DECISION 2005!

[ageofscience]

So last night I did my duty as a good New Democrat and went to vote in the Ottawa-Centre candidate nomination. Until about 7:45pm, this was me. A thousand points to anyone who gets the brilliantly nerdy reason I chose this particular image of me. There is a clue beside Jamey Heath's head.

Comments

[nowliexinit]

Efficacy = primacy, all the time, every time. Thankfully some of the time the collaborative way is the most efficient, then again, a lot of time it sure ain't.

There's a reason, after all, that realism has lasted for eleventy-two billion years. For politician's themselves the lesson is perhaps the most serious. No matter what you've done for your community in the past, everybody forgets as soon as you stop doing anything for them now. While the point might get lost in the relative unimportance and simplicty of municipal politics, I for one can't wait to see what happens 10 years post presidency for Bush Jr. $5 says he won't even be able to bump his way to the front of the line at the Olive Garden.

[ageofscience]

I hadn't considered it as much as a realist/idealist dilemma, but you have a point. In realist terms I can definitely see the benefits of having a media savvy, high profile, policy-oriented candidate. But I guess I feel like that shouldn't be the point of elected politics and I resent having to "stoop" to that level because I think we should be able to figure out a better and more positive way to do things

[nowliexinit]

As far as being case specific, the NDP need media savvy, high profile candidates right now - well, they also need a coherent and...existent...economic platform as well, but anyways, I think their biggest battle is just getting elected.

[ageofscience]

But, given that we still don't have PR or MMP, does that really apply? The high profile thing doesn't always work out. Look at Monia Mazigh last year! I volunteered on her campaign and when I would go talk to people in the riding, all I heard back was horrible, disgusting, vile, racist stuff. Her celebrity didn't matter, people only cared that she didn't "look" like she spoke English and had no ties to that area of Ottawa.

High profile candidates definitely help raise national totals, but they definitely can't always eek out an individual win, especially with a party like the NDP under FPTP. I kind of feel that unless someone has the community ties and community respect to back it up, their high profileness doesn't really matter.

And who says they don't have an economic platform? Hello the budget!

[nowliexinit]

Mazigh was just a bad, bad idea - high profile candidates still have to be relatively competent.
I remember being very suprised at how opportunistic the choice was for the NDP.

And come on, NO canadian party has a legitimate economic platform, Canadian Political economics = collect all the taxes, divide it all up into the budget: if there is a problem, redivide the budget, assume more money will be found. Repeat as necessary.

[ageofscience]

Noo! I love Monia! She's such a sweet lady who triumphed over such adversity. She took on the system and she won!

Okay, fair enough. I mostly just meant that they have AS legitimate an economic platform as anyone else. I get really sensitive about all the "you don't know how to spend money" stuff because, um, the Liberals aren't exactly shining examples of that either. Most Canadians don't really tend to vote on economics (except economic conservatives who aren't going to go for the NDP ever anyway) so I guess it just doesn't seem very pressing to develop a water-tight economic plan? Maybe it's not a good excuse, but it's an understandable reason.

[nowliexinit]

I've heard Monia speak, she's an amazing woman, but that doesn't translate into an amazing politician. I understand what the NDP were trying to do, but they didn't really think it through.

There are really 3 kind of people in Canada,

The people who heard her story, and said, well, the government,its about national security,tough luck, are going to vote conservative.

The people who heard her story and said...well thats too bad....but there must have been a reason...the government wouldn't do that...I don't know, are all going to vote liberal.

And the people who heard her story, and were shocked and appaled but recognized her strength, well they were going to vote NDP anyways.

I think what I'm getting at is that the NDP has to get past always going for the NDP-like candidate, because obviously their strategies aren't working, and it might be time to make slight compromises in the interests of long term goals.

[ageofscience]

I disagree. They only HAVE to do that if they want to form government. I know it sounds silly, but I don't think that's their main objective. Being principled and representing a certain constituency is certainly much more their goal than getting the largest number of seats. They arguably might not be able to represent this constituency as well if they ran candidates who, as Daniel described below, could be seen as "Liberal-lite". I think it's always been much more the NDP way to come up with your policies and wait for the people to come to you instead of pandering to what people say the want. There are definite benefits and drawbacks to each of these strategies. I have to say, though, I don't know if I'd be able to support them if they started to change in that direction.

[nowliexinit]

Well I really know nothing about internal NDP attitudes, but I'd say your probably right. What worries me though is that there isn't a left-leaning, social conscious party that actually wants to get elected in this country then. Unfortunately, given our charming parliamentry system, I think the only real way to make effective changes is to find a charismatic, capable leader that represents a partys ideals, and then do whatever it takes to boost up the number of seats you hold to put some power behind it.

Obviously this is the lowest common demoninator theory of human motivation in politics, but you have to get into the system that you have before you can look towards a system that you'd be proud of.