy Davey and several other veterans of past Liberal campaigns. Danson, a former defence minster, recalled that he would send his most experienced volunteers into the large apartment complexes to ensure turnout. Davey, a legendary organizer, recalled inviting undecided citizens for coffee. Others emphasized the importance of signs to raise morale among the troops and help name recognition. None of these tasks can be accomplished without active volunteers.
Social scientists back up the insights of these veteran campaigners. In Politics is Local: National Politics at the Grassroots, R. Kenneth Carty and Monroe Eagles assess elections from 1988 to 2000 and their data confirm the common-sense observations of experienced campaign managers: Good local campaigns can influence 4 per cent to 5 per cent of the vote; the addition of 100 volunteers shifts votes; signs shift votes and local campaign spending shifts votes. In the 2000 election, for example, Liberal candidates spent only 72 per cent of their allowed local limit. On average, candidates could have spent $19,000 more. If every Liberal candidate had spent to their legal limit, the Liberal vote could have increased by 5 per cent. And since public subsidies give the parties $1.75 per vote, unharvested votes cost the Liberal party millions.
Further, early data show that only three percentage points determined the winners in 25 ridings across the country last Tuesday. In southwestern Ontario, for example, five ridings were separated by 1 per cent. Four of these were won by the Conservative party and, had the Liberal party won them instead, Stephen Harper would be even less satisfied and Stéphane Dion less worried about the results of Canada's 40th election.
So, how can the Liberals get these 100 volunteers per constituency or ensure that a local fundraising campaign reaches the legal limit? Local ridings that raise money should keep more of it, rather than sending it to central headquarters. And party members should have a real say in policy direction. If the Liberal membership, as a whole, had been given the opportunity to debate issues like the Green Shift, the election results might have been different.
A reformed policy process should begin with a thinkers conference, preferably in Kingston, to remind Liberals of Lester Pearson's great initiative in 1960; every riding should debate the directions suggested and then there should be a great party rally or mass Internet vote to decide on priorities.
More than a leadership convention, the Liberal party needs a period of self-examination. The good ship Liberal is taking on water and needs to energize her volunteer crew to bail her out.
Thomas S. Axworthy is the chair of the Centre for the Study of Democracy at Queen's University.
http://www.thestar.com/FederalElection/article/519696
Brandon716
Senior Member
I agree the Liberal party has to re-energize its base. I hate the term "grassroots," so I'll just say it needs to get local again and start connecting with its own people. Especially in Quebec and Ontario.
The Conservative party gained a larger minority government despite the fact that the election last week garnered the Conservatives fewer votes than the vote they received in 2006.
Liberals just largely stayed home, and even the NDP had fewer voters than 2 years ago and somehow ended up with over 7 more MP's in their corner.
Part of this election was designed by Stephen Harper's team of social scientists. They knew Canadians would be disinterested in this election, they knew that being in the shadow of the never-ending American election that politics is like a malaise, and that it was the right time for the Cons to grab more votes with fewer voters. I give props to the Conservative office workers who are advising Harper on his election tactics, they ran a sleuth campaign ever since he got in office in January 2006 with ads from the beginning, and triggered an election in the shadow of an American election with a relatively unpopular Liberal leader.
More minority, possible majority, with fewer voters. Someone knew what they were doing at the Cons headquarters.
I'd love to see the kind of strong leadership over at Liberal headquarters to get the schedule back in order and get people interested again. I want to see the Liberals fight for every vote, not expect votes. I don't consider the Liberals to be Canada's natural governing party, I think they need to learn to fight for every vote in every election. And I say this as a left leaning voter who can't stand the Cons...
Intellectually I agree with Stephane Dion, a new green economy with green priorities will help Canadians and the world for that matter. Encouraging green growth is key for the future, his mistake was making that his only campaign platform people knew him for. He will go down as one of the worst political campaigners in Liberal party history. Martin ran some tough ads and ran a somewhat decent campaign even, but he was part of the "sponsorship team" instead of being known as the Liberal team and was going against insurmountable odds with a party that had been in power for over a decade. I don't think Dion was tough enough.
I'm surprised that Ontarians didn't remember Flaherty's comments about Ontario's economy and that the Conservatives largely have a distaste for the province. I was thinking that the Conservatives themselves would keep them from retaining Ontario outside the GTA and south of the bay, but oh was I wrong...
The Conservative party gained a larger minority government despite the fact that the election last week garnered the Conservatives fewer votes than the vote they received in 2006.
Liberals just largely stayed home, and even the NDP had fewer voters than 2 years ago and somehow ended up with over 7 more MP's in their corner.
