warpus
In pork I trust
And therefore the world
Canadian Conservative Party Leadership
- Thread starter EricTheGreat12
- Start date
EricTheGreat12
King
Even if he wanted to, I think he's a little too old ( 77 years)
"They could all quit, for all I care. I despise the lot of them"
Didn't you just say that you despised Kevin O'Leary for taking the 'coward's way out' of Harper and Prentice ?:
"It's probably a trait in common with Stephen Harper and Jim Prentice: Cowardice in the face of certain defeat. If they can't be the leader, they pack up their marbles and go home, and to hell with the people who believed in them and supported them."
Quitting the way those three did is cowardly, but it's not the only reason I despise them, and nobody has ever given me a good reason not to despise the other Reformacons, as well.Even if he wanted to, I think he's a little too old ( 77 years)
"They could all quit, for all I care. I despise the lot of them"
Didn't you just say that you despised Kevin O'Leary for taking the 'coward's way out' of Harper and Prentice ?:
"It's probably a trait in common with Stephen Harper and Jim Prentice: Cowardice in the face of certain defeat. If they can't be the leader, they pack up their marbles and go home, and to hell with the people who believed in them and supported them."
There are expectations for politicians who quit, and in Jim Prentice's case, he did the correct thing in resigning as leader of the party, but the wrong thing in also resigning the seat he'd won (the polls weren't all closed yet, but the way the math was shaking out, he couldn't possibly have lost his seat) - thus precipitating the second byelection in that riding in six months. He just couldn't take sitting in the Legislature, seeing Rachel Notley and the NDP forming the government - our first change of government in 44 years.
Harper's cowardice was evident long before the election. Proroguing Parliament to avoid a non-confidence vote is beyond tacky. And on election night, of course he did the expected thing and resigned the leadership... but didn't have the integrity to get in front of a camera and do it himself. He had a flunky hand a note to the news anchors so they could announce it for him (I was watching CBC, and saw Mansbridge's surprised reaction).
I think it's pretty obvious regarding O'Leary. The rest of them did the French debates even though most have mediocre French skills at best. O'Leary just avoided the French debates, and I honestly think that if he actually had won the leadership, he would have avoided as many other debates as possible.
Kinda like the election of 2011 when dozens of Reformacon candidates were told not to attend local forums, and some of the moderators simply set a potted plant on the table in front of the microphone the candidate would have used. I'm not sure, but I think it was a geranium in my riding... very pretty flower, and its conversation was much more intelligent than anything that useless incumbent backbencher would have had to say.
Dunno if you noticed my NDP orange "Keep Calm and Heave Steve" avatar I had back in October 2015, but that's the party I've been supporting both provincially and federally, for the past several elections. It's safe to say I will never support the CPC.
warpus
In pork I trust
AmtrakQuebec
King
Agreed.
Every time I think of O'Leary, I think of this song by another O'Leary (sans the "O" ) ...
I don't see a problem with quitting after an election if you don't get the results you want.
So you don't think it was unethical for Jim Prentice to resign the seat on the same night that he won it, thus precipitating the second byelection in that riding in six months?
I don't have a problem with him resigning the party leadership. That's what every party leader is expected to do when they have a disastrous election loss. But this "if I can't be the Premier, I quit everything" is just childish, and it's damned inconsiderate to his constituents. They already went through a byelection six months previously, precisely so Prentice could get the seat in the first place... and they had to do it all over again, after making it through the provincial election. There's only so much patience people have for election campaigning.
No.
Okay. I hope you're not one who complains about how much government spends on unnecessary expenses, then, because that byelection is an expense that didn't need to happen.
Of course it did. The only alternatives to a byelection are either forcing an MP to work against their will (can't imagine they're particularly effective for their constituents in that case), or leaving the constituents with no representation.
Prentice was blatantly in this for himself, and to hell with any other concerns. His condescending "math is hard" comment to Rachel Notley lost him some votes, but unfortunately not enough to have him lose his seat so he wouldn't have to put on that monumental display of childishness.
Since a party leader is also the MLA of his or her riding, it really does matter if they decide to blow off the riding itself if they lose the election and resign as leader. Prentice showed that he was only willing to serve his constituency if he could also be the Premier - which means he really had no interest in being an MLA; his only interest was in being Premier and continuing on with the unethical crap the Conservatives had been doing for the past 44 years. I have to wonder which cookie jars he couldn't finish raiding due to the election.
He should have resigned the leadership and not run from the get-go when the election was called.
If people like the federal leaders (well, not Stephen Harper; he rarely showed his face in the House after losing, and the opinion I've heard the most about that is because he wanted Parliamentary immunity just until the Duffy trial was concluded so he wouldn't have to testify) can face their political opponents after losing, what made Jim Prentice so special that he would refuse to sit opposite to Rachel Notley?
Since a party leader is also the MLA of his or her riding, it really does matter if they decide to blow off the riding itself if they lose the election and resign as leader. Prentice showed that he was only willing to serve his constituency if he could also be the Premier - which means he really had no interest in being an MLA; his only interest was in being Premier and continuing on with the unethical crap the Conservatives had been doing for the past 44 years. I have to wonder which cookie jars he couldn't finish raiding due to the election.
He should have resigned the leadership and not run from the get-go when the election was called.
If people like the federal leaders (well, not Stephen Harper; he rarely showed his face in the House after losing, and the opinion I've heard the most about that is because he wanted Parliamentary immunity just until the Duffy trial was concluded so he wouldn't have to testify) can face their political opponents after losing, what made Jim Prentice so special that he would refuse to sit opposite to Rachel Notley?
