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I think it's quite unfortunate that the right in Canada is now perceived a religious whackjobs.
Most of the present Conservative Party's base isn't that way at all, in actual fact. But the Liberals succeeded in portraying the party that way ... gosh, kinda like the Republicans succeeded in portraying Democrats as devil-worshipping cross-dressers ... and then in defeating an imaginary foe, after playing on public fears and managing to portray themselves as the real Canadians.
I'd rather see a fair fight. Because I think then the Liberals would be more likely to be exposed for what they are: right wing. As it stands, all they have to be is a tiny bit nicer than the Conservatives, and they're just fine with us. 'Cause if we don't vote for them, then gasp, we'll be governed by religious whackjobs.
Of course, what the Liberals would do then is lie. Like they did when the old Conservative Party kinda still existed. GST? They'll repeal it! Free trade? They'll rip it up! But damned if people didn't believe (or pretend to believe) what were obviously great big fat lies, and vote for them.
So what the hell. Basically, the Liberal Party can say what it wants, and do what it wants, and most of the time it's just going to get elected anyhow. And if they're lucky, the Conservatives won't catch on, and take their party back. Which wouldn't matter much anyway, because it's not like they'd hold onto it long before another Mulroney came along anyhow and did just what the Liberals would be doing, while giving voters the illusion of having thrown the bastards out, which voters like to do from time to time.
Meanwhile, and again next time the switch happens, the Liberals can go right on calling themselves the "middle". What would be really neat is if the Conservatives would figure this out and swing over to being pink tories -- maybe switch to the other half of the old name, from being "Conservative" to being "Progressive" -- and call themselves the middle. Nobody'd believe it though; the Liberals are like Lloyd Robertson: always there, always soothing, always saying what you want to hear.
Of course the NDP is handy for them, and all Liberals like having the NDP playing a noticeable role in opposition. The NDP is the real opposition, and so must be kept close. The Liberals can just appropriate anything from that "NDP agenda" that it looks like they can't hold out against much longer, or just enough of it to capture a few extra votes they might be needing or hold onto some that might be looking mushy ... old age pensions, universal health care, unemployment insurance, workers' rights ... stuff that isn't going to interfere too much with their real agenda ... and get on with business.
Business being their real agenda, of course. Paul Martin's business in particular, just for example. It was great fun being Finance Minister and getting to play your own private Monopoly game with the Canadian tax system, I imagine.
Sorry folks, but I regard Liberals as our very own Republicans. They demonize the opposition just as Republicans demonize Democrats, they lie, they exploit the "values" that their constituency holds and that they themselves spit on when the votes are counted and the cameras stop rolling, and they do just enough once elected that they can keep touting themselves as the party of those values -- and the not too bright will believe them, and the self-interested will pat themselves on the back and pretend not to notice that nobody's wearing any clothes.
The only difference is that the values in question are rather more decent than the values of the Republicans' base. And that makes Liberals all the more despicable, for exploiting people's decency -- and allowing less decent people to masquerade as decent by supporting them.
The Republicans have their John McCains, and we have our Warren Allmands. Every dirty, dishonest party needs a few decent faces, and sometimes they even get to go to bat, when the party needs a public decency fix, or when things are going well and there's an opportunity to polish the image to a nice shine, to have something banked that they can point to if a future need arises. But the real face of the Liberal Party is still the ugly, twisted one in that painting in the back room.
Only in the US, among what passes for "left" in the US, could a Liberal hope to get away with spouting these kinds of self-congratulatory platitudes.
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