It is interesting to uncover some of the merger commentary within Liberal ranks, where they refer to Ed Broadbent and Roy Romanow as NDP "Saints". Boy, if the people conducting these merger negotiations regard former NDP leaders as Saints, then the Liberals are in worse shape ideologically than I ever would have guessed. Broadbent is certainly an elder statesman of the Dippers and I don't have any direct complaints about him other than my standard opposition to socialism which is that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Granted, these are the same people who consider Jean Chretien to be a deity (despite him never beating a united right), so the Liberal ability to assign an appropriate moniker to any politician is in question.
Do you think that Broadbent and Romanow are Saints? Even if they aren't worthy of canonization, they certainly hold considerable sway in NDP circles. Are they seriously negotiating the surrender of the NDP? If so, Jack Layton may have a problem on his hands. Many of the same Liberals who say that a non-compete pact is tantamount to a merger are the same ones decrying a merger. Look, if Liberals and Dippers both compete against each other in all 308 ridings that diminishes the total number of seats they will win. If you take the 2008 election results and shift all Liberal and NDP votes to the one of the two that finished ahead of the other, the Liberals would be 2 seats behind the Tories with a 12% gap in popular support. A non-compete can level the playing field to equal even if the Tories have a double digit lead.
The Liberals won't talk about it, but they have to be worried that they will bleed a lot of support from their right flank if they fuse with the party on the far left. Those former Tories like Scott Bryson and Joe Clark who went running into Liberal arms when the right united are unlikely to be comfortable with a seismic leftist shift in party policy. Maybe Clark is a bad example considering he is allegedly involved in the negotiations to unite the left and Bryson was really pumping the Coalition idea in Dec 2008; but I am mostly talking about voters.
The Liberals resisting a merger are those afraid of opening Pandora's ballot box...
It's too late, even if JC, WK were playing at removing the floor from Iffy for Rae.
ReplyDeleteThe damage is done, Jack was ready to sell out the NDP in 2008 to boot Harper.
The real threat to the Lib-Dem is the public will be sold the choice for either majority.
Iffy and Jack are going to ignore the election results and will try another palace coup.
Voters will have to show up to stop them and I have confidence in Canadians with Blue Wave II.
http://canadiansense.blogspot.com/2009/12/predictions-for-2010-blue-wave-pt-ii.html
ReplyDeleteYou think W.K. is an oracle, check out this guy!
(lol)
Well you predicted Rae's people would split away from Ignatieff, but you wrote that after prediction 12 "The Coalition is officialy "rebuked" in a Summer General Election giving the CPC-led government their well deserved Majority."
ReplyDeleteThere isn't going to be a summer election. In my predictions for 2010, I predicted that there would not be an election this year. It was my second prediction. I also predicted that Hezbollah would become more hostile and the Turkish military would be partially deployed in Northern Iraq. And Joe Biden will say something stupid.
20 Predictions for 2010
I did not say it was perfect but it is much better than that W.K. list. The internal spat has taken longer to boil.
ReplyDeleteThe predictions were made Dec 23, 2009 and most of them are bang on.
I could join Kevin O'Leary with some ju ju beads on stock picks!
So ... what's to be surprised about?
ReplyDeleteA non-compete agreement is a merger, without the messy democracy stuff, like parties voting on it.
ReplyDeleteHow would the Libs and Dippers get candidates to run in ridings they withdrew from, in the next election?
Non-compete = merger
Are Liberals comfy with Unions running their caucus'?
Are Dippers comfy with 1/3 of the Lib caucus being anti-abortion and anti-ssm?
Jack Layton thought we should negotiate with the Taliban.Still think we should after this?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2010/06/10/2010-06-10_taliban_hang_7yearold_boy_accused_of_being_a_spy_suicide_bomber_kills_40_at_afgh.html?comments=1
The unite-the-left movement, such as it is, is as much about anybody-but-harper as it is anything else. That's why you see Joe Clark buddying up with socialists like Broadbent. Joe would make a deal with the devil if it meant harming Stephen Harper.
ReplyDeleteThose who speak of "uniting the left" perplex me somewhat. What "Left" parties would they have the NDP unite with? The Greens? CAP? The Bloc? Since what appears to be under discussion is a Liberal-NDP merger, it would be more accurate to speak of "uniting the left and centre."
ReplyDelete