Hux

Deal = Mississippi Half Step

NEVER question the duration, location or necessity of "get ready" time. It's simply not negotiable and to assume it may be is almost as dumb as thinking the large setting on the washer is for patchwork overalls only.

What's the price at the door? Will it sell out?

HBD Sharon!

Phil's Last Show...looks like they're a Bob Weir coverband...

Truckin'>

So Hard To Find My Way

Jack Straw

Loser

Let It Ride

I'm So Gone

*Built to Last

Loose Lucy

#Sugar Magnolia>

#Caution (Do Not Step On Tracks)>

#Truckin' Reprise

Donor Rap/Intros

E: Brokedown Palace

*with Warren Haynes

#with Derek Trucks

I really should be doing other things right now!!!

Ah Ringo...the Phil Lesh of the Beatles...

:::cough coverband cough:::

It's pretty obvious the leader is saying one thing and the party another...her war room must want to strangle her.

Liberal Environment Minister - Senator Elizabeth May??

exactly, especially when true preference doesn't have a hope in hell of winning.

Nor wlll they ever, if those who would support them don't.

Sucka!

There's a big elephant in the NDP headquarters that they just cannot talk about. Every election the NDP themselves only target about 50-60 ridings across the country as winnable and leave the rest to piss in the wind, but they'll never admit it. They can't, but it is fact. They know they cannot ever win the government yet Layton is out there pretending he's Obama saying he's going to be Prime Minister. Sad. It puts politics above principle in my view.

They could agree to an entente with the Liberals in the 50ish ridings where vote splittings hands victory to Conservative candidates.

Libs wouldn't run a candidate in the 10ish ridings the NDP finishes 2nd and can beat the Tories in and the NDP doesn't run candidates in the 40ish ridings Libs place second.

But they won't as then the elephant would be exposed.

All these years of strategic voting hasn't kept Harper out of office

Most would agree it kept him out in 2004, kept him from a majority in 2006 and hopefully does again this time.

Oops! Sorry d, vote NDP in Oshawa and Liberal in Whitby-Oshawa!

Did you read the post that you are replying to?

Oshawa

Uh...dude, are you trying to tell me that the NDP was the "strategic/second place" choice in Oshawa and because NDP voters voted strategically (for the Liberal) that the riding went Conservative? Do you actually look at the numbers before you imply ridiculous things like that?

Here are the Oshawa results from the last two elections, if anything, this riding is a key example why people SHOULD vote strategically!!

2006

Conservative 29,294

Liberal 25,882

NDP 8,716

Green 2,407

2004

Liberal 25,649

Conservative 20,531

NDP 8,002

Green 2,759

STOP SPREADING BOGUS INFO!!!

Can you name one riding where strategic voters elected a Conservative?

Ditch Harper, reform the system after.

Poor d_jango - looks like he's got the 19% blues...again.

Those numbers are hilarious.

Here's mine:

115

107

53

32

Independent: 1

Nice to see some Liberal policy from a few years ago bear fruit

Ok so I lost the piece of paper, but it was something like - Conservatives would lose 41 seats to Liberals, and 11 to the NDP. Basically if the NDP and Liberals were one party (and united under the Liberal or NDP candidate who came 2nd in 2006) the Conservatives could never form a government in this country. I’ll post the confirmed #’s when I find it…

You are talking crazy talk! The point is people giving up their favored choice chasing after a carrot that doesn't exist.

The debate over the carrot is one that could go on for hours, ie. The NDP mantra “Liberal Tory same old storyâ€, which I personally find to be offensive to the Liberal Party history of forming governments that have helped forge one of the most progressive countries in the world (Judiciary, healthcare – ya ya with Tommy Douglas – Charter, etc.) I have enough scars on my head from banging my head into the wall after hearing this kind of NDP dogma over the years, so we’ll save that debate for another day.

- even one riding would be horrific,

So one less NDP seat down in the corner of the House would be more horrific than a Harper government? Sounds like NDP self interest yet again…

Are you suggesting that all Liberals would vote NDP to stop the CPC or that all NDPers would vote Liberal to stop the CPC? What world is this? The point is that in some instances, NDP supporters buy into the idea that voting Liberal is necessary to 'stop' the Conservatives, even when voting NDP would actually get them the candidate of their choice.

Something inbetween that's called strategic voting and it's a reality in THIS world, we have FPTP so why not manipulate the system we currently have to produce a better result? People can vote however they want for any motivation. But I’m mainly highlighting that by the #’s in the 2006 election - if you were to transfer the NDP vote over/ie. the beginnings of united progressive vote (and I’m not including the Green vote in this either) the Conservatives would be hard pressed to form a gov’t…add the Greens and they might not win any seats outside of the prairies.

I mean, the Liberals could take seats from the Conservatives in Alberta (!) for f*cks sakes but no, 10-15% have to be heroes and vote NDP.

