Lots of people are educated in economics. Many of them agree with Harper; many do not. You’re casting out the fact that he was so educated as proof that whatever he does is right. Because he was educated.
Bush has a MBA. Look what he did to the US economy.
I don’t think I was doing that; I wasn’t intending it, anyway. What I was intending was contrasting someone with a Master’s degree in economics with someone with a PhD in history - I’ll still take the economics degree over the history degree.
Ah, then I was misunderstanding you. I apologize. But I still don’t agree. It really doesn’t matter to me what a politician has a degree in, instead it matters what they stand for. Especially as very few politicians who have reached national leadership levels have been practicing in whatever career they may have studied in college, instead they have been practicing as career politicians.
And that said, a knowledge of history is not a bad thing for a politician to have. Nor is a knowledge of economics, for that matter. Nor a knowledge of any number of other things.
The problem with quizzes like the CBC’s is that they give all questions equal weight. But it’s possible to be for the majority of things a party stands for, but still be opposed to them because you see the minority of issues you disagree with to be a big damned deal.
If you gave me the right set of questions, you could ‘prove’ that I’m a hard-core lefty. I support gay marriage, drug legalization, I’m not religious, I hate ‘intelligent design’ and any argument based on religion, and I don’t much like social conservatism in general.
However, none of those issues are going to make or break the country. But let’s say a party believed in all of those things, but also believed in economic and political isolationism. I would have to oppose that party. The one big thing outweighs all the others.
I probably agree with the liberals more than the conservatives on a plurality of issues, but then they come out and promise universal day care, or a long gun registry, or a host of wildly expensive ‘green’ projects, and they lose me. For all the things the Conservatives suck at, I simply trust them more to abstain from doing something really, really big and stupid.
I say that while acknowledging that the Chretien-Martin governments did a fine job of running the country - shrinking the size of government, lowering taxes, etc. Good on 'em. But my reading of the history of that administration suggests that it was really Paul Martin driving that whole show, and there were an awful lot of rank-and-file Liberals who bitterly disliked what he was doing. Martin’s people are all gone, and I have no faith that the new bunch would be good stewards of the economy - and their current economic plan reinforces that impression.
The liberal platform includes cap and trade, higher corporate taxes, a big tax increase for the oil sands, and almost $3 billion in increased social spending. These are all wrong-headed policies, and they have huge potential impact on the economy and our fiscal situation. I could agree with them on just about everything else in their platform, and this stuff would push me to the Conservatives.
That kind of weighting won’t show up in a quiz, because the quiz can’t know how you evaluate the relative importance of issues.
Re: corporate tax fut rollbacks and dropping subsidies for the oil-sands: we are a social country and that takes cash. We’ve seen what lowering corporate tax rates to appease companies threatening to leave; just look at Ireland. They are flirting with natinal bankrupcy. As for the oil-sand subsidies: a lot of that’s just increasing our share on the backs of Chinese owners. The oil is there and needs to come out. The funny thing about it is no matter how big a cut we take, it is still some of the best (if not cleanest) sources of oil in the world. Especially as the mid-east gcontinues to go through turmoil. Canadians will continue to work there and continue to make $Billions. Decreasing subsidies to the companies drilling will not drive them away.
Keeping a promise is admirable, but keeping a promise by implementing stupid policy is still stupid.
With regards to the CBC quiz, Sam makes a good point about the concept weight when it comes to political quizzes. The importance of an issue to the voter is just as important as where you stand on it.
With regards to the election, I have to admit the Liberals are running some very effective campaign ads on TV. They’re making promises our nation’s finances can’t keep, of course, and so I think they’re unmitigated bullshit - the “We’ll give you four thousand bucks in your RESP, no problem” is particularly stupid when you stop and think about it - but the ads are some of the best ads I’ve seen in a Canadian election in years. The branding is excellent, the message is clear and consistent from ad to ad, they’re wonderfully produced, and they’re designed to take votes from both the Conservatives AND the NDP, which is the genius of it; the “Your family, your Liberals” tagline is sensational and clips the NDP’s emphasis on “working class families” while also leveraging the perception of Harper and the CPC as mean. I haven’t seen poll numbers lately but right now I’d say the Liberals have run the best campaign through Week 1.
Conversely, the Tories look stiff and are doing an uncharacteristically poor job of getting a coherent message out; they’re spent way too much time blathering about coalitions. The NDP is definitely not getting a great message out, either; their ads are a bit too strident and in at ;east one case are just too transparently bullshitty (the health care ad, which seems to operate under the assumption that Stephen Harper is the Premier of all the provinces, rather than being the guy in charge of the federal government.)
One Conservative ad that runs in French involves using a quote from Pauline Marois to somehow explain why the Bloc won’t represent all the regions/rural Québec (an absurd premise to begin with, given their voting base but whatever). The quote is badly recorded and it took me several attempts to listen to the ad to figure out what Marois is saying, and when it finally clicked in my mind…it’s such a complete nonsequitur to what the narrator was saying, that the ad still doesn’t make any sense.
The French-language ads that I’ve seen by the Liberals are much clearer and to the point. I don’t think I’ve seen a Conservative ad that wasn’t an attack ad, and none with Harper speaking French so far. And small points to Ignatieff: his accent in French is adorable. I don’t recall seeing any ads by the NDP or Greens at all so far. Then again, I kind of expect only the major two to pay for ads during hockey games, which is all I watch lately (so much homework…!!!)
However, in spite of the lame Tory ads, they seem to be firmly in the lead.
Man oh man. If that’s how Ignatieff’s Liberals are doing after a GOOD campaign week, one wonders how they’ll do when they make their first gaffe.
I think most of the campaign ads I see are ridiculous and blatantly manipulative, but I did like the Conservative ad about Ignatieff - “He didn’t come back for you.” That just seemed to sum it up for me.
What did Harper do for me?
These days, my standards are so low I just want them to not do anything TO me.
Today’s National Post columns had a lot of criticism of Stephen Harper and the Conservative campaign. Words like “ridiculous” were used.
By comparison, the Star has pretty much abandoned even the pretense of being a newspaper and is now officially a Liberal Party campaign document. I used to think of the Star as being the Liberal rag and the Post as being the Conservative rag, with the Sun being a newspaper for children, but there’s no longer a parallel, really; the Post has a position on things but they’re reasonably honest about it, while the Star is amazingly dishonest, regularly - I mean every single day - presenting editorial opinion as fact and, on at least a weekly basis, just making shit up.
I never find the CBC biased because stacked against the Toronto Star, nobody could possibly look bad by comparison.
As a member of the Sun Media family, I resent that comment.
We’re aiming at adolescents.
What has Ignatieff done for you?
I think he has done a very good job at getting us through the international financial crisis. Yes, credit must be given to Martin, and to the general banking culture in Canada, but at the same time, I think Harper also deserves credit. BTW, I have never voted Conservative – just calling it like I see it.
Maclean’s Paul Wells has written a couple of interesting articles. One on Ignatief, and the other on Harper
I think that your mistake is in believing that this was a bad week for the Conservatives and a good week for the Liberals. If the last election campaign showed us anything it’s that the Conservatives understand Canadian voters better than the Liberals do right now.
Having piles of natural resources helps a bit too (especially of the black variety). That kind of export will slow down, but it is always in demand.
Interesting story on CBC about two students that were denied access to a Conservative rally because on their Facebook page they had pictures of themselves posing with Ignatieff.
Think this will get any play or will it slide off? I think that the Liberals could spin this into motivating the student vote.