I was really impressed by Dion’s lunchtime speech today (aside from his ESL grammar of course). He certainly was showing some charisma, and was putting Harper’s games playing in context for the media. It’s clear that soon again Harper’s Conservatives will attack Dion and Green Party leader May for a “backroom” deal in their respective riding contests, but Harper is willing to wheel and deal with Dion over the PHONE on the fate of the current parliament!
CTV has the video.
It’s not hard to see why Dion scoffs at Harper’s claim that other parties are preventing parliament from working. The Conservatives are the ones who are preventing parliament from working, because it’s busy weeding out Conservative corruption (In-and-Out, Cadscam) and ethical problems (10%ers, Bernier). Scott provides a link to why an early election call is preposterous if Harper wants to save face.
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Yesterday was quite different. After I had the afternoon off anyway, and no plans, I called up some friends and we went 5 pin bowling for a couple hours. I averaged about 176 after 44 frames, with a couple of >200 games. My car appears to be sucking gas, so either a Grand Prix sucks (likely) or someone is siphoning my tank and that’s why it gets just 18MPG in the city driving I’m doing. I could almost see the needle going down yesterday while driving between the library and bowling alley. Then it went back up again. Accuracy is not important in gas gauges, just as it isn’t for toner cartridge level meters or progress bars.
We wrapped up the night of cooking an unintentionally vegetarian (almost vegan) meal partly from my garden (and mostly from Superstore) at my place, with “Mission Impossible III” [9/10].
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Zach Bell | 26-Aug-08 at 10:02 pm | Permalink
Without a liberal candidate in Central Nova, May might just pull off becoming the first green elected to parliament ever. Really if the greens pull this off right, they could elect perhaps three or four members to parliament.
May in Central Nova, probably two members from Ontario and I’ll bet they could pull off Sannich-Gulf islands in B.C. if they reeeeaaallly tried.
That being said, I’m still of the opinion that it’s all from the same foul smelling pile.
John Murney | 26-Aug-08 at 11:50 pm | Permalink
The deal could have worked if May had picked a winnable riding.
That said, Dion will come to regret allying himself with May.
Saskboy | 27-Aug-08 at 12:17 am | Permalink
May is from the area and seems to think it’s winnable. I mean, they are Greens, we really don’t know where they are winnable right now, do we? Until the media stops ignoring them, there won’t be a winnable riding in North America.
Zach Bell | 27-Aug-08 at 12:13 pm | Permalink
May is from the area but she has an incredible hurdle to jump seeing as the green vote usually hovers around the 2% mark in Central Nova.
By concentrating resources in the London North Centre 2006 by-election, May and the green party managed to increase their vote share by over 20%. This was a feat that few expected them to accomplish. Couple this accomplishment under May’s belt with that fact that several maritimers are rightly angry with Petey and I think she has a good shot at the very least.
Ontario proved to be a potentially green friendly spot a second time when the provincial green party leader came in a strong second in his riding increasing the green’s vote share by over 30% from about 1.5% or so.
This proves to me that if the greens truly embrace concentration of resources, they can elect a few members and May’s ambitions in Central nova are not in my mind, overtly optimistic. Most green candidates are resigned to losing anyway so a consolidation of resources would more than likely be a recognized and widely accepted national campaign strategy.
Sean | 31-Aug-08 at 12:12 pm | Permalink
ESL grammar?!? He’s the only leader of a federal party who has to retain an employee for the sole purpose of translating his English into English.
Good gawd.
The man can’t even be bothered to learn to passably speak the language used by the majority of Canadians and he wants to lead the country?