Is Layton hoping for a Conservative majority?

[Harper_is_Bush]

That little weasel has been attacking pretty much only the Liberals in this election. Martin is absolutely right. Has the NDP and Conservatives shared the same war room or what?
FALSELY branding the Liberals as corrupt has been a cornerstone of both thier platforms.

Last night on that CBC National program "your turn" a questioner asked Layton about his accusation of corruption:
http://www.cbc.ca/story/canadavotes2006/national/2006/01/17/layton060117.html

Layton danced around it but he couldn't answer. The questioner pointed out that there's no evidence of any corruption by any Liberal candidates in sponsorship or the income trust, so how can Layton justify his CONSTANT repetition of the word?

Layton: Well, I think what you've seen is scandalous behaviour, and I think everybody's reacted to that

He totally avoided the question, and Peter Mansbridge tried TWICE to get him to answer and he wouldn't.
What a fucking weasel. I will never vote NDP again as long as I live.

[glarius]

1. I have hesitated to say anything against "Colonel Ramrod" as my son calls

Layton. (Referring to the way he struts around ramrod straight.) I too have been disgusted by his constant reference to Martin and the Liberals as corrupt. Martin has been a dud as a campaigner, but he is the only one who can stop Harper and that's what's important.

[Posteritatis]

2. The opposition parties always aim mainly at the incumbents up here

It's no real surprise. Last time the NDP focused their election campaign on attacking the Liberals, as did all the other parties which had enough relevance to mount campaigns. It's gotten worse since 2000, when all the parties more or less picked up American campaigning techniques, but it's certainly nothing new. The governing party always gets dogpiled, and the opposition parties always refuse to say anything of substance.

[Spazito]

3. Layton wants a minority government, he doesn't care which party,

the Liberals or the faux Cons. His agenda is to increase his party's influence by increasing the number of seats his party can get. He can only get those seats by attacking the Liberals so that is what he is doing.

To work with the faux Cons, he will have to sell out his party's principles or Harper will have to sell out his on the key issues, assuming the minority government will be formed by the faux Cons.

If the faux Cons do win a minority, it will be interesting to see who is willing to work with them when it comes to bills like the budget which can result in non-confidence votes resulting, in turn, with the fall of the government.

[iverglas]

30. yeah yeah yeah

Layton wants a minority government, he doesn't care which party, the Liberals or the faux Cons.

If only that made a stitch of fucking sense, or you had a shred of fact or argument to back up such a bizarre allegation about the leader of a party that opposes everything the Conservative Party proposes to do ... and knows that the Conservative Party isn't quite as disposed to do anything that must be done to stay in power (hmm, might that require maximizing its number of seats, to start with?) as the Liberal Party is.

His agenda is to increase his party's influence by increasing the number of seats his party can get.

Yeah, and the NDP will have just boatloads of influence on a Conservative government.

No, the NDP has no "agenda" beyond increasing the number of its seats.

Is this absence of agenda unique to the NDP? Given the desire of pretty much all parties to maximize their number of seats, how do we tell whether they do or don't have some other agenda as well? Maybe they're all just play-acting; they all really just want to increase their number of seats, and everything else they say can be dismissed as so much window-dressing just as easily as we can dismiss everything else Layton says.

Seems like a damned lot of money and effort being expended by an awful lot of people solely in order to increase the number of the NDP's seats. What do they do once they've accomplished that: hang out in the House and count their seats?

Like I said; if only this made a stitch of fucking sense.

He can only get those seats by attacking the Liberals so that is what he is doing.

How odd for any party or candidate to attack the party or candidate that is its viable opposition. How odd, how odd. Obviously, Liberals never do such a thing. No, they spend all their time attacking their Green opponents, they do.

Actually ... how unlike the Liberals' perennial policy of attacking any NDP candidate who seems likely to get enough votes to defeat a Liberal. Of course, they generally do that by pretending that a vote for the NDP is a vote for a Conservative, rather than by addressing anything actually in the NDP platform.

And how odd that the party being hit with such an attack would hit back with something relevant to it. Don't want a Conservative government? Don't want a Liberal government? Vote NDP. What an odd notion, eh?


