Monday, May 04, 2009

Tories Bid To Rig Anders Nomination Successful

From The Calgary Herald:

Despite a hard-fought bid to unseat him, Conservative MP Rob Anders will not face an immediate political battle for the Tory nomination in his Calgary West riding.

An official with the Conservative Party of Canada told the Herald Saturday that none of its incumbent MPs faced enough votes to trigger a nomination contest in any riding, including Calgary West.


No mention in the Herald article, though, that the Tories arbitrarily changed the percentage of votes required from riding association members to force a nomination contest at 2/3rds. As Conservative party activist Clyde Fulton put it:

A balloting process requiring two-thirds of all members to request a nomination meeting is a sham with a predetermined outcome. While one could legitimately argue whether a simple majority or some greater percentage of voting members is appropriate, two-thirds of all registered members is an absurd hurdle rate clearly designed to simply acclaim all existing MPs, while wasting party resources in a pathetic attempt to give the appearance of having consulted the membership.

Just the latest example of Tories stiffing their own grass-roots. Have fun with Canada's "worst MP" , Tories.

12 comments:

Ti-Guy said...

You should always use this visual aid when posting on Rob Anders.

It's too bad Albertans don't have much of a sense of humour. Replacing this knob with a candidate, part of whose last name is glans would be worthwhile on that basis alone.

MgS said...

To the contrary, it's quite possible that voters in Calgary West have an extremely refined sense of humour - or irony at the very least...they keep electing that dolt.

Kurt Phillips said...

Just want to mention that I live in this ass hat's constituency. Not all of us are complete tools here in Alberta.

Ti-Guy said...

Just want to mention that I live in this ass hat's constituency. Not all of us are complete tools here in Alberta.Oh, I know that. Unfortunately, the sensible Albertans are overshadowed by the obnoxious ones.

It was real eye-opener for me when I first encountered Albertans en masse in grad school. Out of dozens, there were two or three loud-mouth jerks (Deb Grey, Ralph Klein types) who, it seemed to me, had never been told to shut the hell up in their entire lives. They'd make boorish, anti-Eastern Canadian remarks as if they were statements of fact. The sensible Albertans seemed to be deathly afraid of them.

Niles said...

Keep in mind too, that just to make sure no one could make the 2/3 limit, I believe selling memberships was retroactively cut off and the time period to vote was very short (surprise!)

Just think what the Cons would do if they could rerig federal election standards the way they're casually and openly manipulating this in Alberta.

If the commentary on tv and radio is any indication, there are a lot of furious people in Anders' riding. Whether that will translate into a challenger as an independent or other party remains to be seen. It's popcorn time for the rest of us in town.

Saskboy said...

With all those unhappy Conservatives on that link throwing their memberships away, you wonder where they find replacements?

"Have fun with Canada's "worst MP" ."
A new TV series hosted by Garth Turner and Ben Mulroney?

--
captcha "hoselib"

Ti-Guy said...

A new TV series hosted by Garth Turner and Ben Mulroney?Don't give the teevee execs any ideas. I don't even want to laugh about this stuff anymore.

Saskboy said...

Laugher is healing, even if it's forced. Check out laugh yoga.

Gerrard787 said...

Why no threads on the great Liberal convention? Did you hear the Ig's speech where he basically poached all of Obama's best lines?

The lamest Obama ripoff: "We can."

Ti-Guy said...

Laugher is healing, even if it's forced.

I used to be able to laugh at the wingnuttery but it. just. doesn't. end. The revelatons of horrific abuses on the part of the Republicans (to which Anders is linked, by the way, having campaigned for über-wingnut Senator Inhofe) just precludes any of this being funny.

I'll laugh when the war crimes tribunals get going.

Gerrard787 said...

That's quite a stretch ti. Linking something completely unrelated that Anders did in 1994 to something completely unrelated that occurred a few years ago.

Nice try though.

Gerrard787 said...

"It just appears strange to you because your brain is incapable of detecting patterns."Lefties see patterns where none exist. It's called paranoia.