The Canadian Federal Election of 2011

[butcher99]

Harper was smart enough to read the Canadian public and the ones that voted for his downfall weren't. Harper and the Conservatives voted against it. If even a few of the opposition had had any insite and realized it was bad timing, that some compromise would work better at that moment we could have had a completely different outcome down the road but we'll never know.

So now you're saying Harper is more politically astute than the Coalition (all three of them) - and that's what ticks you off? Are ya angry because your fellas are stupid????

Harper just got lucky on the vote split with the NDP and Liberals. It had little to do with being more astute than anyone else.
Why do people feel it is necessary to make themselves look immature by resorting to insults? Your message was a fine retort with no need for the insults at the end.

[Urbane]

Let's see . . . Harper just got lucky with the economy and he just got lucky winning a majority. Sounds like he's on a roll so it's a good thing he won big! Meanwhile, the official opposition better get its act together:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2 ... osama.html

Edit to add: I started a thread on this disagreement within the NDP ranks in the Canada discussion forum.

[LoneWolf_53]

Let's see . . . Harper just got lucky with the economy and he just got lucky winning a majority. Sounds like he's on a roll so it's a good thing he won big! Meanwhile, the official opposition better get its act together:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2 ... osama.html

Edit to add: I started a thread on this disagreement within the NDP ranks in the Canada discussion forum.

Isn't it amusing how many love to engage in splitting hairs when their choice doesn't make it into power?

All I can say is if Harper got so "lucky" then there are quite a few former Prime Ministers who were on the same boat.

[grammafreddy]

Harper was smart enough to read the Canadian public and the ones that voted for his downfall weren't. Harper and the Conservatives voted against it. If even a few of the opposition had had any insite and realized it was bad timing, that some compromise would work better at that moment we could have had a completely different outcome down the road but we'll never know.

So now you're saying Harper is more politically astute than the Coalition (all three of them) - and that's what ticks you off? Are ya angry because your fellas are stupid????

Harper just got lucky on the vote split with the NDP and Liberals. It had little to do with being more astute than anyone else.
Why do people feel it is necessary to make themselves look immature by resorting to insults? Your message was a fine retort with no need for the insults at the end.

LOL - that wasn't an insult. You'll know when I do

[NAB]

... Why do people feel it is necessary to make themselves look immature by resorting to insults? Your message was a fine retort with no need for the insults at the end.

I'll have to send that line off to Harper. He could have made good use of it over the past 5 years as Prime Minister against Iggy and Layton, ......as could some of we in these forums against each other;-)

Nab

[Rwede]

Now how many letters have you actually written over the years complaining to your MLA or MP?
I take it from your replies that since they have all be right wing or leaning, you have had nothing to complain about.

Stacks. I volunteer for a non-profit that defends the priority rights of BC residents to our resources. I'm quick to pen a letter to Ministers, Premiers, MLAs, MPs, municipal governments and senior bureaucrats. They all know me by name, many I've met with face to face. Just had a 20 minute chin wag with Mr Cannan a couple of months ago, and had dinner with a provincial ADM 3 weeks ago.

Careful, you've bitten off more than you can chew this time. I'm very active with our politicians in furthering our causes. I don't live my life on Castanet chirping to those who will do nothing but chirp back on issues I'm passionate about. If I want change, I actually go out and do something about it with the people that can help me achieve the results I want.

[Urbane]

This column ties up a lot of loose ends about the election and explains, quite accurately I think, why Stephen Harper won. Make sure you don't just read the first bit. It's important to read the whole column:

MARGARET WENTE

Here’s why Stephen Harper really won

From Thursday's Globe and Mail
Published Thursday, May. 05

Thanks to the central Canadian punditocracy, I now know why the Conservatives won an overwhelming election victory, and why the Liberals were pulverized. It was those nasty attack ads on TV.

So powerful were they that they persuaded millions of gullible voters to rise up against Michael Ignatieff and vote for someone else. Mr. Ignatieff himself blames them for his demise. Fellow Liberals think their leader was just too darn high-minded to strike back. “This is a blood sport,” griped Jim Karygiannis, one of the last Liberal MPs standing. “There is no Mr. Nice in this business.”

Liberal-minded opinion-mongers have been twisting themselves into pretzels to explain Stephen Harper’s completely unexpected whopping victory. They’re obsessed with the attack ads. Besides, they say, the Conservatives just got lucky. They reaped a windfall from the collapse of the Bloc Québécois and unexpected vote splits. Another reason is that Mr. Harper successfully appealed to “voter fatigue,” “fear” and an uninformed electorate that’s sadly oblivious to the destruction of democracy in Ottawa.