Hey, I wonder what the Liberal Party thinks about the Black-to-Asper Ottawa Citizen's endorsement of the can-you-believe-it GREEN party candidate in Ed Broadbent's former riding? The Citizen is presumably aware that no Conservative is going to take it, so it seems that the best way to ensure that the NDP doesn't is to try to get people who would otherwise vote NDP to vote Green. I'll bet the Liberals are getting a good chuckle out of that.


(edited to insert omitted word)

[Telly Savalas]

4. Of course Layton doesn't want a Con majority.

The focus is on Martin because the NDP is much, much more likely to draw voters from the Grits than from the Tories.

[Hoping4Change]

5. I too am steaming mad at Layton and fuming with NDP tactics.

I was all set to vote for Olivia Chow, now I can't see straight for the fumes emanating from my nostrils. I am no lover of Martin and his smug little coterie fromm Ernscliffe but I despise Harper and the way I see it the NDP has handed flaccid-faced Harper the election and for that reason I am beside myself.

As the polls consistently show most Canadians do not regard the NDP as a viable alternative to the Liberals and rather than accept that unfortunate fact, Layton has assumed that because he was able to extract concessions from a Liberal minority govt disaffected Liberals would come running to him rather than opt for neo-cons. Well he is wrong. What a surprise (not).

[glarius]

6. It seems little "Colonel Ramrod", my son's name for Layton, is just as

power hungry as Harper. He is willing to help Harper win if he can get more seats and thus power for himself....DISGUSTING!!!!!....By the way, I love "Colonel Ramrod"! I think that describes him perfectly...Hahaha.

[Telly Savalas]

7. Harper's boost in the polls is certainly all Layton's fault.

The Liberals should shoulder no blame whatsoever.

[Hoping4Change]

10. Rather than harp on Liberal scandals, NDP ads should have been

drawn similarities between the very right of centre Martin Liberals and Harper/Canadian neocons.

Layton should have laid into Harper hard from the getgo so that disaffected Liberals would vomit before even considering him as an option. But no Layton felt that be destroying Liberal credibilty, disaffected Liberals would come flocking. I can only conclude that he is damned arrogent to follow a path that totally discounts consistently low polling numbers for the NDP. Yeah I think alot of blame can be placed on his shoulders for Harper's surge.

[Telly Savalas]

15. My guess is that Layton & Co. assumed that the Liberals

would do a much better job exposing the Cons weaknesses. Nobody banked on Martin running such a shitty campaign (or Harper for running such an effective one for that matter.)

In the last election the NDP lost about 10 extremely close races because some voters bailed on them at the last minute and threw their votes at the Liberals. Layton quite rationally wants to avoid a repeat of that, so he's targeting such voters. Most people who have posters of Stockwell Day riding a skidoo on their wall probably wouldn't consider voting for a social democratic party, so it doesn't make sense for the NDP to focus too much of their energies on the Cons.

Anyway, if the Liberals want to shield themselves from NDP attacks that they break promises, then they shouldn't break their promises!

[Hoping4Change]

16. "Nobody banked on Harper such an effective campaign" Bingo.

Giving no thought to the very dangerous radical right is why I feel such anger at Layton & Co. Asleep at the wheel is what I call it and unforgivable if Harper gets a majority.

[Minstrel Boy]

17. If Layton's "asleep at the wheel," what's Martin?

Asleep under it?

Liberals need to take some responsibility for the failure of their own campaign, and for the conditions which have given rise to the Conservatives.

[Hoping4Change]

18. That I don't dispute. jackbourassa's rant about Martin sums up my

feeling about Martins ineptitude very nicely.


"Paul Martin, and his loyal army of idiots, are delusional. We in Canada have been sold this "Paul Martin is invincible" meme for more than a decade. He was so popular, we were told, that he would win 200+ out of 300 seats, remember that? The truth is that Martin is a stuttering fool. He, and his supporters, hijacked the Liberal agenda for far too long with the sole purpose of getting Martin to the pinnacle of power. His supporters constantly undermined Chretien, believing the great Martin to be "invincible." They thought putting a separatist (Jean Lapierre) in charge in Quebec would win us all these Quebec seats. This is triangulation run amok."

