UsedToBeVille
The latest from Mikey Mike in the Province:
A lot of B.C. Liberals are furious at Leah McCulloch these days because she ran in last week’s provincial election as a member of the B.C. Conservative party.
The Conservatives are a broke, leaderless, barely organized outfit scuttling around the fringes of the B.C. political scene. They ran just 10 candidates provincewide.
But McCulloch still managed to get 2,061 votes in Courtenay-Comox, the crucial riding where the NDP beat the governing Liberals by just nine votes in the preliminary results.
The Liberals ended up with 43 seats on election night — one short of a majority in the 87-seat legislature — and now some Liberals see McCulloch as the vote-splitting spoiler who denied majority power to Christy Clark.
“There’s a lot of hate coming my way,” said McCulloch, a 53-year-old dietitian who ran for political office for the first time.
“They think the Liberals would have won the riding if there hadn’t been a Conservative candidate on the ballot. They’re probably right, but they have only themselves to blame, not me.”...
All very interesting in a superficial*, as far as it goes, kind of way.
Except for, well, you know....
This:
Now.
Normally, I would not be quite so harsh in my commentary on the work of the good Mr. Smyth given how hard it is for a columnist to phone it in during a lull like the one we are in at the moment.
Except that in his column he does not once....
And I mean not once....
Even bother to mention the number of votes garnered by Green candidate in Courtenay-Comox and how many votes the Greens therefore took from the NDP candidate based on the accepted 67/33% Dipper/Lib split.
Again.
Not once.
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*As for the superficial (in addition to the downright negligent) aspect of Mr. Smyth's analysis?....The real story as to why there was no last minute surge, overall, for Ms. Clark and the Crony Party Party in 2017 is nowhere to be found, specifically with respect to the fact that they had so destroyed the rump roast of the Con Party in advance this time around that there was no final collapse of a bloated Carcass of the Cummins like the one that led to a soft true blue bleed to the C.P.P. the last week before the election back in 2013...
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19 comments:
Not only that....Cons ran in both Maple Ridge ridings and Richmond Queensborough..
BC Libs only like splits on the left and lefter...
Sad piece by Smyth....as for the Conservative angle..
I already told the story pre-election.
Cheers
One more thing...BC NDP need to pull a BC Liberal move(if Libs promote Greens)...it's time for the NDP to fund the campaign of BC Conservatives in certain ridings..turnabout is fair play
I disagree Grant (not on the diagnosis, but instead the remedy).
Why...
Because, in the end, I honestly believe that, just like with propaganda, there are ultimately no 'good' dirty tricks.
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Well Ross K...sometimes in life, vermin must be removed first before the cleaning can begin..
Rat traps and cheese...
A good government, with good policies will almost always get reelected...
Some people need to be dragged kicking and screaming towards the light..but once warmed and caressed..they wonder how they lived without the sun..
Cheers
I think light, real light shed on what is going on would go a long way to dealing with things.
I'm sure you remember, much better than do I, the multiple, very questionable ways the provincial Conservative party has been turned inside out since the Clarklandians gained control of the Crony Party Party...Can you imagine how upset small 'c' conservatives would be if the proMedia 'round here bothered to tell them about all that?
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I especially liked how Leah mixed her campaign signs in with Benninger's...they even had the same colours and lettering...sweet revenge...
We were in Comox/Courtenay just before the election, and yeah - when I first saw Leah's signs, I thought she was BCL.
GAB
Most interesting mzkitty and GAB - and definitely worthy of a story if there was copycatting going down.
But Mikey Mike missed that entirely, as well as the fact that the Con only garnered 2,000 votes and 8% of the vote vs. 5,000 and 18% for the Green.
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A similar piece by Les Leyne, Times colonist 16 May on the Island in general.
Highlights the Courtenay/Comox conservative vote but doesn't mention the green #s
http://www.timescolonist.com/opinion/columnists/les-leyne-liberals-island-champions-faded-when-it-counted-1.19941725
Thanks for the heads-up Keith--
Given Mr. Leyne's conflictyness problem, it is very difficult to take anything he says, or writes, about the BC Liberals seriously.
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BC Business to BCHydro Site C pushback?
https://www.desmog.ca/2017/05/16/we-just-want-truth-commercial-customers-bc-hydro-forcasts-could-lead-costly-oversupply
On the subject of political shape-shifting, today's announcement that the Dark Doctor himself would be consulting to the Green negotiating team marks the beginning of the next realignment of the dominant BC coalition.
There are two major pathways for these transformations, which occur when a simple leadership change isn't quite enough to cleanse the accumulated odour: either (1) a semi-dormant shell gets taken over and reactivated (e.g. W.A.C. Bennett's retooling of the BC Socreds, or the Gordon Wilson Liberals --> Gordon Campbell Liberals transition), or (2) an entirely new brand is created, in order to put as much distance as possible between the new incarnation and its predecessor (e.g. Saskatchewan Party, Yukon Party). Of course, there is often a lot of continuity in the key operatives in either type of reformatting. Hence, today's announcement should be no surprise to anyone who has observed history and is paying attention.
Because the BC Greens did have a previous vestigial existence before their recent bump, their pending transformation has some characteristics of both modes. But it remains to be seen how clean the transition will be in this case. As I've argued in comments elsewhere, the NDP needs to do very little at this stage. They just need to let the daily contradictions pile up (e.g. widely cited polling showing limited support for a Green-Liberal alliance vs. key roles for hard-right fixers like Spector). This will be increasingly uncomfortable for many new and old Green supporters to take, so it will be important for the NDP not to rub their noses in this too cruelly, and to do its chortling in private.
SB--
I fear you may be absolutely correct.
And...
Based on the smalltime codswallop pulled on unions prior to the election it is clear that Crony Party Party will co-opt absolutely any and everything to keep the loot machine running ad infinitum.
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Very informative and blatant example of why the BC Liberals find themselves where they are. After all of this has no-one amongst them learned anything?
Thanks Ross
if BCLibs promote greeens.. should ndp promote cons?
https://thetyee.ca/News/2017/05/17/Gerrymandering-Handed-Election-Win/
private healthcare
private schools
private jet
P3 in BC
CC
You're welcome Don.
Luthiers Uber Alles!
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Thanks for that Anon-2-Above...Mr. McMartin makes a pretty good case that the Crony Party Party had a whole lot of Rethuglican-style gerrymandering that helped them gain their razor-thin riding lead, be it minority or majority.
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Anon-Above--
And....
The public takes on ALL the risk.
It's heads they win tails they really win - Big.
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May 22-24 will you be thunderstruck or you got another thing comin'?
the articles by the two columnists is to give B.C. Lieberals the heads up and some Cons. We will loose this province if you vote Conservative. it didn't work for the NDP when the said it about the Greens and it won't work for the Lieberals.
It would be nice of the Progressive Conservatives could have a provincial political party. it would give those on the right an alternative. It isn't always about winning, its about democracy. If its all about winning then its no longer a real democracy and yes I believe in strategic voting. However, I don't agree with Grant. if we fall from the "high" road where do we eventually stop. that is always my question/ given the nature of politics its always best to not start down the wrong road, there is no end to it.
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