Yesss! Best election news so far!

[Bragi]

"NDP candidate withdraws from race to back Liberal in bid to unseat Conservative"

I think it’s the best decision on behalf of my family, my community, and my country to do whatever I can to make sure there isn’t a Conservative victory, especially in this riding,” he said.“I want to make sure we get a progressive MP — one that cares about improvements to Canada Pension Plan, improvements to employment insurance, believes in democracy instead of contempt, and believes in sustainable job creation instead of building more prisons.”“I know Graham Warwick has the same values that I do.”

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/canada/breakingnews/ndp-candidate-withdraws-from-race-to-back-liberal-in-bid-to-unseat-conservative-118917404.html

Seriously, this could be a game changer. My congrats to Ryan Dolby for doing this.

If no-hope 3rd place Lib and NDP candidates like him escape the clutches of party aparachniks and start bail, and call on their supporters to vote strategically, then Harper will LOSE.

It's that simple.


- B

[Very_Boring_Name]

1. I really really wish both parties would do this

I don't see the benefit of spending time and money running third place candidates who are sure to lose, and end up splitting the vote.

[iverglas]

2. you'll be sure to let us know

when the first upstanding, patriotic Liberal candidate does this?

You do realize the party will be nominating another candidate, of course.


Anybody from BC want to nominate a couple of Liberals to withdraw from races out there so the local NDP candidates will be sure to beat the Conservatives? Shouldn't be hard to come up with.

[Bragi]

3. I have only 1 top priority -- defeat Harper

And I really don't care which opposition party I have to vote for to do it.

Fortunately, strategic voting doesn't require that candidates step down, or that party honchos support it (which they won't).

Strategic voting empowers voters, not candidates or parties. I'm happy to let the winners sort it all out later, once Harper is gone.

There are now close to 50 ridings where strategic voters can defeat sitting Con MPs.

Check it out:

http://www.catch22campaign.ca

I say just do it, and don't be bothered by (well-intended) partisans.

If they seem to care more about their party's interests than they do about defeating Harper, then just do what you need to do to defeat Harper. They'll get over it.

[iverglas]

8. um, exactly

Fortunately, strategic voting doesn't require that candidates step down, or that party honchos support it (which they won't).

So one individual attempting to deny the voters their choice of party isn't really such a great thing, eh?

You have your personal opinions and personal preferences, let's just let everybody else have theirs, and act on them as they see fit. Some of them may choose to do as you want, some may not.

[Bragi]

12. Nonsense

So one individual attempting to deny the voters their choice of party isn't really such a great thing, eh?

If you're referring to Dolby, he actually had the courtesy to step down BEFORE the nomination date was closed.

This allowed the NDP to nominate another candidate to join the Grewn party in sucking up votes that will ensure re-election for the conservative incumbent.

So your complaint is not founded in reality. You may think partisanship trumps getting rid of Harper, but I don't, and hope to convince people I meet that getting rid of Harper is job #1.

[iverglas]

18. you may think the moon is made of green cheese

You may think partisanship trumps getting rid of Harper

You may also think you have a basis for saying that to me ... but then, you and I know you don't.

Myself, I don't say things I know are false. I know what that would make me.

[Very_Boring_Name]

4. How does it feel to support a party that has no chance of ever forming the government?

teehee!

[CHIMO]

5. I Do

Hope that a third placed Liberal will reciprocate to the NDP.

Also throwing darts at non-Harper people tends to Harper's benefit. Perhaps, I hope, that we can remain focused on the objective for this election.

Ir really only requires Harper to be cut down.

[Very_Boring_Name]

6. I've never seen that particular poster throw any darts at Harper

n/t

[CHIMO]

7. Well

I wouldn't want to write for "that poster". But I still hope that we can focus on Harper and not become divided. It might just help?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=190x32538

[iverglas]

10. and your point is?

Maybe you should use the search function.

Maybe you should try to clear those mealies out of your mouth and say what you mean.

I've never seen you at all. Possibly luckily for you.

[iverglas]

11. how interesting, I can't see you at all

Hidden profile. Always an interesting phenomenon.

http://www.google.ca/search?num=30&hl=en&safe=off&complete=0&biw=1024&bih=580&q=site%3Ademocraticunderground.com+iverglas+harper+-%22bush+clone%22&btnG=Search

Search results for

site:democraticunderground .com iverglas harper -"bush clone"
About 4,920 results

I filtered out "bush clone" because the search picked up multiple copies of a post I made the other day. Here it is:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=4787276&mesg_id=4788610

iverglas (1000+ posts)
Sat Mar-26-11 08:48 PM
Response to Reply #62
68. Harper is not a Bush clone

Canada is not the United States. The world is not the United States.

Bush was congenitally stupid, for starters, and he was not in any sense the head of his government.

Harper is extremely intelligent, and was in every sense the head of his government. In fact, his government was little other than him, by the time it fell. His directing the public service to refer to it as "the Harper Government" (it's the Government of Canada) is just symbolic of the fact that he ran the show, him and nobody else.

Harper's economics are far right, and he tugs his forelock to the "social" right when necessary, but doesn't actually give a crap.