Why I'm so angry at Layton & co is that despite the fact they don't have a chance to form a government they put all their efforts in destroying Liberal credibility without any concern what would happen to Canada should disaffected flock to Harper. The only ads airing in TO are about Liberal corruption and booting Liberals out. Nothing else. Nothing about the danger Harper poses. Nothing about Harper being an extreme right wing wacko.

[Minstrel Boy]

19. I think you put your finger on it right there:

"The only ads airing in TO are about Liberal corruption and booting Liberals out."

Of course. The Conservatives are not a factor in TO. Even now, they won't win a seat. So of course the NDP is only airing ads in Toronto targetting Liberal support. And it's safe: no Conservative is going to be elected in Toronto because the NDP stole votes from the Liberals.

From NOW magazine today:

Had the scam of "strategic voting" not succeeded last election, we'd have had enough NDPers in the House to avoid this latest white-knuckle vote.

But this time there's no need to even consider strategic voting in Toronto, because despite Martin's incompetence, there's no local race where the Tories have a chance. The contest here is about Martin versus Layton, a government that's had 12 years to deliver and hasn't, versus a party that's done more for Toronto in 18 months than decades of old-school rulers.

Without NDP strength, Martin would have ignored Toronto just like Jean Chretien did. Ask yourself what the 22 Liberal MPs who have represented this city since 93 have actually accomplished. It was the NDP threat that forced the former finance minister to campaign from the left and that brought us the New Deal for Cities, the gas tax for transit, cash for the waterfront and a new childcare plan the Libs couldn't deliver despite their years in power. It was the NDP that seized all those millions for affordable housing, decreases in tuition and aide for the ecosystem from a Martin desperate to shore up his minority. Unless the NDP is in their faces, the Libs consider Toronto's election of Grits just money in the bank, something to be socked away with no political debt to pay. The NDP is running on its record, and it's an impressive one. It has delivered.

...

Layton's party has earned our support and trust by doing what it said it would. This is the moment to help Canada's third party make a breakthrough while the party that pretends to be progressive at election time, the Liberals, is in tatters and readies to find a new leader. A strong NDP vote means Canada will move closer to breaking the Liberal-Tory stranglehold. A strong NDP will mean we begin to think of it not just as this country's conscience but as one day being its government.

http://www.nowtoronto.com/issues/2006-01-19/news_feature.php

Meanwhile, consider the damage wrought by the boneheaded talk of Paul Martin's new best friend, Buzz Hargrove:

Poll Result: CAW's support of Liberals drive voters to the Conservatives

Poll shows Hargrove's support of Martin solidified Conservative support

TORONTO, Jan. 18 /CNW/ - Part of the upward thrust in Conservative
popularity could be attributed to Buzz Hargrove's support for Liberals in the
federal election campaign, says a poll conducted by the Service Employees
International Union (SEIU) Canada.

"The CAW's advice to voters has backfired by helping the Conservatives
solidify their support," says Sharleen Stewart, SEIU Canada's International
Canadian Vice-President. "But it is not too late to turn back this tide of
Conservative support."

While 80 per cent of respondents said Hargrove's endorsement of the
Liberals has made no difference to their voting preference, 15 per cent of
respondents who identify themselves as traditional Conservative voters say
that they were less likely to vote Liberal as an alternative to their
traditional party of choice since Hargrove supported 'voting strategically'
for the Liberals.

"For some conservative voters, Hargrove's support of the Liberals has
been good enough reason to discount voting Liberal all together," says
Stewart.

http://www.cnw.ca/fr/releases/archive/January2006/18/c3685.html

[Hoping4Change]

20. Is it a given Ignatiff going to win the Etobicke riding? I dont think

its going NDP. Peter Kent is making strong showing. I think its premature to say TO wont go Blue.

[Minstrel Boy]

21. True, it's possible Ignatieff will be defeated.

Though that has a unique dynamic that I doubt is being particularly influenced by the NDP national campaign. (And I won't shed many tears at the defeat of a terror-lite, pro-Iraq War presumptive candidate for the Liberal leadership.) Kent has an outside chance, but so does Paul Sommerville. St Paul should be closer than usual, but Carolyn Bennett remains personally very popular.

