Federal Election 2019

[Kin]

Even so that's not much of a defense for Chrystia Freeland, who is more than a journalist. Same kind of populist nonsense that people try to pin on AOC for being "just a bartender" instead of being a university graduate of International Relations & Economics.

Yeah, but I wouldn't get hung up on the specifics there. Obama, when he got the nomination, had been a professor of Constitutional law and been elected to both state and federal legislatures and they still denigrated his professional capabilities. Modern Conservatism was even ok with taking shots at John McCain for not being, I guess, a good enough soldier.

Everything short of business experience will be presented as unfit for office because a lot of people on the right really think it's the only pertinent experience for heading a government.

 

[Bender]

Even so that's not much of a defense for Chrystia Freeland, who is more than a journalist. Same kind of populist nonsense that people try to pin on AOC for being "just a bartender" instead of being a university graduate of International Relations & Economics.

Yeah, but I wouldn't get hung up on the specifics there. Obama, when he got the nomination, had been a professor of Constitutional law and been elected to both state and federal legislatures and they still denigrated his professional capabilities. Modern Conservatism was even ok with taking shots at John McCain for not being, I guess, a good enough soldier.

Everything short of business experience will be presented as unfit for office because a lot of people on the right really think it's the only pertinent experience for heading a government.

And as we've seen business experience can go either way. People make it seem like private businesses are always upstanding, which is far, far, from the case.

 

[bustaheims]

He seems just like another example of the Conservatives thinking that the problem isn't that their policies are unpopular but that their policies just need a different packaging. I get why they prefer someone brash and loud to take on Trudeau after Scheer's failure and Mackay seeming like old, bland news but I still don't see a fresh take on actual policy or engaging people's actual problems with modern conservatism. If anything "Take Canada Back" seems like textbook modern Conservatism's obsession with casting some citizens as "real Canadians" and others as somehow being imposters or interlopers.

I find it interesting that they seem to be doubling down on their not super successful message from the 2018 election. Sure, they gained a number of seats, but, with the backlash against the Liberals, that was essential a sure thing. They didn't show a significant gain in terms of the popular vote (about 2.5% - enough to push them ahead of the Liberals, but just barely) in an election where, if they had a platform or leader with a wider appeal, they could have won the most seats.

Maybe O'Toole's personality will help push the CPC ahead enough, because it certainly doesn't feel like their policies will see much change under his leadership. MacKay may have been bland and boring, but, at the very least, he would have tried to steer the party back towards the middle.

 

[Kin]

He seems just like another example of the Conservatives thinking that the problem isn't that their policies are unpopular but that their policies just need a different packaging. I get why they prefer someone brash and loud to take on Trudeau after Scheer's failure and Mackay seeming like old, bland news but I still don't see a fresh take on actual policy or engaging people's actual problems with modern conservatism. If anything "Take Canada Back" seems like textbook modern Conservatism's obsession with casting some citizens as "real Canadians" and others as somehow being imposters or interlopers.

I find it interesting that they seem to be doubling down on their not super successful message from the 2018 election. Sure, they gained a number of seats, but, with the backlash against the Liberals, that was essential a sure thing. They didn't show a significant gain in terms of the popular vote (about 2.5% - enough to push them ahead of the Liberals, but just barely) in an election where, if they had a platform or leader with a wider appeal, they could have won the most seats.

Maybe O'Toole's personality will help push the CPC ahead enough, because it certainly doesn't feel like their policies will see much change under his leadership. MacKay may have been bland and boring, but, at the very least, he would have tried to steer the party back towards the middle.

My hunch is that because politics tend to sort of gravitate towards change anyway that there's probably a contingent that says that who the CPC leader is won't be what beats the Liberals, it'll be the Liberals who eventually beat the Liberals and when that inevitably happens the Conservatives want their purest ideologue in place to take advantage of that. Ultimately I think that's what happened with Harper.

 

[OldTimeHockey]

He seems just like another example of the Conservatives thinking that the problem isn't that their policies are unpopular but that their policies just need a different packaging. I get why they prefer someone brash and loud to take on Trudeau after Scheer's failure and Mackay seeming like old, bland news but I still don't see a fresh take on actual policy or engaging people's actual problems with modern conservatism. If anything "Take Canada Back" seems like textbook modern Conservatism's obsession with casting some citizens as "real Canadians" and others as somehow being imposters or interlopers.

