Monday, May 23, 2016

Trudeau and a turtle on a fence post

What do they have in common?
Posted by at
Labels: , ,

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

If his last name weren't Trudeau he would be a nobody. I don't fault him for being born to a famous father, but he should have to prove himself, which IMHO he has not, not ride of his celebrity. Regardless of one's politics, Pierre Trudeau, Brian Mulroney, Jean Chretien, Paul Martin, and Stephen Harper all at least got to where they were based on their own merit not famous last name. Ironically enough as Andrew Coyne stated, the Liberals had 10 candidates last time around, 9 with outstanding resumes while one with a very thin one and that was the one they choose.

May 24, 2016 at 3:19:00 PM PDT
Dollops said...

Of course he was chosen for the leg tingle effect. Voters across Canada fell for the media's shameless demonization of Harper and swoon over Justin. Liberals know how politics works in Canada. Conservatives - poor, hapless Conservatives - believe that their chance at power is through Liberal-lite, ignoring the surge of popularity that appears when they have a Ralph Klein, Rob Ford or Donald Trump calling the leftists on their BS. Just watch the CPC shoot itself in the foot with another milquetoast leader.

May 25, 2016 at 9:41:00 AM PDT
JR said...

While there was a large field of leadership candidates it was fairly obvious that the Lib establishment had decided long before the vote to roll the dice and not "elect" but "select" the empty-suit-son-of-a-Liberal-deity. Remember, during the leadership debates (so-called) when Martha Hall Findlay challenged Trudeau on his inability to represent the middle-class. She was booed by the audience and wound up apologizing to Trudeau for having the temerity to actually debate him. The fix was obviously in - it was to be a coronation.

Dollops, the way politics works in Canada is that the Media Party and a large chunk of the rest of the establishment consistently back the Liberal Party and farther-left. Together they command about 60+% of the vote. Once in a while Conservatives manage to win a majority. I wouldn't call the Conservatives under Harper "hapless" or "Liberal-lite". They did remarkably well staying in power (more or less) for nearly a decade. For the most part I was proud to be a Conservative, though, in hind-sight, I wish they'd have been bolder about using their majority to push a more conservative agenda.

I agree, though, that it is possible that the CPC could opt for progressive lib-lite the next time around. Let's hope not.

May 25, 2016 at 6:42:00 PM PDT
Anonymous said...

I don't think the party needs to mimic the Liberals to win, but Canada always has been a centre-left country and that goes more to identity and values and in many ways the media just represents what we are (after all the media wants to make money and unfortunately conservative viewpoints get fewer viewers) thus I don't think taking an ideological right wing viewpoint is the solution. Trudeau has moved enough to the left that there is plenty of room to appeal to Red Tories and Blue Liberals and still be substantially different. Also unlike in the US and Europe, you cannot win on emotional arguments as a conservative as Canadians emotionally are quite left wing. Rather you need to present the facts and evidence and show how conservatism works better than liberalism at achieving what Canadians want and this can be done. The mistake the Tories made was to run on emotion like the Liberals did and not facts forgetting we win based on presenting facts our ideas work, but lose when running on feelings. Also why not start out near the centre and as the next leader builds up trust with the public then shift rightward. This is what Brad Wall has done and he is by far the most popular premier and a conservative too.

May 26, 2016 at 5:01:00 AM PDT

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)