[iverglas]

35. yes, and

Rather than harp on Liberal scandals, NDP ads should have been
drawn similarities between the very right of centre Martin Liberals and Harper/Canadian neocons.

You missed the early ads, did you?



And the effect of doing what you advise, anyhow, would be ... what? To suck up Conservative votes while leaving Liberal votes intact?? I'm failing to see a point. Seek Liberal votes by attacking the Liberals by "harping on scandals", seek Liberal votes by portraying the Liberals as the Conservatives' not very kinder or gentler cousins ... and the first will get you blamed for helping the Conservatives win but the second won't? Not getting it.

I can only conclude that he is damned arrogent to follow a path that totally discounts consistently low polling numbers for the NDP. Yeah I think alot of blame can be placed on his shoulders for Harper's surge.

Yeah. It's always the third party's fault when people switch from the first party to the second party.

Do no Canadians have free will these days? Is no political party to blame for its own performance? Is no political party but the NDP to blame for anything at all?

Layton should have laid into Harper hard from the getgo so that disaffected Liberals would vomit before even considering him as an option.

Are disaffected Liberals really this stupid? Do they really need Jack Layton to tell them what they should do?

Lord help us. In any event, it does seem that Jack Layton is our only hope of salvation, as you paint the picture. What a shame he's a mere mortal.

[Hoping4Change]

8. Is Colonel Ramrod the cousin of Roger Ramjet;)

When I saw it earlier today I had more than a chuckle as the description does catch something of his essence. I have never been able to read him. Do you really think it comes down to him being power hungry?

[glarius]

9. It seems to me that when he knows his actions are helping Harper to be

elected, and he knows what damage Harper is capable of doing, then what other explanation is there?....If he was putting Canada first, he would not be helping Harper....IMO

[Minstrel Boy]

he's also going after the old Progressive Conservatives,

reminding them that "Progressive" isn't in the party's name anymore. And there's an NDP anti-Harper ad running in BC (where it makes sense, because protest votes in the province shift regardless of ideology).

I'm not opposed in principal to strategic voting, but to Liberal strategists it's always meant the NDP vote moving to them, everywhere. And so last election, when the Liberals successfuly pulled that stunt, it saw shifts in seats like Oshawa that would have been won by the NDP, but which fell to the Conservatives.

As has been said, it's natural for an opposition party to attack the incumbant. To hear Liberals say that the NDP is costing them the election is ... interesting. The bungling has been all Martin's and his team.

[iverglas]

31. "By the way, I love 'Colonel Ramrod'!"

Yes, given the number of times you've now used it and explained it and credited it, I think we get the idea. Your son's just a wag, isn't he?

He is willing to help Harper win if he can get more seats and thus power for himself....DISGUSTING!!!!!

Now that Paul Martin, he's a fine figure of a man, with no desire for seats or power, and certainly no wish to use the Canadian fiscal system to maximize his family's profits ...

Handsome! Charming! Lovable! Pure of heart!

Pukeyface.

[glarius]

32. My goodness, you've been busy haven't you, counting

up all my posts....How silly!....Have a nice evening, you sound like you could use one.

[iverglas]

34. I must have missed that

I don't think I provided a count. I think I just glanced at the headers in the list of posts in the thread. You might try doing it before you tell us again how you hate Col. Ramrod and how smitten you are with your son's wit.

Demeaning public remarks about politicians' appearance are just so ... well, Liberal, aren't they?

Arf.

Huh. It seems that that fellow had something to say about her husband, too:

Jack Layton is an asshole... for no reason other than it makes me feel good to say it...and because he is.

Give you the warm fuzzies, does that?

Ah, political discourse. How I'd love to see some.

[daleo]

11. It would make sense as a long run NDP strategy

This has been talked about for a long time. To become a governing party at the federal level in Canada, the NDP almost certainly has to displace the Liberals on the centre-left, the way that Labour did in Britain in the early 20th century. So, strategically, a Conservative majority could help the NDP in the long run, if it annoyed people badly enough to cause a massive backlash and the public was still truly fed up with the Liberals.

