Still, I hope to be changing this icon soon

[sabotabby]

I would be much more excited about the prospect of a spring election if I thought the composition of the government was likely to change. But like I've said before, Harper could eat a live kitten on the National and my resentful, spiteful countrymen would probably still vote for him.

I don't understand it, and I don't understand why the Liberals don't get rid of Ignatieff, either. No one likes him. Not that I'd vote Liberal in any case, but traditionally, most Canadians do. Iggy's stupider than Dion and yet comes off as more of an egghead. He has a clear disdain for most of the population, and he's resolutely uncharismatic. At this point, with Tories' rampant disregard for the rule of law completely out in the open, the Liberals should be able to run a half-rotted turnip for Prime Minister and carry off a majority of seats. And yet, they hold fast to the one person whom no one wants to see running the country.

I'm not going to say anything bad about Layton, even though I generally have bad things to say about Layton, because I am not convinced that he will live through the election.

So that's my deep thoughts on the democratic process. I guess it's good because I'm unlikely to be disappointed by federal politics at this point.

Comments

[corwin77.livejournal.com]

I think I'd be MORE likely to vote for Harper if he ate a kitten on TV...

[sabotabby]

I'd vote for the kitten.

[corwin77.livejournal.com]

I suppose if the kitten won that epic David and Goliath battle against Harper's diabolic hunger I'd have to vote for it too.

[sabotabby]

Honestly, even if it didn't. A partially digested kitten is still better than our other options.

[troubleinchina.livejournal.com]

I think there's a huge problem right now in that no one who isn't a leader is allowed to be anything in the parties anymore. Back In The Day we were always hearing about MPs and major party members, from Deborah Gray to Anne McLellan, from Stockwell Day to Alexa McDonough. Now, I'd be hard pressed to tell you who's in the parties beyond the leader, so I can't imagine getting excited about anyone in the Liberals right now.

[sabotabby]

Yeah. I mean, I know who my MP is at any given time, or who the candidates for MP are during an election. But them others, not so much, other than NDP people, because there are a few good ones who tend to be responsive. If Chow were in charge I might even get excited, but she actually appears to be one of those politicians who is not power-hungry enough.

[troubleinchina.livejournal.com]

Can you imagine if she were, though? She already gets enough racism and sexism thrown at her for being married to Layton. If the media could at all paint her as a dragon lady that was out to abuse her husband's power in order to augment her own, it would be such a nightmare for her.

Which is terrible, absolutely terrible. :(

[sabotabby]

Shit. You're right. God, that's depressing.

[frandroid.livejournal.com]

Jack'll definitely live through ;) but if he's not part of a ruling coalition on the other side of these elections, and he's lost seats, he's toast. Thomas Mulcair is chomping at the bit. I don't think I like Mulcair any more than Layton, but he's not going to hurt either. Plus the whole "might finally get more than one seat in Québec" thing, which would delight me if that meant driving a stake through the Bloc Québécois (or at least make Duceppe retire...)

[sabotabby]

I know nothing about Mulcair. Does anyone decent have a chance?

[frandroid.livejournal.com]

Mulcair is the only the third NDP MP ever in Québec, the only one to have won his re-election, and the only one to have won in a federal election... Firoza likes his appearances on CTV's Question Period. He had a pretty good record as Liberal environment minister before resigning.

It's possible that a Mulcair leadership might attract more high-profile candidates, people that would usually go to the Bloc that might be tempted to ride on his coattails. I hear the NDP has serious hopes on a couple more seats this time around too, so it's getting interesting.

[queerasmoi.livejournal.com]

I don't know much of Mulcair either but I hear he is a very polarizing figure. He entered provincial politics as a member of Charest's Quebec Liberals, a party that is right-of-centre-leaning (but also skewed by the province's separatist-vs-non dichotomy). He is definitely not a "traditional" NDPer.

[frandroid.livejournal.com]

He's a reverse Dosanjh/Rae :) But he's been talking the good talk since then.

He was rather opposed to a large Mont Orford sweet deal for a promoter, which lead to his being demoted to the more junior gov't post, from which he resigned. So there's some ethics there, or at least the ethics lined up with his ego ;) which I think is bigger than Jack's, if that's possible.

[montreality.livejournal.com]

I didn't know Jack Layton is still quite ill :( I stopped following NDP news and I'm now independent (I was NDP at some point and even attended the federal convention in Quebec city in 2006). I have no idea who I'd vote for in the event of an election. I live in Gilles Duceppe's riding which makes it near impossible for any other candidate to win.

When I voted last time, I voted for the NDP candidate because parties were at least being compensated financially for votes they received. Does anyone know if that's still the case? The Conservatives wanted to abolish this a few months ago.

[ltmurnau.livejournal.com]

I think you nailed it well and succinctly, by which I mean you agree with what I've been thinking. Get outta my head!

Seriously, my biggest worry over this is the not-outside chance of a Harper majority. Last Federal election was very low for voter turnout, can't remember if it was an all-time low, and maybe even fewer will turn up this time - it's this kind of cynicism and disengagement that is the greatest threat to what's left of our democracy. One thing we do know is that old and ignorant people vote a lot, and normally vote Conservative, so if enough of them show up this time it will hand power to a Conservative majority (no matter what actual protion of the popular vote they might control), and then you will see rule by real fiat, not the let's-pretend variety we have now.

(I should note that the previous sentence refers to the subset formed by the intersection of the sets "Old" AND "Ignorant", and is not meant to imply that all old people are ignorant, nor that all ignorant people are old. I don't know how to write this in symbolic logic.)