Everybody gets one wrong once in a while and this is one that Impolitical gets badly wrong. Apparently Bob Rae is talking up the idea that NDP voters need to rally behind the Liberals in order to defeat the Conservatives and Impolitical's comment is:
Sending Rae out to make that case to NDP voters is a shrewd strategic move.
Here in Ontario, it's only a shrewd strategic move if your goal is to get at least a percentage of NDP voters to spit in your face.
And incidentally, I note the way Rae framed the issue today.
Mr. Rae called the Harper government "the house that Jack built," because the NDP helped topple the Liberal government of Paul Martin.
In the final analysis, the Harper government happened because voters decided to make it happen and that includes deciding that in large numbers they didn't want to vote for Liberals last time around. But thanks for showing voters your contempt, Bob.
For that matter, if the Martin Liberal government was such an all-fired great choice for NDP voters, you would think they would have agreed to Layton/NDP demands to shore up the health care system instead of digging in their heels and going to the polls rather than endure the horrid fate of helping Canadian citizens get health care.
you know, the reason that I enjoyed the selection of Dion as a liberal leader is that the choice looked like it would be Iggy or Bob. Bob's record in Ontario is not a good one, and Iggy, well, I'm not sure he's even really a liberal, he's really a lot more to the right than I'm comfortable with. Dion looked like a great solution.
The problem seems to be that in this election, the liberal party seems to gearing up to replace Dion and not Harper. The campaign is anemic and passionless.
They should be countering Harper's weak leader attacks by putting Dion front and centre and showing him in a good leadership light, instead of hiding him behind the "team liberal" garbage which seems to be promoting Iggy and Bob at the expense of Dion.
I wish they would keep their dirt in the House of Liberal, as they do their public blood letting, instead of flinging it everywhere.
I think Rae is scared that if the libs tank so much, he will be stuck in opposition land for a long-long time, to long to reach his dream job of PM.
if the Martin Liberal government was such an all-fired great choice for NDP voters...
If Martin had been a half-way decent prime minister and the Liberals had run a half-way decent campaign in '06 then Harper wouldn't have become prime minister. If the Liberals had won in '06 they would have claimed credit for it. But they lost so it's everyone else's fault.
I haven't been enthusiastic about the Liberal campaign but I haven't been particularly steamed at them either until now. Great move, Bob.
That's too funny. I live in the riding where the NDP, last election, parachuted in a star candidate, Bob Rae's good buddy Paul Summerville. Guess what Paul Summerville did last year? And guess how dippers here feel about Bob Rae right now?
I don't have to face the moral dilemma. I want Harper to go down, and this is a safe Liberal riding, so I could vote for Caligula's horse and it wouldn't make a difference. Instead, I will vote for the dipper sacrificial lamb because that will earn them some money.
What depresses me is that there really is no good Liberal on the horizon, and that in a country where huge numbers of people still assume that they're in a two-party system. Most people are thinking, well, if all the Liberals are dorks (and they are), we have to vote Harper. Sorry, guys, but that's what is happening.
Message to Bob Rae: Look south. There's a lake down there. Go jump in it.
Rae, you miserable, ignorant slut.
It's funny that they think that Rae can woo NDP voters in Ontario. I suppose they will send Ujaal after us in BC next.
Already have.
Och, erin and pogge, that gave me such a pure laugh.
At least we can die laughing.
I'm all for defeating the Cons by whatever means necessary. It's difficult enough for people to be put in in a position where they might feel it necessary to contemplate strategic voting. But it would be nice if Rae and Dosanjh didn't feel the need to insult our intelligence by suggesting the Liberal party is progressive. Rae is bad enough but Dosanjh was a runner up to Peter McKay in the competition for poster boy for zero ethics in politics. Talk about adding insult to injury.
Impolitical is now pondering why people are shouting at her across the internet.
Ummm, gosh. I think I can answer that question. She doesn't take comments. She can write good stuff; she can write outrageous stuff -- and opining that it's a "shrewd" move to send Rae to talk to Ontario dippers is beyond absurd -- but either way or anything in between, and you gotta write about her column from somewhere else.
The thing I find most irritating about this sort of thing is that it seems as if some part of the Liberal Party simply cannot believe that they (*gasp!*) lost an election. They really seem to think somehow that they actually won and are being illegitimately robbed of their rightful place in government. They have got to get over this if they really want to win ever again.