That's really all about how you personally don't like Prentice and Harper, and not about how there's anything wrong with resigning if you don't want to perform a particular job.
Anyone should be able to resign from any job at any time. (With reasonable exceptions - if you're an aircraft pilot, you really shouldn't resign, say, in the middle of a shift.)
Anyone should be able to resign from any job at any time. (With reasonable exceptions - if you're an aircraft pilot, you really shouldn't resign, say, in the middle of a shift.)
It's about ethics. I'd say the same of any party's leader.
There are some things that should not be abandoned willy-nilly. Would you support a surgeon being allowed to quit his job in mid-operation?
Should a politician be smiled at and patted on the back for resigning in the middle of a natural disaster or major political situation?
I would suspect the ethics and mental health of anyone who says "yes" to the above... unless some catastrophic thing had happened.
Should a politician be patted on the back for selfishly making it necessary for a provincial riding to have to suffer the inconvenience and hassle of THREE PROVINCIAL ELECTIONS IN THE SAME YEAR (two of them byelections)? Elections aren't cheap. About the only people who would be happy about this would be the sign-makers, ad companies, and anyone else who normally sells goods to campaigning politicians or other related services. If I were one of the usual EC workers in that riding I might be happy, since it's easy money (although election day itself is a very long, tedious day).
But the voters, who would have to put up with more weeks of ads on TV and radio, signs and billboards, door-knocking by candidates and volunteers, and taking yet more time to go to the polls, might be tempted to just say to hell with this, I'm staying home.
I get that you're all for free will and I-can-do-whatever-I-want... but there are situations where just because a person can do something, it doesn't mean he should do it.
Really, on a relative basis, by-elections aren't very expensive. In fact, they're roughly 1/338 as expensive as an entire election.
So you should be just as upset by not pushing the federal election back by four days as by having a single extra byelection every four years (or every 3.7 years if you want to be precise.) Saves the same amount of money, time and the various other electoral stuff you mentioned.
Politicians don't matter much in the case of natural disasters, and quitting in the middle of a "major political situation" is only likely to be a problem for the politician's own party, so sure, I don't see a problem.
No, that would be like the example of a pilot quitting mid-flight that I already used.
So you should be just as upset by not pushing the federal election back by four days as by having a single extra byelection every four years (or every 3.7 years if you want to be precise.) Saves the same amount of money, time and the various other electoral stuff you mentioned.
Politicians don't matter much in the case of natural disasters, and quitting in the middle of a "major political situation" is only likely to be a problem for the politician's own party, so sure, I don't see a problem.
No, that would be like the example of a pilot quitting mid-flight that I already used.
AmtrakQuebec
King
In all honesty, I care more about the disrespect shown to the politician's supporters, whether they gave him money, canvassed on his behalf, etc. It may be surprising that I would actually give a damn about Conservative/Reformacon voters, but I have to try to put myself in their shoes - how would I feel if (unimaginably) the federal candidate of my choice won but promptly quit, or crossed the floor (which is a whole other ethical debate). Not everyone votes for the party; some people vote for specific candidates and if that individual isn't running, they would choose a different party.
I don't usually support the provincial Liberal party (well, not since that fiasco in Calgary in when their leadership convention and our science fiction convention ended up crammed into the same hotel and far too many of them showed absolutely zero respect or even a smidgen of common courtesy toward us)... but I made a exception one time. I knew the candidate, having worked with him in the theatre, and knew him for a sensible person who would have done a good job as our MLA. If he'd won (unimaginably, but this is a hypothetical, after all) but quit the same night, I wouldn't have been impressed at all. Sure, he would have had the right to quit, but it would have been a rotten thing to do to his supporters without a damn good reason.
Zelig and I have long disagreed on politics.AmtrakQuebec said:
As for Civ... I'll admit that I save the game right before opening a goody hut. If I like what happens, the game goes on. If I don't, I reload the game and try again.
It saves a lot of aggravation and having to start new games when a barbarian kills my only settler unit on that map.
There's no disrespect unless the politician is representing themselves under either the implicit or explicit assumption that they won't quit if they don't get the result they want. (And even then, only insofar as it's a broken campaign promise - it pales in comparison, to say, basing an entire party's platform on electoral reform and then torpedoing the entire plan after getting elected.)
If you make that assumption, it's not a good one.
Have never had any complaints.
Playing through games that have been decided is asinine - it would be like competitive chess players or curlers refusing to resign or concede.
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Speaking of assumptions, you appear to be assuming that I'm a Liberal/Trudeau supporter.
Yes, I voted in the last Liberal leadership race, entirely for the hell of it, as it's the first and probably only chance I will ever have to vote for a federal party leader. The voting was open to anyone, no party membership necessary. It was a ranked ballot, and as I recall, Trudeau was second-last on mine.
In the actual election, I voted NDP. Some here may recall my orange "Heave Steve" avatar.
On the subject of electoral reform, I am beyond disgusted that we were lied to. I was looking forward to being able to vote my conscience for a change. I'm also disgusted at how the assisted dying bill wasn't in accordance with what the Supreme Court wanted it to be.
That said, it's inaccurate to say the entire Liberal platform was based on electoral reform. No doubt some people were swayed by the legalization of marijuana (that's one reason I opted not to vote Liberal), and others may have had genuinely decent candidates they would have supported even without the Anybody But Conservative movement.
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