Cross-posted at my blog.
Well, last night I sat in front on my TV for 4 hours. The first hour watching Duffy’s show on CTV NewsNet, the next two watching the french debate (which, by the way, I actually enjoyed) and the last hour watching the commentary on Duffy’s show.
I have a few random thoughts:
Why does Mike Duffy have partisans on to “discuss” the debate? I mean, come on. I think we ALL know what their comments will be. I find it very annoying. And then Duffy himself has the audacity to be rude to the NDP guy! He asked him what he thought of the debate, the guy responded with, “I think the NDP did great.” and Duffy snidely replies, “Of COURSE you do!” and rolls his eyes! Well that goes for the two partisans sitting beside you too Mike. If you know what they are going to say, why bother having them on? I much prefer listening to real political analysts with some bit of independent thought.
I find particularly annoying the Conservative partisans that get on these shows nowadays. Haven’t they figured out yet that the FOX model won’t work in Canada? We are for the most part literate here, we aren’t sheeple Americans who fall for simple words and divisive phrases. Have these new Conservatives gone to the same school Ann Coulter and JimmyJeff went to? I partly blame CTV News for this. If I wanted to watch conservative Republicans, I’d watch FOX News, not CTV. (And this goes double for Mr. David “Axis of Evil” Frum, he’s just an American pretending to be Canadian as far as I’m concerned. But wait… So is Stephen Harper! Are they friends, I wonder??? Hmmm….)
Now I know I’m probably going to upset some people with my next beef, but whatever. What the HELL is the Bloc even in the debate for? Seriously? I get absolutely infuriated with this separatist bullshit. It reminds me of my 28 year old nephew who stays at home playing video games, whining about how he deserves better in life, while his parents continually foot the bill and allow him to stay. He won’t leave and his parents won’t kick him out. But guess what? He’s still family and I love him to death. But either shit or get off the pot. Figure it out one way or another and then STFU.
On a more polite note, Gilles Duceppe is REALLY good… I probably agreed with about 70% of what he said! He is intelligent, comfortable in his own skin, speaks with confidence. I can’t really blame Quebecers for voting for a Party this guy leads. It’s just the principle of the thing. They are very clear in the fact they are a Separatist Pary. If you are a French Canadian in Quebec who loves Canada and believes, as I do, that Canada isn’t Canada without Quebec, why on earth would you vote for the Bloc? Do you really hate the Liberals THAT much? I dunno, something seems a little wanky to me here…
On to the NDP. I like the NDP. I’d probably vote NDP if Stephen Harper wasn’t the leader of the Conservative Party. (Heck, I might even vote Conservative is Stephen Harper wasn’t the leader of the Conservative Party!) But the negativity that comes out of Layton’s mouth just doesn’t feel NDP’ish to me. Maybe it’s my problem with my perception of the NDP as the party of nice people who act like grown ups. The moderators, if you will. The “Miss Congeniality’s” of the race. So when Layton starts off a comment with negative attacks, it kind of makes me a little queasy and I lose a little bit of respect for the Party as a whole.
And finally, how long is it going to take before these guys realize that the Gomery thing is OLD NEWS! Yes, it happened. It would happen to ANY Party with too much power. That kind of corrupt behaviour due to too much power is not strictly limited to the Liberals. And EVERYBODY knows it! The other parties are beating a dead horse with that one, Canadians don’t much care about that scandal anymore… Face it. This is what I hear from EVERYONE I know. They don’t give a shit.
It’s the bread and butter issues people care about and most Canadians haven’t been forced to switch to margarine just yet, so the status quo is just fine. If it ain’t broke… and all that. Trying to convince a Canadian that this country is broke and needs change is just going to piss them off because it’s simply not true. It just makes you sound like a trouble-maker who is forcing the average Joe to go vote in the dead of winter for what? No good reason. Well guess what? THIS voter is going to vote Liberal just for spite! (Even though I’d vote Liberal anyway. But this IS what I’m hearing…)
All right, that’s enough for now. I’ll be back tomorrow with thoughts on the English debate being held tonight. Ta ta!
I was so excite this morning when I checked my blog because I had a comment! Yahoo, I thought! Someone actually read it!
Then I read the comment and it was from a Canadian Freeper, as far as I can tell. (By the way, should I call them Creepers?)
Anyway, I’d appreciate it if some of you could put a nice comment there to counter the freak one…
Thx.