I'm not against voting conservative hypothetically, and I have voted for every major party in the past, but I'm tired of the "take back" "MAGA" "Decades to get back" etc. etc. populist scare mongering. It's ridiculous.

Don't pretend the scare mongering doesn't go both ways.

 

[OldTimeHockey]

He seems just like another example of the Conservatives thinking that the problem isn't that their policies are unpopular but that their policies just need a different packaging. I get why they prefer someone brash and loud to take on Trudeau after Scheer's failure and Mackay seeming like old, bland news but I still don't see a fresh take on actual policy or engaging people's actual problems with modern conservatism. If anything "Take Canada Back" seems like textbook modern Conservatism's obsession with casting some citizens as "real Canadians" and others as somehow being imposters or interlopers.

I find it interesting that they seem to be doubling down on their not super successful message from the 2018 election. Sure, they gained a number of seats, but, with the backlash against the Liberals, that was essential a sure thing. They didn't show a significant gain in terms of the popular vote (about 2.5% - enough to push them ahead of the Liberals, but just barely) in an election where, if they had a platform or leader with a wider appeal, they could have won the most seats.

Maybe O'Toole's personality will help push the CPC ahead enough, because it certainly doesn't feel like their policies will see much change under his leadership. MacKay may have been bland and boring, but, at the very least, he would have tried to steer the party back towards the middle.

My hunch is that because politics tend to sort of gravitate towards change anyway that there's probably a contingent that says that who the CPC leader is won't be what beats the Liberals, it'll be the Liberals who eventually beat the Liberals and when that inevitably happens the Conservatives want their purest ideologue in place to take advantage of that. Ultimately I think that's what happened with Harper.

I think it's pretty bang on. I don't think it happens very often that someone comes in and blows everyone out of the water. I think it's usually a case of people being sick of the party in office.

 

[Kin]

I think it's pretty bang on. I don't think it happens very often that someone comes in and blows everyone out of the water. I think it's usually a case of people being sick of the party in office.

I agree that I don't think it's terribly common that any particular personality comes along and moves the needle much but I do think that ideas and policy positions can have significant effects on a particular election. I think that's what the Conservatives have, by and large, gotten wrong about Trudeau. They want to portray him as someone who's just getting by on personality without acknowledging that a lot of the ideas he puts forth really resonate with people and always have.

Without finding their own version of that the Conservatives may very well win another election eventually but they're starting off in a pretty big hole.

 

[herman]

Erin O'Toole is younger than Justin Trudeau

 

[Frank E]

Erin O'Toole is younger than Justin Trudeau

He looks 10 years older than that, for sure.

 

[Bender]

He seems just like another example of the Conservatives thinking that the problem isn't that their policies are unpopular but that their policies just need a different packaging. I get why they prefer someone brash and loud to take on Trudeau after Scheer's failure and Mackay seeming like old, bland news but I still don't see a fresh take on actual policy or engaging people's actual problems with modern conservatism. If anything "Take Canada Back" seems like textbook modern Conservatism's obsession with casting some citizens as "real Canadians" and others as somehow being imposters or interlopers.

I'm not against voting conservative hypothetically, and I have voted for every major party in the past, but I'm tired of the "take back" "MAGA" "Decades to get back" etc. etc. populist scare mongering. It's ridiculous.

Don't pretend the scare mongering doesn't go both ways.

It does, but we're not talking about the other parties right now, we're talking about the Cons. And they could've started on a different footing, but no, this is the footing they chose. Are they trying to win me as a voter or not?

 

[Bender]

Erin O'Toole is younger than Justin Trudeau

That's unfortunate...

 

[Bullfrog]

Erin O'Toole is younger than Justin Trudeau

He looks 10 years older than that, for sure.

Proof that liberalism adds life to you.  :-X

 

[Kin]

It does, but we're not talking about the other parties right now, we're talking about the Cons.

Also, I think a distinction needs to be made between the sort of "If my opponent wins his plans for the marginal tax rate will lead to the streets running red with the blood of innocent children" stuff that, for better or for worse, is just what politics is and what we see here which is that somehow the country has been misappropriated by people who have no claim to it where there really is no equivalent on the Left.

 

[OldTimeHockey]

He seems just like another example of the Conservatives thinking that the problem isn't that their policies are unpopular but that their policies just need a different packaging. I get why they prefer someone brash and loud to take on Trudeau after Scheer's failure and Mackay seeming like old, bland news but I still don't see a fresh take on actual policy or engaging people's actual problems with modern conservatism. If anything "Take Canada Back" seems like textbook modern Conservatism's obsession with casting some citizens as "real Canadians" and others as somehow being imposters or interlopers.

