Abandoned Stuff by Saskboy

Well, the media seems to think so, I seem to think so (with some caveats), but the Green Party website makes it clear that she never said, “vote strategically”. That’s not what the staff reporter for the Toronto Star understood.

The headline of the story is much more certain than the rest of the piece. Perhaps the reporter understood that catching May saying a strategic vote was needed, would garner a lot of attention?

May urged Canadians to do all they can to throw Prime Minister Stephen Harper out of office, including strongly suggesting they shouldn’t vote Green if another candidate has a better chance at defeating a Conservative.

“We are too close to the edge of a global apocalypse,” May said in an interview. “We have got to grab the opportunities we have. And, clearly, the contribution Canadians can make to a global solution is to get rid of Stephen Harper.”

May insists she’s not calling for strategic voting because that leads people to simply vote Liberal. She wants Canadians to examine their riding and figure out how best to keep the Tories from winning.

I added some emphasis in that quote. Clearly a vote for a Green or NDP is not out of the question. The Green Party leader advocating for people to vote Green to strategically[?] keep Harper out of government, if the vote for the Greens is likely to land a seat? Not much a story there. But if you frame it as her advocating that all Greens vote Liberal, it apparently backs up what Harper and Layton have been saying. The trouble is, when she made a point in the article of saying she’d encourage voters to examine even the NDP, people are just trying to play “gotcha”. Can you imagine Layton putting his country and the environment before the NDP getting more seats than the Bloc? I can’t, not without guffawing anyway.

Anyway, all this is really beside the point of any important issue in the campaign. The reality is that many people have voted strategically before, and will again. It’s a problem that won’t go down until people feel they can vote for a person or party of their choice, and have their vote count without it being thrown aside with [often] the majority’s in a First Past the Post electoral system.

The reason May’s selfless position is a negative at all, is that it will undoubtedly lead to a lower Green popular vote than there would be with no strategic voting taking place. Harper and Layton spin it as being ‘pro-Liberal’, but strategic voting is going to benefit the Liberals anyway if the goal is to stop Harper. That’s the curse of the 2 party mentality that most people, and FPTP has.

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And for some partisan NDP fun, check out Scott P.’s ongoing effort to swiftboat May, this time as someone who supports an ongoing war in Afghanistan. Of course she doesn’t want Canadian forces to be there indefinitely, but his NDP partisan bend rushed to post what he knew was not true. He says so himself — he’s “shocked”. Yeah Scott, that would be because you didn’t understand what she was saying, because it wasn’t a complete video. It didn’t even contain the question she was asked.

“Elizabeth May does NOT want to withdraw Canadian troops from Afghanistan

This news came as a complete shock to me[...]”

The video and Scott’s take on it is closer to comedy than it is to journalism!
Observe a master of the out-of-context interview:

Some Babblers just don’t care for someone who isn’t in love with the NDP and every thing they do. I guess I should have just summed up by saying that if Scott ever has something good to say about the Green Party, it will be when Stephen Harper invites Stephan Dion over for Christmas dinner at Stornoway.

- May in Winnipeg

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D. Ray in Ontario sent me these thoughts about the elections:
Nov 4. We will face one of the following scenarios.

McCain and Harper both win. End of our environment as we know it.
Obama and Harper both win. Better for environment and Harper is marginalized by comparison.
Obama and anyone else. Much better for environment and maybe we can get to work.