If I were Green Party leader Elizabeth May, I'd be glad I was being excluded from the leaders' debate.Plus now they get to present themselves as smoking martyrs to democracy and free speech while never having to display what an empty suit they are in terms of policy. Get down off the cross Elizabeth, we need the wood.
Far from needing a platform for solidifying and growing its potential vote coalition, I think the Green Party is something like mushrooms: It grows best in the dark. The less people know about the party, the more they project their own values onto the Greens. They are a handy protest vote for Red Tories, left-wing New Democrats, disaffected Liberals and bored Bloquistes - those who won't go so far as to vote for another main-line party, and can't stand not voting.
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So take a page out of the Tom Hanks stinker The Money Pit. Keep the lights off. Say you are lighting the place with candles to prevent global warming. Stay in the shadows. Mumble when people ask what your specific policies are, and then talk vaguely about a bold new Green future. And be glad you won't actually have to show up at the debate!
To be clear: I oppose this decision. I think it's wrong headed and anti-democratic and I'd love for the Canadian people to get an opportunity to see just how formless the Greens are.
They'll probably get more votes from being excluded than they would have gained from participating in the debates and they'll certainly lose less votes from soft supporters finding out exactly what they stand for - or don't.
5 comments:
I think you're wrong about growing in the dark. 4.5% is not big enough to rule like the Greens should be at by now if we'd been in the debates the last days.
I think this simply shows how well the Greens are doing.
Harper, Layton and Duceppe are all so afraid of debating May on a fair playing field that they won't even show up if she's there.
It's worth it to them to not get all of the free press from the debates in order to ensure that they don't have to debate with Elizabeth May.
Now, isn't that quite a story. These leaders are so afraid of their own ability to get votes that they are willing to forego debates in order to avoid having to go one-on-one with May. Obviously they believe that May would royally screw up all of their plans.
Now, if that isn't being a wimp, I don't know what is.
For party supporters who are doing the truth and justice stance, and taking the ethical high road - neither Layton or Duceppe said that they wouldn't show up to the debates if May was included:
1. Harper said he would not if May was included; and
2. Dion said he would not if Harper didn't show up.
Nice tag team to Harper/Dion.
I disagree with the decision to oppose the Green Party being allowed in the debate, but there is an unambiguous validity to the argument that it basically would give the Liberals two voices on stage.
If you support another party's leader, if you support the other party's platform, if you have an arrangement to support each others candidates and not run against each other, then there is a real question whether you can actually call these two separate parties.
Is it fair to everyone else on the stage if Dion and May are a tag team?
That said I wish she was allowed into the debate because I think it would go a long way towards revealing how bankrupt these two parties and their chummy little deal actually is.
"I'd love for the Canadian people to get an opportunity to see just how formless the Greens are."
Nothing would make me happier then the Canadian people learning how formless the Greens are, but I wonder if May's passion would be sufficient to counteract the lack of policy, especially original policy in a leaders debate type of setting.
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