One thing they might have in common is their fake religiosity -- Harper got fundie Christianity when he got political ambition -- but Harper is smart enough to actually walk that walk by going to the Sunday gatherings. I guess our religious right is just a little more demanding of fake sincerity.

Bush, on the other hand, didn't actually give a crap about anything except where the next drink was coming from.

Harper is a genuine power-hungry politician, and is genuinely hungry to exercise that power to remake Canada in his image. What his ultimate goal might be, after emptying the hospitals and filling the prisons, I couldn't actuallly say, since the right-wing mind is a permanent mystery to me. Power for its own sake, to some extent, undoubtedly. And just the pure pleasure of being right by virtue of might, I guess.

It would really be nice, and probably quite beneficial, if people in the US would remove the prism through which they see the world -- all things as they are in the US -- and take a look at things in the rest of the world as they actually are, which often have little to do with how things are in the US.

So your plausible deniability / innocent ignorance ends there, eh?

[Very_Boring_Name]

13. The one post you find "throwing darts" at harper is just you swooning over Harpers "intelligence"

:eyes:

[Name removed]

16. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[iverglas]

23. we have some sensitive sallies around here

My profile shows that I have been posting at this site for close to a decade, I think.

My record is easily findable.

Yours, not so much?

Your statement about my post, that I reproduced in full, demonstrates either a desire to ... uh ... avoid the truth, or some very poor reading skills.

One little bit you seem to have missed:

Harper is a genuine power-hungry politician, and is genuinely hungry to exercise that power to remake Canada in his image. What his ultimate goal might be, after emptying the hospitals and filling the prisons, I couldn't actuallly say, since the right-wing mind is a permanent mystery to me. Power for its own sake, to some extent, undoubtedly. And just the pure pleasure of being right by virtue of might, I guess.

Stating that someone is intelligent is not "swooning"; that's a false statement. The statement that Harper is intelligent is a true statement, and that's all it is.

[iverglas]

25. and I really do want to repeat

You want to be careful when you make even veiled allegations of support for the right wing around here.

Or so I thought.

[iverglas]

26. and gosh

I'm really looking forward to your replies! Where'd you go??

[iverglas]

15. and for some slightly more ancient history

Reading the archives is always fun.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=190x10821#10831

Hoping4Change (1000+ posts)
Sat Jan-21-06 08:24 PM
Does anyone else's flesh crawl when they watch Harper?
...

iverglas
Sat Jan-21-06 08:45 PM
Response to Original message
5. more when I listen to him ;)

He's bad enough, but when I contemplate the members of his caucus ...

If you aren't a member of an oppressed group, you can't know what it feels like to listen to the hatred voiced by someone against you.

I don't know what people of colour feel like when they hear racist scum spouting off, for instance, or what gay men and lesbians feel like when they hear gay-hating scum, but I know what I feel like when I hear the women-hating scum in the Conservative Party ... and Liberal Party ... talking about violating women's reproductive rights. It makes me physically ill.

My reaction to Harper isn't quite so, er, visceral, but it's not a feeling I'd voluntarily seek out.

Martin I'm much more tolerant of. Maybe it's because he looks a fair bit like my late dad. (Unfortunately, that Crystal Palace fake-Christian guy on TV looks a little like my late grandfather, and that makes it even more nauseating to look at him.) Thank the gods that nobody in my family has ever looked like Harper. Not even my brothers when they were kinda lumpy before they hit puberty, which is kinda the look Harper has on him.

That's over 5 years ago.

"Ever" enough for you?

[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Very_Boring_Name]

14. Need a tissue? Jack's poll numbers aren't looking too good these days

P.S, thanks for the 4 point bump in 24 hours LOL! We appreciate it. Luckily the majority of NDP members are smarter than the others, and understand that the Liberals are the only viable alternative to Harper. There's still a tiny number of delusional few who think their party will ever be more than a spoiler.

[iverglas]

17. honey child

If I voted Liberal in my riding, and a bunch of other NDP voters from the previous election did the same, there's a good chance we'd end up with a Conservative MP instead of the NDP incumbent and current candidate.

That's what you're hoping to see, is it?

Sounds like.

[Bragi]

19. So let's clear things up here...

I'm also in an NDP riding so I'm voting for that NDP MP, just like you presumably would.

However, if I was in a Liberal riding, I would vote for that candidate to make sure the CPC doesn't win it. Would you?

And if I was in a CPC riding, I would vote for whichever non-CPC party candidate ran 2nd in 2008 so as to defeat the Con. MP. You?

[iverglas]

20. give me a break

You and I have both been around here long enough, and you have followed my posts quite closely enough, to know exactly what the answer to that is.

I voted Liberal in the last Ontario provincial election because, while my riding is a Liberal/NDP swing riding, both federally and provincially, I didn't see the NDP doing better than the Liberal that time around, and while the chance of a provincial PC win was slim, even with an even vote split for the other two, I didn't like even the minimal possibility of it happening.

In 1974, although I had worked my ass off on the NDP campaign in the same riding, I voted PC (leader was Stanfield at the time), because I despised Trudeau and was not fooled by him or his moving lips, and I was right: we got wage and price controls.