Agreed on all counts. Layton’s got a lot of positive stuff he could be campaigning on, especially given the NDP’s accomplishments during the last parliament. The Bloc would be an awesome national party of they dropped the bloody separatism thing.
The Gomery thing is old news because the report basically exonerated Martin. I don’t expect it to have any kind of negative effect on his votes and campaign. Sure, it was very damaging to the Liberal old guard. But Martin’s entire image is built on not being part of the Liberal old guard.
Harper, I think, has jumped the shark. The comments of the US Ambassador about Martin have probably hurt Harper more than anyhting else. The vast majority of Canadians I know are very friendly to Americans, but very against American influence in our government. (The exceptions are all devout conservatives) Combine that with his opposition to gay marriage and harping about the necessity of tax cuts in an era of explosive economic growth, and the picture does not look pretty.
I’m predicting either a slim Liberal minority or a slim Liberal majority.
man oh man. No wonder we have a monarchy in Canada these days with the Liberals. No wonder we still have NAFTA. No wonder our greenhouse emissions have risen by 25% the last decade.
Oh my, Jack Layton is pissed off and expresses it vs. just playing a patsy and THAT is what the deciding factor is in whether he will get support or not? Wow. Let alone all the ISSUES he’s been raising for the last year. Let alone all the ISSUES he raises day in and day out on the campaign trail… god forbid he speaks ill of the other parties who have sold out Canada since Trudeau… send him back to the woodshed and vote for the multi-millionaire who only recently found his backbone.
No wonder Quebecors want to separate.
I’ll have you know that I’m quite impressed by Layton, and vote NDP. However, a debate isn’t the place for open attacks. It’s the place for subtle attacks through the articulation of policy.
Stick that in your preconceptions and smoke it.
Not necessarily true. The NDP for years has been painted as mealy mouthed and weak. And this election is so important and the issues so confused now that Martin is co-opting the NDP language and platform in order to win votes… let alone the scare tactics against voting NDP.. ie. a vote for the NDP is a vote for the Conservatives that I am glad Layton came out swinging. People need to be reminded that Martin would have been much closer to a Harper platform if it weren’t for Jack and the NDP pressure.
My perspective, but I see yours as well.
Sorry for my strident tone to you, I was just responding to the strident tone of this diary and got carried away in my response to your “I agree completely” comment.
yikes! Wow do you have a lot of stuff going on in this diary… way too much for me to respond to since I disagree with about half of it… probably need an entire diary to do so actually.
question… why don’t you just come out and say that the only good party is the Liberals? At least let us know where you stand up front? Since they are the only ones who escaped your wrath here… or did I miss something?
And yeah, let’s exclude the Bloc… who needs to hear opposing voices and points of view from the second biggest province in a democracy anyway… better to just ignore it as we did in the Mulroney years and then act shocked when Quebecors get pissed off and decide to separate again. And if you’ve been watching the CBC, sovereignty is the least of what those from Quebec are thinking about these days, regardless of what the Bloc ultimately stands for.
Finally, how is Gomry old news when the final report hasn’t been released yet and Chretien is suing?
I kinda figured I let you know “where I stand up front” when I said in the diary I’m voting Liberal.
That, however, does NOT mean that I think the only good party is the Liberals. Unfortunately, I’m one of the many Canadians stuck in the “Who do I dislike the least” category.
Also, I try not to affiliate myself with any party really. I’ve been a member of the Liberal Party and I was a member of the Conservative Party once because I liked the guy trying to get the leadership and I wanted to vote for him (this was provincially as well).
Finally, I’m not about to engage in an argument with you here because you have a different view of things than I do. I don’t consider your viewpoints anymore flawed or correct than my own. We each have a right to our own opinion. I just expressed mine… I could easily be way off… But I do appreciate you taking the time to comment.
Where do you say right up front you are voting Liberal? You don’t.
And it’s funny you want to provide your take on Canadian politics and then won’t debate a Canadian who sees things differently from you.
First: Second to last paragraph, last two sentences.
Second: I’d love to debate, it’s just that your tone sounds a little too confrontational for me and I suspect it would be more of a “fight” and less of a “debate”. That’s all. I could be wrong.
