Idealistic Pragmatist responds to a Tyee article asking why people should vote NDP if Dion presents an acceptably left leaning platform.
Pragmatist responds seriously and in depth - boiling it down, I'd say her most important point is that When Liberals get majority governments, they don't keep their promises. I don't think even most Liberals can deny this with a straight face.
Again and again we've seen them campaign to the left and govern to the right. Make grand promises and then become blandly forgetful in the security of a majority.
If you're a Liberal who actually believes in the ideals of Liberalism more than you believe that the Liberal Party should be in power simply because they deserve to be, you should be hoping for a minority Liberal government after the next election. Hopefully a more realistic one than Paul Martin's.
Liberals always talk a good progressive game and then when they win a majority the interests of ordinary Canadians take a back seat to the interests of Bay Street.
Harper's Tories deserve to lose the next election, but the Liberals don't deserve to win. Not without needing the help of the NDP to govern.
Monday, December 11, 2006
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6 comments:
I don't think even most Liberals can deny this with a straight face.
Ha! Just watch them!
That's just nuts. Asking someone to lie about their vote.
This year, I might just stay home. My riding is almost 100% NDP and so it should be. Still, there comes a time when a political party starts to take its people for granted, and this could be it.
This is a problem for the NDP, but your analysis about the Conservatives needing to lose and the Liberals not deserving to win the next election seems fairly accurate.
If the NDP can concentrate on the fact that while the Liberals talk like the NDP to get votes, they will not follow up on their rhetoric without at the very least a substantial NDP presence in parliament. A respect and trust of the Canadian electorate will probably be of service here. During elections, if it seems that the Liberals are heading for a majority, then progressive voters are more likely to vote NDP. It seems likely at this point that Stephen Harper will continue to scare the Canadian public as the Conservatives unmask themselves, and a rise in Liberal fortunes may actually work in the favour of the NDP.
The other big problem for the NDP is the difficulty it has in establishing itself in Québec. This problem is even more difficult than the problem of Liberal doublespeak, because it is truly illogical. Québec is on the one hand extremely progressive and on the other hand has never warmed up to the NDP.
Cliff:
And what has happened historically when the NDP have gotten any degree of power. No thanks.
Also, I find it strange to hear Dippers advocating strategic voting, being that your party has been so dead set against it for so long. Maybe that rule applies only when the strategic voting is to the detriment of the party of "new ideas".
why left-left leaning liberals and everybody else should vote liberal:
because when conservatives gain majorities, they DO keep their promises.
When in power, Libs could sit on the fence, campaign like NDP and govern like Conservatives. Appeasing all, siding with none.
Voters need a reason to kick the government out.
The rules change when you are an opposition party, as Dippers well know. You have to take a position on all matters.
Voters need a reason to put a new party in.
Will voters kick out Cons over Afghanistan when it was the Martin Liberals who sent our troops into combat? Only if Canadians trust that Dion is a strong enough leader that Libs will not reverse their position.
From what we have seen so far, when pressed by public opinion, Dion reverses his position ( ex. french citizenship)
Once again, as always, what you see is not what you get when you vote Liberal.
Dippers have to make sure that voters know what they are voting FOR in the 'new' Liberal party.
Dion has refused, so far, to take a position on matters such as Income Trusts, Equalization - renewable resources in or out...the lists goes on and on.
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