I vote strategically when a vote against seems more pressing than a vote for. You can't help but know this. You also can't help but know that I have been an NDP candidate, and I have seen the Liberal vote for us or the world will end tactic up close and personal: in the last election I ran in, in a hopelessly Liberal riding, my vote went from double the PC vote in the previous election to half of it in that one.

Urging people to vote stragetically is one thing.

Demanding that they vote Liberal is another.

And some of us around here just never have and never will fall for it.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=190&topic_id=9035&mesg_id=9035

tuvor
Mon Nov-14-05 12:21 AM
Original message
Poll question: Fellow Soviet Canuckistanis: Which federal party will get your vote?

V. Kid (616 posts)
Sat Nov-19-05 06:52 AM
Response to Reply #49
50. I'm sorry dude but I call bs on you...

..especially when you look at people like glarius. They use that sort of "patriotic" bullshit to get people to vote their way, they say voting NDP will let the Conservatives in, regardless of the Liberal record. Regardless of the riding that ones in.

For instance, with regards to you. If anyone was to defeat Stockwell day it would be an N-dipper. The NDP won the riding that was equivilent to yours back in the late 80's and granted the Zalm was the Premier, nonethless and extremely unpopular, but the Liberals would NEVER WIN that riding, but that authoritarian Glarius was INSISTING that EVERYONE vote Liberal. Don't you thinks that's total bullshit? Iverglas, may be strident, but Iverglas wasn't saying VOTE NDP OR ELSE. The only people who were doing that were people like Glarius (and if Maple was around...), and it's really quite insulting.

By the way, I grew up in London Ont., and worked on the NDP campaign for the first seat won by the NDP, in 1969 ... I was too young to vote, though. I was denied my vote in the first election when I could have, by Liberal Party machinations against student residents of a heavily university NDP-held riding. The first vote I ever cast was that one for the PC candidate a couple of years later ...

[iverglas]

21. Now let's hear from one of your fellow Liberals

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=190x24907#24915

Clintonista2 (1000+ posts) (but sadly tombstoned)
Tue Sep-09-08 09:43 AM
Response to Original message
4. I vote Liberal

Currently working to unseat Paul Dewar. Funny how that works :P


iverglas (1000+ posts)
Sat Sep-13-08 11:30 PM
Response to Reply #19
20. I guess you're just a young one

There has historically been a (P)C presence in that riding, and it has in fact been taken by them.

Here's its recent history:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottawa_Centre

1. George McIlraith September 9, 1968 April 27, 1972 Liberal
2. Hugh Poulin January 4, 1973 April 28, 1978 Liberal
3. Robert de Cotret October 16, 1978 March 26, 1979 Progressive Conservative
4. John Evans October 9, 1979 July 9, 1984 Liberal
5. Michael Cassidy November 5, 1984 October 1, 1988 New Democratic Party
6. Mac Harb December 12, 1988 September 9, 2003 Liberal
7. Ed Broadbent October 4, 2004 November 29, 2005 New Democratic Party
8. Paul Dewar April 3, 2006 New Democratic Party

2006 Party Candidate Votes % ±%
New Democratic Party Paul Dewar 24,611 36.93 -4.2
Liberal Richard Mahoney 19,458 29.2 -1.9
Conservative Keith Fountain 15,126 22.7 +3.7
Green David Chernushenko 6,766 10.15 +2.7
Marijuana John Akpata 386 0.58 -0.1
Independent Anwar Syed 121 0.18
Communist Stuart Ryan 102 0.15 +0.1
Marxist-Leninist Christian Legeais 68 0.10 0.0


Now, if your true and genuine concern is preventing a Conservative victory, why would you be working to unseat the sitting NDP MP with a margin like that? Maybe you're hoping that the Greens will take enough votes from the NDP that the Liberals can come up the middle?

OH LOOK:

As the Liberal national numbers declined over the course of the campaign, it seemed more likely that the NDP could retain the seat. Mahoney went on the offensive late in the campaign, claiming a vote for Paul Dewar would help the Conservatives and threatening a lawsuit against his opponent two days before the election. Dewar retained most of Broadbent's voters and won by over 5000 votes.

Venally partisan politics, perhaps?

But all for the good of the country, I'm sure. Liberals always know what's best for the country. Le Canada, c'est le parti libéral.


... Oh yes. I did want to mention what a completely useless and slimey piece of shit that Mac Harb was. You know, the Liberal who held the riding for some time. (My work involves federal-level political stuff. I see people like him in action. Well, in his case, inaction.) Well done, Liberals.

Let me know if you ever see me say that a vote for the Liberal in a Liberal-held riding will help the Conservatives.

I may not like Liberals and the Liberal Party ... in fact, I don't ... but I don't lie to influence people's vote and win elections.

[Bragi]

22. Sorry, you assume I know a lot about you

I don't, which is why I asked the questions. I thought you were making a case against strategic voting to defeat conservatives in favour of voting NDP wherever you are.

My mistake. It looks like we may not have a lot to disagree with on this topic. Perhaps we could find another and go at it. :)

- B

[iverglas]

24. I give up

Perhaps that post was the product of a mature, adult mind.