I'm not against voting conservative hypothetically, and I have voted for every major party in the past, but I'm tired of the "take back" "MAGA" "Decades to get back" etc. etc. populist scare mongering. It's ridiculous.

Don't pretend the scare mongering doesn't go both ways.

It does, but we're not talking about the other parties right now, we're talking about the Cons. And they could've started on a different footing, but no, this is the footing they chose. Are they trying to win me as a voter or not?

I don't disagree. I've stated before that I'm a conservative that has been quite disappointed in their decisions for leaders.

 

[Bates]

He seems just like another example of the Conservatives thinking that the problem isn't that their policies are unpopular but that their policies just need a different packaging. I get why they prefer someone brash and loud to take on Trudeau after Scheer's failure and Mackay seeming like old, bland news but I still don't see a fresh take on actual policy or engaging people's actual problems with modern conservatism. If anything "Take Canada Back" seems like textbook modern Conservatism's obsession with casting some citizens as "real Canadians" and others as somehow being imposters or interlopers.

I'm not against voting conservative hypothetically, and I have voted for every major party in the past, but I'm tired of the "take back" "MAGA" "Decades to get back" etc. etc. populist scare mongering. It's ridiculous.

Don't pretend the scare mongering doesn't go both ways.

It does, but we're not talking about the other parties right now, we're talking about the Cons. And they could've started on a different footing, but no, this is the footing they chose. Are they trying to win me as a voter or not?

Let's be real, their only chance at winning you was picking a non conservative as Leader.

 

[bustaheims]

Let's be real, their only chance at winning you was picking a non conservative as Leader.

I'm not sure that's true. If they had gone with Peter MacKay, I think they would have attracted a fair amount of moderate and even Liberal votes. All they really needed was to nominate a progress conservative voice, rather than one that's backed by the Proud Boys and ran a campaign using divisive slogans like "Take Canada Back." Take it back from who, exactly?

 

[Kin]

I mean, the reality is that the further and further we as a country move away from an era where Conservatives came even close to having a majority share of the vote, the more and more voting for the Liberals is effectively the small c conservative position. Social conservatism and dismantling of popular government programs is becoming, in its way, as much of a tearing down of the status quo as anything the Greens or NDP propose.

 

[Bates]

Let's be real, their only chance at winning you was picking a non conservative as Leader.

I'm not sure that's true. If they had gone with Peter MacKay, I think they would have attracted a fair amount of moderate and even Liberal votes. All they really needed was to nominate a progress conservative voice, rather than one that's backed by the Proud Boys and ran a campaign using divisive slogans like "Take Canada Back." Take it back from who, exactly?

My post was for one poster, who I have read many times. No Conservative would interest him.

 

[bustaheims]

Let's be real, their only chance at winning you was picking a non conservative as Leader.

I'm not sure that's true. If they had gone with Peter MacKay, I think they would have attracted a fair amount of moderate and even Liberal votes. All they really needed was to nominate a progress conservative voice, rather than one that's backed by the Proud Boys and ran a campaign using divisive slogans like "Take Canada Back." Take it back from who, exactly?

My post was for one poster, who I have read many times. No Conservative would interest him.

Again, I'm not so sure that's true. Bender's a smart individual. I have to imagine a real progressive conservative, backed by a real progressive conservative party, might be able to get his vote under the right circumstance. As he says, he's voted for the party in the past.

 

[Bates]

Let's be real, their only chance at winning you was picking a non conservative as Leader.

I'm not sure that's true. If they had gone with Peter MacKay, I think they would have attracted a fair amount of moderate and even Liberal votes. All they really needed was to nominate a progress conservative voice, rather than one that's backed by the Proud Boys and ran a campaign using divisive slogans like "Take Canada Back." Take it back from who, exactly?

My post was for one poster, who I have read many times. No Conservative would interest him.

Again, I'm not so sure that's true. Bender's a smart individual. I have to imagine a real progressive conservative, backed by a real progressive conservative party, might be able to get his vote under the right circumstance. As he says, he's voted for the party in the past.

I doubt the Progressive in Progressive Conservative has that meaning. It's highly doubtful that person will lead the party in the near future. The person you are looking for is either Liberal, NDP, or Green.