For a plan that was supposed to attack Conservatives, the Dion-May deal has been exposed as a cynical scheme to out-flank the NDP, not Harper.
Both Dion and May have gone out of their way to target the NDP in all this. Witness May's ill-tempered and over-the-top rant against Jack Layton on CTV's Question Period.
Baffled by a strategy that purports to save the environment by attacking a party and a leader that has been alone in championing the environment in the Commons for years, Greens are speaking out against it.
Stephen LaFrenie, the nominated Green Party candidate in the Toronto riding of Trinity-Spadina has indicated his growing frustration in this comment he posted to the Green Party's website:
"Jack Layton is an honourable man. Stephane Dion is NOT . . . Why should Jack Layton show Ms. May and ourselves courtesy when she has done nothing but insult him since becoming leader. She comes from a conservative mind set and has done nothing in her leadership to build the kind of cooperation she now claims to be trying . . . I continue to find the Layton bashing, partisan nonsense of many Greens on this site to be unacceptable. You are kidding yourself if you think the NDP is going vanish from the political landscape. If we continue to justify failed politicians and political parties like Stephane Dion and the liberals then we will only be seen as liberals and not an alternative."
LaFrenie and others are right: if May is serious about environmental results, working with Stephane Dion against Jack Layton sure is an absurd way to do it.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
11 comments:
Dion is obviously trying to hijack the 10% Green popularity vote to demonstrate to Liberals that he can increase Liberal popularity. The polls are stuck now with the Conservatives consistently ahead of the Liberals.
Dion's strategy is to attract not only the Green vote, but also strip the NDP of the strategic voting neoDeviate Dippers who only use the NDP for their one-issue needs. Together this may add up to a 10% increase in Liberal popularity according to Dion stooge, Jason Cherniak.
When you think about it, Dion is goring the NDP on the issue of the environment with Layton probably approving the revised Clean Air Act, and the Stop Harper anger that saturates the NDP.
You Dippers are between a rock and a hard place on this political play which exploits your obvious weaknesses. Now with the Liberals and May attacking the NDP, will Layton continue to slag Harper because that will only drive more votes to the Liberals and not the NDP. Will the NDP fall on the sword to Stop Harper and Save Dion ???
I tried explaining to a couple of greens that for the party that came 3rd in Central Nova last time, to bow out and pledge support the party that came 4th doesn't really sound like a winning formula to me if the goal is to beat MacKay.
Things are getting a bit difficult for both Dion and May with each having trouble with in house strategists over the wisdom of the deal.
Good post.
leftdog .... May's joining with Dion and running in Central Nova has nothing to do with winning or losing that riding. It is about Dion hijacking the Green vote with May bringing it over to the Liberals. This is so obvious ... and May has destroyed the Green Party with her support of Dion.
Now Dion will try to suck away the strategic soft lefty vote from the NDP in order to stop Harper from winning a majority government. If Layton continues to mindlessly attack Harper while Dion is carving off his backside then the NDP will most certainly disappear in the next election.
At present only Dion has the credibility to rally the Stop Harper at all cost Dippers, and that vote plus the 5% Green vote and Dion will be sitting pretty come the next election.
So what will Layton do to stop the NDP bleeding .. viciously attack Harper to drive the vote into Dion's lap ..???
That may be their plan but it is not going to work AT ALL for them. Both May and Dion are having problems today with their in house paid strategists.
At so many levels both the Libs & the Greens are having problems with thier membership, the media, etc ... I predict that MacKay will win the seat. The NDP will be second (again) with an increased vote and % and May will come 3rd, albeit with a much increased vote and % but still a distant 3rd.
Thanks for the comment Leftdog.
As for Anon 2248, you can't say things like "what will Layton do to stop the NDP bleeding?" without any evidence to back it up.
The NDP is in the margin of error of where it was in Jan 2006.
Compare that to the Liberals who have seen thier Dion-honeymoon pop like a ballon and have hemoraged 16 MPs in recent months. Further the party has waited months to respond to the Harper attack ads.
Dion is sitting. But it's far from pretty.
Granted that the polls are stagnant now, but you can't assume they will stay that way in the heat of an election campaign. Harpe and Dion will attempt to swing the vote their way based on their leadership qualities.
Dion will be shouting that Green leader May supports a Liberal government so why bother voting for the Greens or even the NDP... and that strategic voting Dippers must 'Stop Harper'!!
Harper will be proclaiming 'promise made promise kept' and that a majority Conservative government will not be {{{scary}}}.
What will Layton be saying? "Grit or Tory, same old story" ... "friends, Canadians, countryment lend me your vote"..?!
Let me ask you this question, bh ..... would you accept a majority Harper government if that resulted in the decimation of the Liberal Beast and the NDP becoming the Official Opposition Party ... or do you, like Laxer advocate uniting the Left behind the still corrupt Dion Liberals .. to Stop Harper at all cost ...???
You are right. Polls will change in an election.
A few other, conventional but true predictions:
1) Dion will not be talking up May, because by then it will be old and discredited news. May could have lent Dion credibility in the campaign, but now that she has been so overtly bought-and-paid for, she has none left to lend. Why they didn't hold off on this, only Dion can say. But he's not talking.
2) Harper will not be able to campaign on "Promise kept" because of wait-times, income trusts, patronage, staffers becoming lobbyists, etc.
Few New Dems would accept either of your faustian choices. So, the only practical one left is an NDP-led government.
After all, the Liberals bearly exist in Quebec and west of Thunder Bay, so don't say it can't happen.
The original post was completely right. We, in The Party now see you as the enemy. I say this as a 20 year member of the NDP - I'd vote conservative if it would block one of you. Because of your party's subversion of the democratic process and disrespect to Jack Layton. I have to say this here, rather than your party's webpage because I've already been blacklisted there because of my comments on rabble.ca. I guess democracy is just 9 letter Scrabble word starting with D to you all. Have fun playing your games. We'll play ours where it counts.
Again I ask you this question, bh ..... would you promote/accept a majority Harper government if that resulted in the decimation of the Liberal Beast and the NDP becoming the Official Opposition Party ... or do you, like Laxer, advocate uniting the Left behind the still corrupt Dion Liberals .. to Stop Harper at all cost ...???
Where do you stand on this crucial question that all Dippers must answer before the next election?
Re-read 13:00. The answer was there:
No Canadian has to choose from either a corrupt Dion-led moraass or the Bush-inspired Harperites.
Only Liberals want to limit people's choices in the next election.
The only right-thinking choice for ordinary Canadians is still an NDP-led government.
Bravo!
Post a Comment