But if your original were comment were more along the lines of:
“Wow! A ton of stuff in your diary! I only agree with about half of it but I’m curious to know if you are voting Liberal? I suspect so, but it’s not really stated clearly in your diary (not that it really matters, we all have a right to vote for whomever we wish!) Also, I agree that the Bloc is obviously a separatist party, but don’t you think it’s important that we hear the views and concerns of such a large segment of the population? I do… Finally, the Gomery issue is not old news to me, I’m still waiting for the final report before I come to any real decisions on that. But for me, it’s very important.”
Had your comment read like that, we would be engaged in a healthy debate right now instead of arguing… That’s all I’m sayin’! 🙂
Well, had your diary been written differently and not trashed the NDP, the Bloc and anyone who disagreed with you right off the bat, without telling us that you were voting Liberal until the end, you may have gotten a different response… but you couched this as “some thoughts on the election” and then didn’t actually talk about the ISSUES, but personalities and why Quebecors are stupid for voting for the Bloc… and then at the end said you were voting Liberal I would have responded differently.
You get what you give. Hell, you even acknowledged that what you were about to say about the Bloc might cause some to get upset… and then you wonder why someone might take offense?
btw, I got at the end that you were voting Liberal, but you hid that until the very end after you had trashed all the other parties… a bit dishonest considering you already had a clear bias. That was my point in stating that.
And this is not a soap box, or a personal blog, it’s a community blog where you should expect to hear opposing views and be prepared to engage in debate on the points you raise in your diary… which were quite strident, so you can then expect strident responses by those who disagree.
the venom, I will post my thoughts.
I think the Liberals and Martin would have been much closer to the Conservative platform had Layton not pushed forward a progressive agenda. Now Martin has co-opted that agenda and is using it and the fear of Harper to win the election. And that I find truly offensive.
I also think Gomrey is not old news and I have my suspicions about his bias against Chretien and pro-Martin.. but that’s just my perspective.
Martin is a good old boy multi-millionaire and is in my mind no Liberal in the Trudeau sense. So I cannot in good conscience vote for him. I am curious as to why you are voting Liberal.
Better? 🙂
And guess what, I see your points exactly. I’ll go one by one:
You are probably right that Martin’s Liberals would have been more conservative. I don’t know if I’d have placed them as far right as Harper, but I think you are probably right. Martin (did I mention that I DON’T love him?) is a career politician, he will go where the wind blows. He’ll say whatever needs to be said to win based on the polls. And you are right, that’s despicable (and also why I could never be a politician). However, it is politics, unfortunately. I’m not sure if most people really get it, maybe they do.
As far as using the fear of Harper thing to win, I actually agree with that. He is terrifying. I can’t even begin to imagine my country having him as a PM, it disgusts me. To me, the fear thing is clearly a ploy, but it’s still the truth… So I don’t really find that part of it offensive.
On Gomery, I have a hard time believing Martin knew nothing. That suggests he had his head in the sand the whole time and do we want a leader who was stunned enough not to se what was going on all around him? Agreed. Back to the career politician thing. He probably had nothing to do with Adscam because he hated Chretien, not because he is Mr. Ethics (as they are making it out to be).
That’s what I really think. And I think we are more on the same page than originally thought. Where we differ is on the reasons why we put the check mark where we put the check mark. I am willing to plug my nose and vote liberal to prevent Harper from getting anywhere near becoming PM. That’s it. I’m not really enthused about it (or proud of it) but that is the way it is for me.
It’s like this: if I was an American in 2000 and the people running were Gore, McCain and Nader, I’d vote for Nader in a heartbeat (I like him!). However, if the vote were Gore, Bush and Nader, I’d vote Gore because Bush terrified me. I didn’t love Gore, but I really hated Bush. That’s exactly how I feel right now.
And I suspect many of the principled Nader voters from 2000 may now regret that decision, but still feel they did what was in their heart and I won’t penalize them for that…
Oh, and I went back and read my diary to see how you could think my tone was offensive… Ok, I think I see where you’re coming from… I guess I’m a little more passionate than I thought!
Cheers… 🙂
As a not quite typical Canadian-dense American (here in our house in Detroit, we watch Canadian news almost exclusively), I’m enjoying reading your discussions of the current political campaign. Canadian politics provides an excellent alternative perspective on democratic institutions in somewhat similar cultural contexts. I don’t pretend to have any insight whatever – my opinions would sound hopelessly ill-informed – but I learn a lot from seeing things through your eyes.