As is customary for me, I'm going to post my hopes for tonight's election, then after the results are in I make another post in which I show how my hopes turned out.
9:53am Hopes
- I hope that we can hold the NDP to a minority.
- I hope the Liberals increase their seat count.
- I hope the Liberals can at least get official opposition.
- I hope the Liberals hold on to the two seats we currently have in Metro Halifax.
- I hope we can take my home riding Dartmouth East, the guy running there is named Andrew Younger and he's a great city councilor, not to mention he chose the best party to run for.
- I hope we can win the riding I currently live in Halifax-Sable Island. (Can the Sable Island horses vote?)
- I hope Stephen McNeil wins his seat.
- I hope Premier MacDonald wins his seat. (unless it's the Liberals who win it from him.)
- I hope Paula Lunn wins Hants West. (I lived there for 7 months after a fire destroyed my home)
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4 comments:
I hope Rodney loses his seat; it sends a message.
The distribution of NDP support is critical. If the popular vote goes up due to much greater support in HRM, but rural ridings stick with PC/LIB, the NDP seat count might not change so much, and the NDP take a minority.
Honestly I think an NDP minority might not be so bad. The opposition have a chance to reign them in, so an unbounded disaster is much less likely than if they get a majority. The people of NS have a chance to watch them control the agenda before handing them a majority next time. Also, the NDP gain more experience holding the reigns.
Don't get me wrong, I'd prefer a Liberal government (with NDP opposition). But I'm not nearly so negative about the NDP as I am with the Tories.
Longer term, I think a Liberal opposition would have a brighter future (read: easier time working together) with an NDP government than Rodney's. Mr. Dexter doesn't strike me as an iron-fisted or narrow minded kind of guy (I could be wrong).
I'm the exact opposite, I view the Tories as not so dangerous because they're not efficient. Whereas I view the Dippers as more dangerous because they are more efficient.
If we're ever going to beat them though we need to figure out how to unseat them once they get in to a riding. When was the last time you heard about a Dipper losing their riding? Once they get their adamantium claws in it's damn near impossible to get rid of them.
Well, to use my own superhero metaphor, Batman is always several steps ahead of his adversary.
My preference would be to offer a more compelling alternative. But that's hard for anyone these days. And the Republicans and Conservatives have shown how effective the 'dark side' of disinformation and negative ads can be. It's so surprise the PCs follow their lead.
Perhaps the provincial NDP appeal more to 'hope' than the Liberals?
Just trying to be constructive and honestly dissect this and possibly learn something valuable.
Every party's looking for the next 'killer app' or issue that will monopolize the spotlight. I'd love to win that race.
My personal favourite idea is to 'solve' the problem of runaway big business (U.S. style), including exec bonuses, fleecing the shareholders, getting paid to clean up your own mess, and other intentional abuse of capitalism - without getting rid of capitalism.
To be smarter than the NDP at their own game (unions? collective approach?), and at the same time smarter than the Conservatives at their own game (laissez faire? deregulation?).
It's a tough, challenging problem to even define let alone solve, but definitely worth the effort. I have no idea, but public health care works pretty well; I wonder what principles could be generalized from that model into the rest of the economy.
The reward would be support from both the right and centre-left (the extreme right will never budge, IMHO, but they'll become irrelevant eventually).
OTOH, experienced political junkies say 'all politics is local', which might give a clue to the success of the NDP claws. However, if an NS NDP government only focuses on local NS issues, we'll get left behind, and we need to push them out to national and international interests - those chores still need doing.
I'm not jealous that the NDP might do a better job than the Liberals (who knows). If they can, maybe that's good government. Maybe that sets a higher standard.
Wasn't Mike Pearson's introduction of universal health care, um, inspired by Tommy Douglas' Social Credit? Isn't that an example of the learning I'm speaking of, and how it benefits the people (not just PC cronies)?
One specific NDP point I think is a mistake is the electricity tax talking point. Making electricity cheaper isn't helping the environment, it's helping NS Power. I e-mailed my MLA Percy Paris about chronic outage problems and got a vague response about some committee looking into the problem. NSP needs a swift kick, and I don't see that the NDP are planning anything. I'd separate the generation and distribution components of NSP, and look into re-acquisition of the distribution part.
Yeah, the NDP is a big supporter of the ultra ripoff Utility and Review Board who decides just how much NSP can rip us off. In fact they want to give them control over gas prices too. That's a great idea.
And what I meant when I said more efficient was this. I feel the NDP have bad policy ideas, as do the Tories. But the Tories I don't find as much of a threat to the future of the Province because they're so inept at making their policies law. The NDP I find to be more efficient but efficient at doing the wrong thing.
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