[Canadian Election Results] Harper vs Iggy vs the 'stache

[viper37]

So, having wandered by again and being too lazy to read over 46 pages worth (or more, if there are more than two threads) of posts...can anyone tell me what happened to the Bloc? Why did they collapse?

Oex version: one dubious poll made people change their heart, lose their faith, abandon all hope, throw themselves at the mercy of the Devil.
PQ version: this vote had nothing to do with sovereignty, it does not concern us, it is meaningless, we are perfect, we have no need for this 'change' you speak of.
Cons version: this vote marks the end of the independance idea in Quebec.  Quebecers are now happy citizens of Canada just like everyone else.

My version: Duceppe painted himself and his party into a corner.  He made this on a left vs right basis because he knew people were tired of the sovereignty debate in Ottawa.  Now, on the one hand, you have a control freak, just as bas as Harper, readily aligning himself with union leaders who are knee deep in the corruption scandals hitting the news for the last 2 years.  On the other hand, you got this cool pappy walking with a cane, always smiling.  The NDP came and proposed some things that pleased people a lot, like a grandfather giving candies to his grandchildren.  The Bloc attacked Harper, painted him as a devil, his supporters as western cowboys and saying the only way to prevent the Western rightwingers with alien values of their triumph was to vote for him.  Once he realized he got shifted by the turtle on his left, he changed his attack, going vicious on good ol' Jack.  While demonizing Harper is easy, because he is cold, rational, totally unemotional, doing so with Jack Layton, the guy next door, who talks a lot but knows nothing was a no-win scenario for the Bloc.  In the end, they tried to shift back their campaign on the sovereignty&nationalism issues: real Québécois only vote for the Bloc, it's a solemn duty to all those who favour independance to vote Bloc.

People here didn't want to vote for Harper, this utterly dangerous rightwing maniac (tm Bloc Québécois).  they saw the NDP as a better left wing alternative than the Bloc.

[Oexmelin]

Seriously, Viper, how did you come about your extraordinary talent for grossly caricaturing anyone you perceive as either your political opponents or even only remotely connected to your usual nemesis? You are dangerously close to becoming a caricature of yourself.

[Josephus]

Gosh, if I ever have to hear about the whole "contempt of Parliament" thing again...

I've a feeling we'll be hearing a lot more from it over the next four years.

[Grey Fox]

Seriously, Viper, how did you come about your extraordinary talent for grossly caricaturing anyone you perceive as either your political opponents or even only remotely connected to your usual nemesis? You are dangerously close to becoming a caricature of yourself.

Its not just his political opponents. C'est un talent que viper possede pour tout ce qui lui déplait.

[Josephus]

plus ca change plus ca la meme chose

[Habbaku]

And, to fudge some figures. Harper only got 40 per cent of the 60 per cent of Canadians that voted.---Which is what? 24 per cent of the country, then that voted for him? Less than a quarter.

  This sounds exactly like the nutbar Republicans in the US that try to rationalize away the fact that Clinton was elected, twice, with no majority.

[Josephus]

And, to fudge some figures. Harper only got 40 per cent of the 60 per cent of Canadians that voted.---Which is what? 24 per cent of the country, then that voted for him? Less than a quarter.

  This sounds exactly like the nutbar Republicans in the US that try to rationalize away the fact that Clinton was elected, twice, with no majority.

True.

But I'm not saying that. 

Harper won his majority fair and square--that's how our system works. I don't hold that against him.

Oex said he was wondering with all the stuff about Harper being in contempt of parliament (sorry, Beeb)  why so many voted for him.

I was merely correcting him.

[Neil]

And, to fudge some figures. Harper only got 40 per cent of the 60 per cent of Canadians that voted.---Which is what? 24 per cent of the country, then that voted for him? Less than a quarter.

  This sounds exactly like the nutbar Republicans in the US that try to rationalize away the fact that Clinton was elected, twice, with no majority.

The 'secret agenda' people are roughly as wretched as the US militia types, birthers or the more extreme Tea Partiers.

[viper37]

Seriously, Viper, how did you come about your extraordinary talent for grossly caricaturing anyone you perceive as either your political opponents or even only remotely connected to your usual nemesis? You are dangerously close to becoming a caricature of yourself.

I knew you were gonna say something like this

I couldn't write a 300 page essay on the subject, that's why you find it imprecise.

But you said yourself earlier in this thread it was all because of one crappy poll.  Don't have the heart to digg it, but I was disapointed to see you use the party line.  Two different surveys around the same time showed a push for the NDP, those immediatly after showed a push to the NDP.

Saying it all started from a dubious poll was, imho, a bad attempt at rationalizing an irrational behavior.

[crazy canuck]

First, nobody predicted this would happen. Most assumed the results of this election would be more or less the same as the last - the implosion of the liberals, the extermination of the Bloc, the rise of the NDP and the Con majority came as a surprise to almost everyone - the "joke" being, most of all a surprise to the NDP, who fielded "candidates" in Quebec who were supposed to be purely nominal and in some cases did not bother to campaign (one was a part-time bartender who took a trip to Vegas during the short election period).

There were lots of people, including me, who predicted that the Cons could very well end up with a Majority and for that reason the opposition forcing an election at this time was a daft idea.  You just need to go to the beginning of this thread to see that.  What surprised everyone is that the NDP would replace the Bloc in Quebec and that the Liberals would be destroyed.  I thought it would be the NDP who would suffer the most.

However, as much as Jack is going to enjoy teaching the kids how to function as MPs, he still had more clout under a minority government then he does now.  So the answer Valmy is Yes, it was a huge miscalculation for the opposition to force this election.  Iggy's only hope was that the polls would change during the election.  They did, but unfortunately for Iggy not in the way he was hoping.

[crazy canuck]

And, to fudge some figures. Harper only got 40 per cent of the 60 per cent of Canadians that voted.---Which is what? 24 per cent of the country, then that voted for him? Less than a quarter.

  This sounds exactly like the nutbar Republicans in the US that try to rationalize away the fact that Clinton was elected, twice, with no majority.

Yep, fact is 40% of the popular vote is considered a healthy majority by Canadian standards.  50% is almost impossible to achieve.  Ironically for the left the last two governments to achieve that were both Conservative.

Also, Josephus should apply the same math to the percentage of people who voted for the NDP....

[Grey Fox]

What I dislike by that math is that somehow all those people that didn't vote somehow made a choice to not vote for the cons.

They didn't, they didn't vote. They made no choice.

[Habbaku]

If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice.

[Josephus]

What I dislike by that math is that somehow all those people that didn't vote somehow made a choice to not vote for the cons.

They didn't, they didn't vote. They made no choice.

As the infamous Canadian philosopher Neil Peart once quipped.

"If you chose not to decide you still have made a choice."

EDIT: What Habbaku said.

[Grey Fox]

If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice.

I haven't watch any Golf on tv this year. Did I made that choice is I wasn't aware that golf was on tv?