But that's historical strategy, and in the real world it's tactics that rule politics. So, I think he is just hoping to hold the balance of power either way. As someone else said, going after the incumbent is the natural strategy for an opposition party. Any other way to plot a campaign may just be too subtle.

[Hoping4Change]

12. That might be a fine strategy way back when but my utter fear comes

from looking south of the border where neocons haven't made slight adjustments but have wrecked havoc by adopting a radical rightwing agenda. Even if there is a backlash in the US much of the damage neocons have done can't be undone. Iraq can't be undone. Supreme Court appointments can't be undone.

[daleo]

13. I agree, with the current crop of conservatives, it is dangerous

I mean conservatives in the wide sense, not just the party. They do seem to have a real desire to lock in gains, like a rachet, by electoral rigging, foreign entanglements that are hard to get out of, court appointments, etc.

They don't seem to believe in playing fair anymore.

[Hoping4Change]

14. I think people are fooled by the name which suggests conserving the

status quo, not making radical changes. People don't vote NDP IMO because people regard it filled with crazy radicals. Layton should have been using this election as an opportunity to expose the radical rightwing opinions held by Harper and his minions.

[V. Kid]

22. Yes he's just like Nader...

...he's so evil. And even though Martin was one of the most right-wing finance ministers in the history of Canada, and broke hordes of promises, clearly Layton is to blame for Liberal troubles with credibility. He should have waved the white flag the second Harper was threatening to gain the keys to the kingdom.

[V. Kid]

29. BTW, this is known as sarcasm.

[Pierre Trudeau]

23. all this talk is a bit strange

Those of you criticizing Layton seem to be implying that he should sacrifice his own party for the sake of a stop-Harper-by-helping-the-Liberals campaign that doesn't look like it's going to work anyway. (and I'm saying that as an old Liberal)

The NDP has always criticized both the Liberals and Conservatives. And like any party, it's running in an election to win seats. Just because you don't like the way things are going, you can't expect the NDP to basically run AGAINST themselves. From their point of view, they hope to eclipse the Liberals as the main centre-left party, and this looks like a good opportunity. I doubt that would happen, nor would I want that, but that's the way they have to think, otherwise what's their purpose?

Perhaps now that the right has re-united, it's time to look at the consequences of having a divided left?

No matter how well the Cons do, there's still always 50+ % of Canadians who support centre-left parties. This is one occasion where a Liberal/NDP split makes a Harper victory inevitable.

Most of you will say the two parties are worlds apart and could never unite. But that's what we thought (overconfidently it turns out) about the old-school Tories and the Reform cowboys shacking up. Now they can divide and conquer us.

[Telly Savalas]

38. Many here demand that the NDP be the Robin to the Liberal's Batman

The idea of a unified centre-left party is a good one, but it would have to be truly centre-left. A party that needs its arm twisted to prefer a socially responsible budget to one that offers corporate tax cuts is unacceptable. A party that lets its MPs freely vote against the civil rights of the GLBT community is also unacceptable. A unification might result in such elements of the Liberal party running the show in the same way that it was the Reform yahoos who essentially hijacked the Conservative Party. I'd rather not see that happen.

[best left blank]

24. What an absolute joke...

...this story is.

It just goes to show the sense of entitlement that is present amongst the so-called Liberal party. News flash Mr. Martin, the NDP is not your lapdog.

To the Liberal supporters here, if Martin went to war in Iraq would you claim he was on a humanitarian mission? Cause you certainly love to spin all of his other right wing maneuvers.

[SixStrings]

25. Forget about any rational discussion of Sir Paul here...

You're on the wrong site. We have the best lot of retired teachers and gov't workers doing nothing but Liberal cheerleading and slandering of anything, anyone, who does not fit their mold.
I just read that Martin is tripling the forces in Afghanistan - where is the outrage? Imagine of Harper did that...

I just read that heating 'rebate' cheques were mailed this week for the 'poor and elderly'. If anyone but a Liberal were doing this, it would be called 'buying votes'...