Anyway, they argue, it really wasn’t such a victory after all. Mr. Harper, they say, failed to broaden his base (even though he conquered Fortress Toronto, where he’d always been shut out), and won only 40 per cent of the popular vote (just like Jean Chrétien and Bill Davis). One commentator compared his win to George W. Bush’s “stolen” election of 2000.

If you want to understand why Mr. Harper loathes the mainstream media, look no further. But if you want to understand why he won, you’ll have to look elsewhere. One problem is that the media demonize the very qualities that have made him a success. They hate him for his micro-managing, control-freak ways. But those same qualities have been crucial to his success. Without them, he’d never have survived five years in the bear pit of minority government.

In fact, the Conservatives won because they did the sorts of things the Liberals used to do. They built broad coalitions among disparate groups. Take the so-called ethnic vote. When the Liberals courted new Canadians, it was smart. When the Conservatives do it, it’s sleazy. During the campaign, the CBC assembled countless panels of ethnic people to express their disgust at this condescending and divisive tactic. Amazingly, however, ethnic voters seemed glad to have important cabinet ministers show up in their ridings. They liked the focus on stability and a strong economy. Besides, the Liberals hadn’t been around for years.

The Conservatives’ years of efforts paid off spectacularly. To get results like that, you need a long-term strategy, passion, and someone willing to drink 15,000 cups of tea. The Liberals no longer have any of those things.

The Conservatives profited from vote splits. But they were also able to get out the vote where it mattered. They were focused and had ground troops who worked hard. For this, they’re being accused of running a soulless and technocratic campaign. (When Liberals ran things this way, they were called “professional.”)

As for those attack ads, it was Jack Layton, not Stephen Harper, who dealt the crucial blow when he brought up Mr. Ignatieff’s miserable attendance record in Parliament during the leaders debates. “If you are going to apply for a promotion, you at least ought to show up for the job,” he cracked. It stuck. Iggy never recovered.

Plenty of Harper critics think that Monday was a sad day for democracy. Personally, I think it was a great day for Canada. The Bloc, which squatted in Ottawa like a toad for 20 years, is gone. Mr. Harper has forged a historic new alliance between the West and Ontario, and he didn’t need Quebec to win. Quebeckers’ mass infatuation with the NDP may not last longer than snow in April, but their ability to hold federal governments to ransom may be gone for good.

For the next four years, Canadians will enjoy a blissful reprieve from non-stop political theatrics and dysfunctional minorities. They will have a clear choice of competing political philosophies. Critics warn that our politics will become polarized between left and right. But if Mr. Harper aims to turn the Conservatives into the Natural Governing Party, he’ll have to govern as a moderate. That’s bad news for armies of political experts, CBC panelists, Margaret Atwood and the Toronto Star. I almost feel sorry for them.

[grammafreddy]

This column ties up a lot of loose ends about the election and explains, quite accurately I think, why Stephen Harper won. Make sure you don't just read the first bit. It's important to read the whole column:

MARGARET WENTE

Here’s why Stephen Harper really won

I can agree with that. Seems quite accurate to me.

[Al Czervic]

This column ties up a lot of loose ends about the election and explains, quite accurately I think, why Stephen Harper won. Make sure you don't just read the first bit. It's important to read the whole column:

MARGARET WENTE

Here’s why Stephen Harper really won

Damned…that was just a GREAT article !

[NAB]

This column ties up a lot of loose ends about the election and explains, quite accurately I think, why Stephen Harper won. Make sure you don't just read the first bit. It's important to read the whole column:


MARGARET WENTE

Here’s why Stephen Harper really won

Thanks for that Urbane. That article is "going viral" as we speek.

Nab

[LoneWolf_53]

I'd say she got it spot on.

[Smurf]

grammafreddy wrote:

butcher99 wrote:

grammafreddy wrote:

Smurf wrote:
Harper was smart enough to read the Canadian public and the ones that voted for his downfall weren't. Harper and the Conservatives voted against it. If even a few of the opposition had had any insite and realized it was bad timing, that some compromise would work better at that moment we could have had a completely different outcome down the road but we'll never know.

So now you're saying Harper is more politically astute than the Coalition (all three of them) - and that's what ticks you off? Are ya angry because your fellas are stupid????

Harper just got lucky on the vote split with the NDP and Liberals. It had little to do with being more astute than anyone else.
Why do people feel it is necessary to make themselves look immature by resorting to insults? Your message was a fine retort with no need for the insults at the end.

