B.C. Election 2013

[steven lloyd]

This election comes down to selecting the lesser of two evils, and for those who rely on business, resource development, and like to see our infrastructure maintained, the Liberals are that lesser evil.

I’m afraid that by this time, while acknowledging both choices are really unacceptable, I have to admit one is slightly less unacceptable than the other. As I stated this morning, I truly have to wonder if the NDP even really want to govern. This has truly been the most inept campaign effort I can remember. Thank God I don’t have to make a choice between these two terrible choices.

[flamingfingers]

Warren Kinsella is pretty certain Adrian Dix is going to win and explains:

Adrian Dix is going to win
________________________________________
May 11th, 2013, 9:37 am
I don’t have any skin the BC ’2013 game. I’ve got friends in both war rooms, and I think they’ve all run impressive campaigns.

Adrian Dix was assisted by the fact that he’s no Glen Clark-style Dipper: he’s a centrist New Democrat, more like Roy Romanow than his former boss. On the other hand, he was hurt by his less-than-stellar debate performance, and his naive promise to stay “positive” when his opponent had been going neg, big time.

Christy Clark? Well, she’s a perfomer. I’ve known her since she was a Liberal staffer in Ottawa – but, then again, I didn’t. With Christy, I never really knew who or what she was: a Martinite? A Chretinite? Right? Left?

When she started chumming around with Stephen Harper and Preston Manning, I had had enough. It wasn’t that she was a conservative, per se. My problem was that she was, in her core, without a core. She was fake. She was phony.

Clark, at the campaign’s end, deserves to lose because you just don’t know what she believes in – or if, in fact, she believes in anything at all. She’s an actor, but not a leader.

Anyway. The mechanics of the thing are all against her: the NDP vote is much more efficient in BC than Easterners realize. And it’s concentrated in the Lower Mainland, too. Dix, therefore, is going to win.

Read my almost-boss Gary Mason on it, here. He gets it.

The desire for change, when it starts, is hard to stop. Change is coming to BC, and that is good thing.

http://warrenkinsella.com/2013/05/adria ... ng-to-win/

[Smurf]

There are a couple of things in that article that catch my attention. Christy has been it seems in any group that will take her as we already knew. They is a show person. She like to act in front of the camera. She is an actor. That is what she does best. The question is whether or not her acting is fooling a lot of people into thinking she's actually a leader. By her own statement she is not. She doesn't even like going into the office and has closed it instead of having a sitting and doing the business we pay her to do. I don't believe she was even picked by the Liberals as a leader but for her abilities before a camera. There were better people out there. It has backfired because she continues to open her mouth when she has no idea what she is talking about. With any luck she will not be around after the election and the Liberals will have a major house cleaning to go with it.

[Urbane]

While it's fun to call Clark and Dix out for her being too polished and him being awkward the election should be about things like the economy. It never ceases to amaze me how election campaigns degenerate into trivial things that aren't that important. I don't happen to agree but what if Clark were something of a phoney? Does that mean that people should vote for a party whose philosophy they disagree with because they think that the leader of the party that they agree with isn't sincere? Should people who dislike business and free enterprise in general still vote for the Liberals because they think that Dix is awkward? My wife and I voted Liberal the other day because between the two options we felt strongly that the Liberal approach to the economy (health, education as well) is far superior to that of the NDP. In the end we didn't vote against Dix because of his memo forging (as bad as that was) or vote for Clark because she's the superior communicator. For us it came down to what James Carville once said: "It's the economy, stupid."

[Logitack]

it is about the economy, and clearly it is not something the liberals have been good at for the past 12 years!

[NAB]

I don't agree... it is not about the economy at all,..... nor was it really about the economy last election. It hasn't really been about the economy since before 2005/06.

Nab

[Logitack]

i think harvey oberfeld has it right when he says...

I hate dictatorships! And most people may not realize it, but we DO have a dictatorship political system in Canada: but the word seems so nasty, we call it “majority government” instead.

But make no mistake …majority government IS rule by dictatorship … and I suspect that you, like me, can’t deny the “undemocratic” problems that has inflicted upon voters and taxpayers …as soon as whoever is sworn in.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has a Conservative majority. Happy with that? The BC Liberals have had a majority government. Pleased with the result? And for those in Vancouver, Vision has had a stranglehold dictatorship at City Hall? Enjoying their type of rule?

The truth is … as I have previously pointed out in assessing the CURRENT federal electoral and system in Canada … “minority” governments are MUCH better for ordinary voters: they are FORCED to listen to the people; they are FORCED to respond to public demands or back down when they are about to make bad decisions; they are FORCED to compromise with other elected representatives to survive; and, thus, more often than not, they are FORCED to moderate bad policies or stick with promises the public expected to be implemented.

Believe it or not, our majority government system used to that: the Parliamentary committee system actually had a function; any compromise to improve legislation was not seen as surrender; and pary Leaders used to respect their political counterparts … not just try to demean, discredit and insult them personally and ignore their important role in the democratic system.

