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Weakness for power

By Kevin Steel ⋅ December 28, 2007 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

Dec. 26, CP: Canada–Limping into 2008

"When the year began, Harper’s Conservatives were sitting at 34 per cent in public opinion approval, according to Harris-Decima, just ahead of the Liberals at 31 per cent. The NDP was at 15 and the Green party at eight per cent.

As 2007 draws to a close, Harris-Decima’s rolling three-week averages had the Tories hovering around 34 per cent, the Liberals at 29, the NDP at 15 and the Greens polling 11 per cent."

Michael Den Tandt in the Owen Sound Sun Times: Fearless predictions (and why Harper, and I, got it wrong)

"What better way to set those fears to rest, get ahead of a rising global political wave and severely undercut the Liberals than to go Green? It couldn’t fail.

But it did."

And then Den Tandt goes into the technicalities of policy. I’m sorry, I’m skeptical. Canadians I believe don’t pay that much attention to the technical aspects of policy.

The only lesson here is apparently you gain nothing by bowing down to people like Gore and Suzuki. Give an inch and they’ll just keep bashing. They don’t have to compromise because they’re not running for office. They can’t give an inch because that would p-ss off their core constituency  which wants control, power, and hates you for a whole lot of other reasons. And in passing, you alienate the people who did vote for you. Back to waiting for the wave.