Everybody slams the cons, but if it wasn't for the GST (Don't need to remind anyone of the Lieberals track record on this) would Martin have
all this cash to go around and buy our votes with?

I could go on and on, but in all seriousness it just isn't worth it on this site.

[Spazito]

26. Gosh, if you don't think this site is worth anything, one has to ask

why you bother with it at ALL? I suspect the faux Cons are seeing their lead disappearing down the rabbit hole as it did in the last election and tempers are flaring, roflmao.

[SixStrings]

27. Perfect example...can't discuss issues only berate and

ridicule...

How about answering the questions I posed instead of acting all childish and 'rolling on the floor laughing your ass off...'

[Spazito]

28. What questions? These ones?

"Everybody slams the cons, but if it wasn't for the GST (Don't need to remind anyone of the Lieberals track record on this) would Martin have
all this cash to go around and buy our votes with?"

LOL, my response is YES, given the same government that gave us the GST is the one that took us to near third world status financially. If the Cons had stayed in power, they simply would have given any monies generated by the GST to their rich buddies through tax cuts while gouging the middle class and the poor with the GST.

The Liberals have used the GST to support social programs, etc, which we KNOW the faux Cons would decimate given the chance.

"I just read that Martin is tripling the forces in Afghanistan - where is the outrage? Imagine of Harper did that..."

You need to check back on threads on this issue, it is NOT new and there were concerns and disagreement expressed back then which you seem to have missed ... or...ignored.

I love how you smear with your 'questions' which really means,imo, your questions are rhetorical, needing no answer as they are posed merely to smear and not to genuinely seek an opinion unless it was one in support of your position.

Oh, btw, you didn't answer MY question, that being:

"Gosh, if you don't think this site is worth anything, one has to ask
why you bother with it at ALL?"

[iverglas]

33. the cutting off of the nose

to spite the face. It does seem to be a favourite electoral sport.

I will never vote NDP again as long as I live.

I guess we have to assume you have voted NDP in the past.

Me, I'd be wondering why. Apparently not because you believed that its policies, or even just its presence in the House, was beneficial to Canada.

I mean, given that you haven't indicated that you've changed your opinion on that matter, that question would not seem to have come into your deliberations, then or now.

But if you did believe that, and you haven't changed your opinion, well, I guess you'd better just enjoy your nose while you've got it.

And frankly, I feel precisely the same way about anyone who decides to vote against the Liberals because the Liberals don't "deserve" their vote, specifically because of the demonstrated and suspected corruption in the party. If they don't believe that the party they are voting for will better serve their and/or the country's interests than the Liberals would, they're just morons. (And if they do believe that, they should have the decency and guts to just come out and say so.)


By the way, you've somewhat rewritten history in your account of the exchange on The National. The questioner cleverly (and yup, repeatedly) referred to the present Liberal government, when asking about corruption; from your link:

NDP Leader Jack Layton appeared to be hard-pressed to come up with specific examples of corruption within Paul Martin's government Tuesday night, saying Canadians will have to judge that for themselves.

Problem is, I haven't seen anyone establish that Layton has said anything that requires him to come up with "specific examples" -- of something he hasn't claimed to exist. He seems to have fallen into a loaded question and not been able to get up.

Layton, who appeared at a CBC Town Hall hosted by Peter Mansbridge, was asked by one participant to justify the Opposition parties constant repetition of the word "corruption" in reference to the Liberals.

... But Mansbridge pressed Layton on the corruption allegation, asking him if there is any evidence that Martin's government has been corrupt.

Jack didn't answer well, granted, but that doesn't mean there aren't good answers.

My own would be:

Who the fuck cares whether there is any evidence that Martin's government has been corrupt? The LIBERAL PARTY, the party he heads, has been corrupt in the recent past -- and whether it has been corrupt in the very recent past is something that no one not on the inside can know. If someone wants to distance him/herself from that corruption s/he has a variety of options for doing that, none of which involves being a candidate for the Liberal Party; and by the way, when are we getting that money back?

[Name removed]

36. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Minstrel Boy]

37. I'll say this for Liberals:

they know how to get the vote out.