But we don’t have that anymore … haven’t for some time … because now, we have dictators.

And WHEREVER you have dictators, you get disrespect for even their own voters once power is assumed; even worse … total dismissal of MPs or MLAs or Council members from other sides; and, as for the rest of us …the mere unaligned mortals who foot the bill and bear the burden of all the dictators impose … we can “stuff it”, until the next election or rise up in an HST-style revolt.

Proportional representation would be one way to help dilute … if not necessarily avoid … our dictatorship dilemma. But THAT is a long way away, in either the federal or provincial system: few IN POWER like to give up the system that grants them that power.http://harveyoberfeld.ca/blog/green-and ... democracy/

BC tried the STV referendum, in 2005 it failed with 57% voting in favor, (you needed a 60% to pass) and 2009 where it was only able to garner 39%.

[Smurf]

Urbane wrote:

While it's fun to call Clark and Dix out for her being too polished and him being awkward the election should be about things like the economy. It never ceases to amaze me how election campaigns degenerate into trivial things that aren't that important. I don't happen to agree but what if Clark were something of a phoney? Does that mean that people should vote for a party whose philosophy they disagree with because they think that the leader of the party that they agree with isn't sincere? Should people who dislike business and free enterprise in general still vote for the Liberals because they think that Dix is awkward? My wife and I voted Liberal the other day because between the two options we felt strongly that the Liberal approach to the economy (health, education as well) is far superior to that of the NDP. In the end we didn't vote against Dix because of his memo forging (as bad as that was) or vote for Clark because she's the superior communicator. For us it came down to what James Carville once said: "It's the economy, stupid."

But is the above not what you and others center on when you talk about how Dix or Cummings lost the debate. When people call Dix slimy, Jello or whatever. People on these treads are more often calling the leaders names than they are commenting on what you say are the important things. No matter what topic is started it usually end up with rants, calling someone names. Usually Dix. Am I not right?

I did not vote against the Liberals because of Christy Clark although I think she is terrible leader. I voted against them because of their record over the last decade plus. They need a lot more than a new leader.

[LoneWolf_53]

Yeah well I could honestly say the exact same thing about the NDP, yet for some strange reason you seem to prefer them.

There's far more blatant criminal activities that stem from the NDP camp than the Liberal one. Saying one prefers the criminal/bank robber that hasn't had access to a bank for a decade, thereby viewing him as somehow miraculously cured, and a better option, even though all the signs are there that there's been no rehabilitation at all, seems a bit foolish to me.

More than foolish in fact.

[Urbane]

But is the above not what you and others center on when you talk about how Dix or Cummings lost the debate. When people call Dix slimy, Jello or whatever. People on these treads are more often calling the leaders names than they are commenting on what you say are the important things. No matter what topic is started it usually end up with rants, calling someone names. Usually Dix. Am I not right?

I did not vote against the Liberals because of Christy Clark although I think she is terrible leader. I voted against them because of their record over the last decade plus. They need a lot more than a new leader.

Of course many of us have been involved in rants on here and few of us are blameless. That's the sidebar but I'm more interested in the main story. Neither Cummins nor Dix did well in the debate (in my opinion) but that's not the reason that I'm not voting for them. And as far as Dix's ethics go I would be much more able to set them aside if I believed in the NDP philosophy but I don't. Did you read that Tom Fletcher column that I posted (http://www.tricitynews.com/opinion/206483441.html) the other day? He summed up my own feelings very well. Dix did poorly in the debate, he has a checkered past when it comes to ethics, he's awkward and lacks charisma, but those factors aren't a major factor in my choosing to vote for the BC Liberals.

[flamingfingers]

I think we have only seen the very tip of the iceberg with regard to Campbell/Clark/Liberal malfeasance and breach of trust these past 12+ years.

[Smurf]

Well I think the current criminal/bank robbers (right to the point of refilling the public trough for themselves) deserve to loose their access for a while. The sooner the better.

[Smurf]

I agree and I am not a fan of NDP policy but in my mind the Liberals have to go. They are away beyond cleaning up their act. But I do believe many are voting for the leader or against them and noting to do with much else. I believe as I said above, many are falling for Christy's acting and nothing to do with her leadership or even a party that shuts down the house and our business at will.

[steven lloyd]

It’s unlikely to happen but I agree with Logi and Oberfeld in wishing we could avoid a majority by either party ...

… “minority” governments are MUCH better for ordinary voters: they are FORCED to listen to the people; they are FORCED to respond to public demands or back down when they are about to make bad decisions; they are FORCED to compromise with other elected representatives to survive; and, thus, more often than not, they are FORCED to moderate bad policies or stick with promises the public expected to be implemented.

[NAB]

There's far more blatant criminal activities that stem from the NDP camp than the Liberal one.

I think therein is a fundamental point of contention, although in reading that statement it obviously can be taken one of two ways. The reader of course is left struggling with which way to take it, thus which of the two possible allegations to respond to.

Nab