Part of this election was designed by Stephen Harper's team of social scientists. They knew Canadians would be disinterested in this election, they knew that being in the shadow of the never-ending American election that politics is like a malaise, and that it was the right time for the Cons to grab more votes with fewer voters. I give props to the Conservative office workers who are advising Harper on his election tactics, they ran a sleuth campaign ever since he got in office in January 2006 with ads from the beginning, and triggered an election in the shadow of an American election with a relatively unpopular Liberal leader.
More minority, possible majority, with fewer voters. Someone knew what they were doing at the Cons headquarters.
I'd love to see the kind of strong leadership over at Liberal headquarters to get the schedule back in order and get people interested again. I want to see the Liberals fight for every vote, not expect votes. I don't consider the Liberals to be Canada's natural governing party, I think they need to learn to fight for every vote in every election. And I say this as a left leaning voter who can't stand the Cons...
Intellectually I agree with Stephane Dion, a new green economy with green priorities will help Canadians and the world for that matter. Encouraging green growth is key for the future, his mistake was making that his only campaign platform people knew him for. He will go down as one of the worst political campaigners in Liberal party history. Martin ran some tough ads and ran a somewhat decent campaign even, but he was part of the "sponsorship team" instead of being known as the Liberal team and was going against insurmountable odds with a party that had been in power for over a decade. I don't think Dion was tough enough.
I'm surprised that Ontarians didn't remember Flaherty's comments about Ontario's economy and that the Conservatives largely have a distaste for the province. I was thinking that the Conservatives themselves would keep them from retaining Ontario outside the GTA and south of the bay, but oh was I wrong...
kEiThZ
Superstar
I don't think Liberals stayed home because they weren't energized or because they were distracted by the US elections. I think many just stayed home because they saw nothing they could vote for. The Green Shift was just a bad electoral platform. It was no Red Book.
And the Liberals have simply gotten soft over time. They have become the party of the elites. How many Conservative friendly law firms are there on Bay street? The public understands this implicitly and they are suspicious of a party that claims to fight for the little guy and then proposes to raise the price at the pumps...because they know exactly what's right for the little guy. A carbon tax may be good policy but that's exactly how it looks to the average voter. It might have passed muster in the 90s, but when a recession is looming and we have just come off a summer of record energy prices, the last thing the public wanted was a carbon tax.
Anyway, I'll be glad to see the Libs clean house and reconnect with the plebes. For the health of the country I'd like to see a strong opposition that keeps the extremist tendencies of the government in check.
And the Liberals have simply gotten soft over time. They have become the party of the elites. How many Conservative friendly law firms are there on Bay street? The public understands this implicitly and they are suspicious of a party that claims to fight for the little guy and then proposes to raise the price at the pumps...because they know exactly what's right for the little guy. A carbon tax may be good policy but that's exactly how it looks to the average voter. It might have passed muster in the 90s, but when a recession is looming and we have just come off a summer of record energy prices, the last thing the public wanted was a carbon tax.
Anyway, I'll be glad to see the Libs clean house and reconnect with the plebes. For the health of the country I'd like to see a strong opposition that keeps the extremist tendencies of the government in check.
Brandon716
Senior Member
"For the health of the country" you... what?
You voted against the Liberals this election, and now you want them to be a strong opposition with a strong voice in Parliament to keep the Cons in check?
Yea.. That makes a LOT of sense.
If you don't want Harper's extremist policies to go unchecked, you might have thought about voting for that opposition you claim to theoretically like, but not want to vote for.
But you'll be defending Harper and saying he's not an extremist in the next statement you make, so its all pointless keith. Your statements are entertaining to read at least. Especially with this killer hangover I've yet to get over and its after 3pm. Ugh.
You voted against the Liberals this election, and now you want them to be a strong opposition with a strong voice in Parliament to keep the Cons in check?
Yea.. That makes a LOT of sense.
If you don't want Harper's extremist policies to go unchecked, you might have thought about voting for that opposition you claim to theoretically like, but not want to vote for.
But you'll be defending Harper and saying he's not an extremist in the next statement you make, so its all pointless keith. Your statements are entertaining to read at least. Especially with this killer hangover I've yet to get over and its after 3pm. Ugh.
King of Kensington
Senior Member
Yup the Liberals have become sort a niche party of urban elites - people who are socially liberal, economically conservative, kind of like the DLC in the US or the Free Democrats in Germany. Look how well they do in Rosedale, St. Paul's, Westmount and Vancouver Quadra.