LOL - that wasn't an insult. You'll know when I do

Sorry to disappoint you gramma but if you have followed my posts I was backing Harper, at least this time around and none of the others are my fellas. I even posted my opinion of the results.

I still believe that Harper and his team did read the public better than the others and were quite willing to go to an election.
Looks like they were right. I do not believe they were just lucky. I believe many people were madder at the others especially Iggy and Duceppe for causing an election than they were at Harper for things he had done. I think Harper made a smart move proposing a budget a lot of Canada could live with. This time around my fellas were the conservatives and Steven Harper and I don't think they were stupid, far from it.

[butcher99]

This column ties up a lot of loose ends about the election and explains, quite accurately I think, why Stephen Harper won. Make sure you don't just read the first bit. It's important to read the whole column:

MARGARET WENTE

Here’s why Stephen Harper really won

I can agree with that. Seems quite accurate to me.

It is the Globe and Mail you know. Read it with your head tilted firmly to the left to balance the statements made

[NAB]

No, it is Margaret Wente..

From Wiki...

She joined The Globe and Mail in 1986 and has been a full-time columnist since 1999. She is also the author of the book An Accidental Canadian: Reflections on My Home and (Not) Native Land (2004, HarperCollins, ISBN 0002007983).

Wente's column is written from what could be considered both a conservative and liberal standpoint. In January 2005, when writing about a dispute between the federal government and the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, she compared the premier of the province to "a deadbeat brother-in-law" and called Newfoundland "the most vast and scenic welfare ghetto in the world".[1] The piece attracted much criticism, including from the premier.[2] She has commented often in her column about ending the Monarchy of Canada. In a Globe and Mail article in 2001, she said the monarchy "stands for much that has held Canada back... embodies the triumph of inheritance over merit, of blood over brains, of mindless ritual over innovation" and that "in Quebec, the Royals are regarded as an insult."[3]

Wente is a director of the Energy Probe Research Foundation, a Toronto-based environmental organization that promotes conservation and renewable energy and opposes nuclear power expansion.[1]

[Urbane]

Rex Murphy's take on the election:

Preston Manning’s great achievement

Rex Murphy May 6, 2011

Has there ever been a Canadian election which started so miserably – no one wanted it; continued so tediously - and then turned into a caldron of amazing stories: Bloc Quebecois fallen to dust and irrelevance; the NDP rise, the cane and the surge; the demolition of the Liberals – Ignatieff’s utter defeat – candidates who campaigned in Las Vegas and won in Quebec. (Almost as good as campaigning in Quebec and winning in Vegas.)

So many dramatic stories – that they overshadowed and crowded out the greater story of a fundamental realignment of Canadian politics.

It is more than worth recalling that Preston Manning – one of the great political and intellectual forces of modern Canadian times – started all this. Far earlier than others Manning saw the weaknesses of the Liberal party; he – correctly – pushed for a place for the West at the national table; and he had the courage and foresight to start a political movement that in 20 years (with some changes) has displaced the natural governing party, and forged new realities for Canadian politics.

Manning should be recognized for this: like another leader he never got to see what he most made possible.

Then there’s the story of Stephen Harper himself. He has done political wizardry here. From the rocky and unstable platform of successive minority governments he has not only held on: he has the majority. It was in his moment that the Bloc Quebecois self-immolated, vanished in a puff of smoke of its own irrelevancy. He has 70 plus seats in Ontario, which just over a decade ago – three times – elected at least 100 Liberals. Harper has pursued the party of giants like Pearson and Trudeau into near oblivion.

He’s almost an anti-Obama. He excites real animosity. He has an almost Mulroney-esque capacity for exciting oversized anger – even contempt from his opponents. But for all the scorn he has had to take, from those who like to think him just dumb and mean – he’s out maneuvered all the “smarter” people in the room.

With little of the politician’s gifts – neither Trudeau’s charisma, Chrétien’s folksy impersonations – Layton’s “ordinary guy” approach – it is the reserved and stern Harper who has the majority and representation from coast to coast to coast.

But Harper’s larger achievement builds on Manning’s: his arrival at majority fulfills that pledge of the early days – remember: “the West wants in.” The West is not only “in” and at the table. It owns the table. That’s a real accomplishment – the dissatisfactions of the Western provinces were a real and dangerous fault line in this country.

None of the other stories of Monday night – however fascinating and dramatic – are as significant.
On two fronts – Quebec and the West – the dynamics of alienation and separatism have been very severely checked – and the least “natural” politician of a generation, Stephen Harper, is now its most successful. Whether you support him or not – that’s really impressive.

National Post