quote:
Originally posted by Albireo:
Interesting thoughts. A couple of points, though. I may be reading you wrong there, but your idea seems to depend on saying that there can only be a Liberal minority, and asking "who would you rather see holding the balance of power?". The problem is that a Conservative minority is a real possibility, and people are starting to realize that.
Being the bored political junkie that I am, I did a lot of research on the chance that the Cons can form a minority Gov't...I've found no evidence of this being probable.
1) On this board, it's been discussed that the NDP vote collapses the moment the public senses the Cons gaining any real power. In fact, this article http://tinyurl.com/78lp6 validates the fact that the Liberals have a cushion of 5 to 10 percent of NDP vote at their disposal to keeps the neo-cons out.
2) Even at Free Dominion, the most likely scenario consists of the Cons losing seats because of how they won most of their very close races in the last election. And I think there just aren't that many battlegrounds and not enough anger in the public to make any kind of dynamic shift in gov't, the kind necessary to give Cons real power.
3) In 2000, the Canadian Alliance received about 25.6% of the vote. In 2004, the Cons received 29.6%...in other words they did not really tap into the PC vote at all. I think most polls show most former PC voters rejecting the Cons because of their extremism and as such, the Cons have little room to grow. This has been reflected in the current election polls where I have not seen any real momentum from the Cons. Eastern Canadian have always rejected the Reform Party and will continue to do so unless something dramatic happens.
4) Historically, if a party forms gov't, it's because of Quebec.
quote:
Originally posted by Albireo:
Given that, the NDP would have to sell these points:
(1) there will be a minority (a majority is impossible)
(2) no party, neither tweedle-dum nor tweedle-dee, can fully implement their agenda or do much damage with a minority.
(3) the NDP can best represent your values and priorities in the minority parliament.
It might be reasonable to sell (1) and (3), but the problem is that many people will not buy (2) -- that's the whole problem with panic voting (which some people call "strategic" voting). Some people will never be convinced that the
Cons and Libs are the same thing (and in some ways they are right). They will think that if the Cons get more seats, the sky will fall, and so they will run to the Libs.
This is where I think you misunderstood my intent. You see, the NDP are currently attacking Paul Martin from the left. For example, in their Christmas commercial they're saying that Martin's gave his friends a 10 mil Corporate Tax cut. I don't think this resonates at all with voters. Firstly, because this is standard left-wing rhetoric that I believe most voters roll their eyes at. Secondly, I don't think most voters know what a "corporate tax cut" really is or what corporations had reduced taxes or why this is bad considering many people are employed by corporations. In other words, I don't think most voters would care.
On the other hand, I think most voters are disturbed by how chaotic the last session of parliament was. I think traditionally, Canadians perfer a strong, united parliament with a clear agenda. If instead of saying Martin is bad because of "corporate tax cuts", the NDP emphasises the NDP need seats to stabalize parliament, I think voters would get it.
quote:
Originally posted by Albireo:
The other point is that the NDP can't really run against the Bloc. Even if they want to ask the voters "Who do you want to hold the balance of power?", they can't be seen to be providing the answer that "Hey, it's us because the BQ sucks". I think it would look foolish to make the election a choice between the 3rd and 4th place parties.
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Why not? I mean, clearly you can't ask voters to vote for the NDP to form gov't considering the current NDP political situation. So the real question is if the NDP can't ask the voters to consider it as a gov't in waiting, then what should it ask for?
Clearly, the NDP's historical purpose has been supporting Liberal minorities. Why not just campaign on this? I mean, from what I can tell, even most people on rabble are not comfortable with the idea of an NDP majority gov't - so why not be straightward with the public?
quote:
Originally posted by Albireo:
Now if only there were a strategy that allowed the NDP to run for government, and let the Liberals worry about the balance of power...
Keep in mind nothing in political reality can be absolute proven. I can't prove absolutely that Cons minority can't happen. However, it doesn't have to be proven absolutely to be able to campaign with it. *As long as something makes sense with the Public, it will resonate.* I mean, is a Cons minority more likely than an NDP minority realistically? Certianly the Cons can easily have more seats than the NDP, but I have not seen any real evidence that they can get the seats necessary for real power. This is something I think the public can get.
[ 03 January 2006: Message edited by: Hobbes_the_tiger ]
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posted 01 January 2006 10:09 PM