In rarer cases, this leads to the Conservative candidate who they really didn't want, winning.

Can you give a recent example?

She's hilarious, claims she's against strategic voting, but maintains...

I'd rather have no Green seats and Stephen Harper lose

I'm Hux and I approve this website.

In a previous thread d_jango said this:

One of the dirty secrets is that in a number of ridings, those voting Liberal to keep out the Conservatives in previous elections have actually served to elect more Conservative MPs by shifting votes from the leading NDP candidate to the Liberal candidate -- allowing the Cons to come up the middle.

Clearly a statement against strategic voting, fair enough, but what are the facts?

I have the #'s, so let's have a little competition here (the person who guesses closest gets to have a beer on me in Ottawa sometime).

Using data from the last election, in how many ridings did:

a) A Conservative candidate win, but would have lost had the 3rd place NDP voters voted strategically for the 2nd place Liberal candidate.

A Conservative candidate win, but would have lost had the 3rd place Liberal voters voted strategically for the 2nd place NDP candidate.

(C'mon d_jango - guess without looking at any numbers...)

Who knew!? Nader'd.

May urges strategic voting

September 25, 2008

Sandro Contenta

STAFF REPORTER

ON BOARD THE CANADIAN–This cross-country train, like all fast-moving vehicles, is responsible for its share of road kill. But every now and then, it becomes the object of a suicidal revolt from a considerable force of nature.

It usually happens during the rutting season: bull moose have been known to charge the train head-on. The impact is hard enough to jolt the front car, but the result is predictably unfortunate.

"The last thing that went through that moose's mind was its ass," said a train worker of a recent incident.

Thankfully, Green Leader Elizabeth May's whistle-stop campaign tour has so far been apparently free of lopsided head-butting contests. The only force of nature has been May herself, treating even the smallest of train station rallies like a high-octane family reunion and breakthrough political moment.

But before her train from Vancouver pulled into Toronto last night, she called for a form of strategic voting, which she feared might get her in a moose-size mess of trouble with her own party.

May urged Canadians to do all they can to throw Prime Minister Stephen Harper out of office, including strongly suggesting they shouldn't vote Green if another candidate has a better chance at defeating a Conservative.

"We are too close to the edge of a global apocalypse," May said in an interview. "We have got to grab the opportunities we have. And, clearly, the contribution Canadians can make to a global solution is to get rid of Stephen Harper."

May insists she's not calling for strategic voting because that leads people to simply vote Liberal. She wants Canadians to examine their riding and figure out how best to keep the Tories from winning.

"I won't say, `You've got to vote Green if you believe in our policies.' I'll say, `Here's our policies, figure out what you need to do because, frankly, the Green party has to put progress (on climate change) and principle above short-term power.'"

The goal is to prevent Harper from blocking the last chance at an international deal on reducing greenhouse gases at a United Nations summit next year, she said.

"I'd rather have no Green seats and Stephen Harper lose, than a full caucus that stares across the floor at Stephen Harper as prime minister, because his policies are too dangerous," she said.

So determined is May to keep Harper from power she also told the Star she wants Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion and NDP Leader Jack Layton to join her in a pact to beat Conservatives candidates.

The Green, Liberal and New Democratic parties should prevent vote-splitting that would favour Conservatives, and carve up electoral ridings according to who has the best chance of winning, May said. "We sit down and say, `Who has the best chance of winning in all these ridings?' What I've been calling for is proportional representation by other means."

She acknowledged that this partly works to the Green party's advantage because it would likely result in its first seats in Parliament.

She also knows some accuse her of wanting to cook the election behind closed doors. She says she's trying to redress a distorted system that creates majority governments elected by a minority of votes.

Layton has refused to even meet May. But May says Dion is interested in going beyond the deal he struck with her before the election call, in which neither the Greens nor Liberals are running candidates in the other leader's riding.

"Dion's willing to do more and I'm willing to do more. The problem is that neither one of us can do anything more when Layton won't because then it looks like, `The Greens are what, a sidekick of the Liberal party?' No we're not. There's a lot wrong with the Liberal party," she said.

She rejected a two-way deal between her and the Liberals.

May said her proposals upset some Green party members, since they suggest voting Green isn't always the best choice. But, she says, "I will not be able to live with myself if anything I've done contributes to Harper winning, because the stakes are too high."

Cover band.

Dion actually made a funny when he responded, said Layton already had a coalition with the Marijuana Party and the nudists (referencing NDP candidate who stepped down in BC because he stripped in front of kids and asked them to bodypaint him)...

I'd be a little afraid if Stephane Dion were the one dealing with Danny's demands.

Oh dear...you've been watching too many Conservative ads. Do you have any knowledge of Dion's past fight with the separatists and Bouchard?