The Problem With E. May Running In

Saanich-Gulf Islands next election is that she will hand the riding to Gary Lunn.

“It does appear that the majority of people in this large riding don’t want a Conservative, but they can’t agree on any single alternative,” said Dr. Dennis Pilon, political science professor at the University of Victoria who specializes in BC politics.

[...]

“It would be better, in my mind, for May to try to find a riding where the New Democrats are hopeless, but they get a chunk of support, and then she can try and take over the Liberal party’s vote.”

On a sad side note, it looks like totally babelicious Briony Penn will not be running for the Liberal Party.

A Great Sound And Fury, Signifying Nothing?

The campaign, I mean.

When did you decide which party to vote for?
On election day 15%
After the leaders debates 12%
Before the leaders debates 15%
Before the campaign began 54%


Here is the complete poll. I'd be interested in knowing what the party breakdown was for voters who made their minds up before the campaign began, vs. those who made their minds up during its course. I don't think you can derive that from the numbers given here, but its early and I still need to coffee up.

Disgruntled Greens Call For E. May's Head

...then disappear rebel website!

h/t Jago, who seems to have suddenly forgotten google cache.

Oh and I told you this would happen!

Dennis Gruending Asks Questions

Raised by Monks, once an MP for the New Democratic Party, Dennis Gruending writes Pulpit and Politics, a one of my favorite Canadian Political blogs. In his latest, he proposes ten questions to ask the candidates at this week's Leader debate. They're all good, but here's my favorite:

Question 7: The war in Afghanistan has now taken 100 Canadian lives with many more Afghan civilians being killed and maimed. A Liberal government sent our troops to that country and a Conservative-led government voted to keep them there. The prime minister now says our troops will come home in the year 2011 no matter what happens. The question to the prime minister is this: You used to tell Canadians that the Taliban were a direct threat to our security but now you appear to be saying that is not the case. Have 100 Canadians die for nothing?

PS. I am serving in a jury pool for at least part of this week. I don't know if they have wifi, so I don't know how much writing I will be able to do.

Cheers,

BCL

Fun With NDP Orange Room

Jared, one of my favorite new bloggers, has been talking up the NDP website something heavy, so I thought I might surf on over and take a look. Hmm. The Orange Room. Hmmm.

Well, nothing as utterly stupid as NotALeader, but clearly it contains some material that is sophomoric, and a few features that might be fiddled with to render material that is off-message, like their Stephen Harper Caption Challenge.

(Of course they would never use my captioned image on their site)

I don't know why the Liberal website doesn't have a feature like this, though, although I suppose I can see how it might go wrong awfully quickly.

A Conservative Advises The New Tory Majority

Sell the CBC. Junk most of the cultural subsides. Get rid of the human rights Gestapo. These, in the end, are “stroke of the pen, law of the land” sort of things. If a Prime Minister with a majority government wishes them, they could be so.
[...]
Burn them down and salt the Earth. A future Liberal government won’t have the guts, the time, the wherewithal, or the money to recreate them all at once. Sell the land and the buildings. Shred the records. Disperse the staff. It’s easier to destroy than it is to create. A Tory government on a rampage could destroy in a couple of months what it took four decades to create – and what it would take another forty to recreate.
[...]
A large-scale buildup of the Armed Forces will do more than prepare Canada to fight in an increasingly-dangerous world, but it will also create a powerful military-industrial complex that a future Liberal government would be loathe to confront.
[...]
Build a pair of Aircraft Carriers – giant, expensive, deadly, and useful symbols of Canadian pride that children can hang on their walls. Name them after Wolfe and Montcalm or something like that.
[...]
What Harper needs is someone creatively evil to serve as the Justice Minister...to spend the next five years thinking up new ways of brutalize and humiliate criminals and which will send the left marching to the barricades time and time again to defend people who normal Canadians hate.

So there's your hidden agenda. And here's a link to that strategic voting site again.