Okay, this story is mostly, “Conservative strategist states the obvious”, but I’m linking it for the graph of party support. The turn around is so dramatic, it’s shocking to see it laid out like this.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/top-conservative-stragegist-poilievre-lose-1.7495524
Increasing the gap between what I can afford to invest tax free and what I’m theoretically allowed to invest tax free is a sure way to win over my vote!
Conservative Official Pre-election Strategy Poll (français)
Solid Gold stuff right here. I’m laughing my ass off (they captured call-response in text perfectly).
Danielle Smith is hanging out with Ben Shapiro as we speak. She was in Florida to shake Trump’s hand days after he announced we shouldn’t be a sovereign nation. Maybe she’s just anti-Canada rather than pro-US, though.
I don’t know much about Canadian politics, but it certainly looks here as if PP has changed his tune at least a little?
PP is Pierre Poilievre, the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada (the official opposition). You are linking to a story about Mark Carney, the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada (our Prime Minister).
I assume you mean this bit?
Pierre Poilievre, leader of the Conservatives, the main opposition party, called the tariffs “unjustified and unprovoked”.
Yeah, but he’s still lagging. He’s caught up to where virtually every other Canadian politician was two months ago. But he’s still lagging. While PP is making the bare minimum amount of noise about this, Carney has actual plans for doing things to offset the impact of these tariffs. PP has to at least match that, but short of just copying everything Carney has said, he shows no ability to do that. Let’s see his actual plans to fight this, not the bare-minimum recognition that he realizes (finally!) that there’s a problem here.
In truth PP has been using soft language with Trump and the US. “Why do you hurt these people” “we are your friends” This is in contrast to maybe 90% of his speeches where he tears into Trudeau, or mocks Carney with tough vigour “Carney is Trudeau! They will raise taxes! Kill jobs! Eat your children!” etc.
PP doesn’t focus on the issues that matter to this election (Trump). He spends most of his time still fighting a retired Trudeau. When he talks about Trump is tone shifts to sadness “Oh why.” He’s completely given up attacking Trump.
Listen to any of his speeches. Fire & brimstone and slogans… until Trump is mentioned then pivot to sadness and regret.
You’re correct, I should have highlighted the bit that Horatius mentioned.
I think he’s just unprepared and out of his league. I also think he is poorly advised, and I suspect, to be honest, that he’s just not a very bright man (a problem I had with Trudeau, who’s easily the least intellectually gifted PM we’ve had in my lifetime.). They were coasting to victory and didn’t really have to put together a strategy.
Everything changed because of Trumpist aggression. They just don’t have a campaign for that and don’t seem to have anyone on the team who really knows how to respond to that and change their tune. So he’s just saying the things he practiced. The CPC had a simplistic message that got them to easy majority win territory, and he doesn’t have what it takes to go off message.
Hammering Trudeau would have worked. They’d have won 220 seats. We just had a 180-degree change and they’re like the French in 1940, extremely well armed and prepared for the LAST war.
Speaking as someone who places a high value on intelligence… I don’t think that a national leader needs to be smart. What they need is enough humility to recognize what they’re good at and what they’re not, and to seek out and listen to expert advisors on the things they don’t know,
He built his whole platform on Trudeau hate, when Trudeau stepped out, all PP had left was, ‘…is just another Trudeau!’ Weak tea indeed.
Even with a foreign aggressor, in the picture, and an existential threat, he is still intent on dividing people over hating Trudeau.
I used to really loath the guy, now I’m feeling a little sorry for him, to be honest. He’s never been anything but a politician, no industry experience to fall back on at all.
(While do Conservatives favour only the smuggest looking guys they can find? I feel like if you look up smugness it’s photos of PP and Andrew Sheer, haha!)
Like Donald Trump! /s
If only I could answer without putting in a name and email…
Liberals drop Calgary candidate for failing to disclose 30 year old domestic violence charge which did not go to trial .
I vehementy disagree with half your statement. I agree they need wisdom but couldn’t disagree more than they don’t need to be very smart.
We aren’t hiring someone to manage a Petsmart, the job is to run a huge, complicated country with FORTY MILLIOM people in it, and to juggle a cabinet running zillion-dollar budgets, have an understanding of constitutional law and precedent, international affairs, and the ability to very rapidly absorb and use information you’ve never seen before on a wide variety of topics. To my mind, a person must have both sufficient humility/wisdom AND intelligence to do that job. The skill requirements to be a good head of government for a whole goddamned country are extremely high and if you’re lacking in them you’re not going to do the job well, end of story.
True, but there are different kinds of smarts. Oliver Wendell Holmes summed it up when taking about FDR: Roosevelt had “a second-class intellect but a first-class temperament.”
What he meant, as I understand it, was that Roosevelt wasn’t necessarily the smartest guy in the room, but he could pick good people, listen to the problems and possible solutions, and make good choices. He also could abandon policies when they weren’t working. He also had forethought: he could see future problems developing and consider options.
Which is all a type of smarts.
Well, Roosevelt was smart enough to pick Eleanor. Maybe he was not an academic, but I think Roosevelt was both very wise and smart.
Contrast NorthernPiper’s definition of smart with the current president. Yeesh.
Except when it came to his own health. The war was won, he could have resigned sooner …what a remarkable human.
Worth reading his bio.
For that matter so is Trumans…little haberdasher steps into giant shoes, ushers in the Atomic Age after not being briefed by Roosevelt, rejigs the world with Stalin and Churchill, wins a totally unexpected election
then goes home by train. Was modesty on that list.?
I would suggest Ken Burns The Roosevelts: An Intimate History, if you want to invest fourteen hours. The Emmy award winning documentary starts with Teddy. I think it is free to watch on PBS and archive.org, and also on AppleTV etc.; your local library probably has access to a copy too.