So Now What?
This is a cross post from http://www.davebagler.ca
With all of the recent press coverage saying that Elizabeth will run in Saanich I think we can safely say that it has been decided.
We had a nice debate but the decision has been made. The question now is what do we do? I think Saanich was a good choice and while I'll be spending most of my campaign time working locally I will certainly try and help with some phone canvassing.
The nice thing about Elizabeth running on the west coast is that I can phone canvass in my riding until it is too late to do so and then still have 3 hours of calling in BC. That was a problem with Central Nova. If I wanted to call into the riding it took away from time I had to call locally. I think its great that the many campaigners in Ontario will be able to work locally and yet still be able to contribute to the leaders riding.
Anyway my main point is this; Regardless of what you thought about the decision it has been made and I highly doubt we'll be changing it so what are we going to do? Are we going to keep arguing and bringing up "what ifs"? Or are we going to realize that to win we all need to be in this together?
There is no safe Green seat. Winning anywhere is going to require a mountain of effort and it is going to have to come from all across the country. So we've all made our points (sometimes even rationally) some good, some bad, some positive, some negative and some constructively critical (however rare). I learned a lot. (For example since I am a college graduate and not a University graduate my arguments don't matter.) You may have learned things too.
At this point we need to do what we can to get Elizabeth elected. It is what the media will use to measure our success in the next election and long after. It's time to stop insulting Elizabeth May (no matter how thick or thinly veiled) and it's time to get to work.
If you can't bring yourself to support her then my suggestion is that you help in your riding but please refrain from throwing dirt at the leader while we're pushing for a breakthrough.
This is a cross post from http://www.davebagler.ca
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W minus 46: It's time to come together.
Yes, I agree that it is time now to start lining up behind our Leader. Like it or lump it, the SGI decision appears to have been made, and all that remains now is the press release. The Campaign Strategy, developed by Federal Council partly in response to some very real issues raised within the Party as a result of the last election’s results, clearly calls for the election of our Leader as priority number 1. I realize that this prioritization does not sit well with everybody. But it’s time to pull together now as a Party and do the best we can, and the most that we can, to increase our popular vote total and to elect a few MP’s, including our Leader.
If we are serious about wanting to change the climate in parliament during the next few election cycles, we have to have sitting MP’s after this election.
However, let’s not lose site of the hard work which needs to be undertaken AFTER the fall election. Clearly, we are not doing enough to build our EDA’s. Resources need to be allocated from the top to strengthen existing EDA’s and found new ones. Training on organizing is needed at all levels. The development of parallel supporting organizations also needs to be undertaken at local levels, but assistance to do so is needed from the top. If we’re serious about the long term, we absolutely must be serious about allocating these resources to those of us out here with local footprints.
Also, there is clearly a need for reform within our own Party, and the Party has to begin to take this seriously. We’re not the little Party that we were at the time of our founding, and at the time when the our process and structures were put into place. We’ve been trying to work within this system and have been experiencing frustrations as a result of our growth and increasing diversity. Structural change within the Party is necessary if we want to achieve long-term results. To name just a few areas of concern: we need a better way to review policies, and we need a more democratic process for decision making at conventions.
Building EDA’s and structural changes to our Party must occur for the long-term health of our Party. Let’s not lose sight of these necessities.
However, we need to put these issues on hold for a time and devote our energies to the upcoming election, as this is going to be the most crucial election we’ve ever been a part of. While many do not agree that we need to elect MP’s this time out, just about everyone seems to agree that we need to continue our trend of increasing our popular vote. Even that trend is at risk in the upcoming election, with less anticipated coverage in the press for many and varied reasons. It will be harder for us to get our message out, and voters may be more stingy with whom they cast their ballots for. Let’s not take it for granted that the increasing vote trend will continue.
So it’s time to line up and do what we can. And let’s face it, elections can be fun! After the election, though, we’ll have to find it within ourselves to do some of the really difficult work with regards to EDA building and changing Party structure. It may not be as exciting as working on an election campaign, but it absolutely needs to start happening right after the next election.
Re: W minus 46: It's time to come together.
I completely agree.
Re: W minus 46: It's time to come together.
I agree, and commit to stand behind Elizabeth and work to to get her elected, now is the time for unity!
anyone else?
poll about us
"Jeff Walker, senior vice-president of Harris-Decima, said people want the Greens to do better."
http://www.canadaeast.com/front/article/766799
"Poll suggests many would like to see Elizabeth May in Commons"
""The data shows that many Canadians want the Greens to be a more significant factor in Canadian politics, even those that currently vote for other political parties," he said."
"The survey suggests May's support is strongest among Liberal and NDP voters and weakest among Conservatives."
Still think not offending Conservatives is so politically important?
But don't listen to his advice:
"He suggested, however, the party has to go beyond its environmental focus [sic, no full stop]
"Our analysis suggests that the Greens need to emphasize policies other than the environment in order to help them broaden support.""
Things like economic & health concerns must be spoken about as intimately connected with "environmental focus". There is no separation. "Tricking" a populace into thinking these are separable by campaigning in a pandering mode, is not only an internal Green betrayal, but a public disservice. Greens are forced to educate and inform as they campaign, however difficult, and enough of the public should catch up, one day. It is a question of artfulness in couching a Green electoral programme.
Everyone counts.
Economic citizen.
Voting citizen.
Healthy citizen.
We are the environment.
That's an example of how to maintain "environmental focus" at the heart, all the while being educative about "intimate connexion" (notice the ambiguously readable "We" -- GPC or all Canadians). Now fill in the slogan categories with allusions to actual policy bits. GAI (/basic income); PR (/electoral reform); specific & many, especially local ones for each candidate, pollution concerns, these days esp. regarding cell phones & towers. Mull over that cast of slogan-categories as a disciplined & interconnected way to make it seem Greens have both the grand overview as well as the ability to speak to specific local concerns. And if such talk helps get the party closer to 10% & beyond, Elizabeth in or no, it will have advanced & performed public service.
"You can't count on a government that can't count."
Heard Ignatieff say this on a CBC Radio news report yesterday. To be made a campaign slogan? To "count" seems to count now. "Everyone counts" (see suggestions just above) -- who's also reading these blogs? (I remember, on Simpson and the word, 'brave', at https://greenparty.ca/node/4324 .)
"Still think not offending
"Still think not offending Conservatives is so politically important?"
Why should we be "offending" anyone? If instead you meant, "still think attracting conservatives is so politically important," I'd definitely say very much so. There are certainly plenty of fiscally conservative minded individuals who don't vote CPC because the CPC is incompetent, dismisses climate change, dismisses social equity, and is hurting the middle class. And further, a good chunk of social minded individuals are not green. Many NDP supporters do not see Greens as a second choice. Liberals can attract from the left and the right.
You might want to ask yourself why we should shun disaffected people from other parties.
If you think the Green movement can sustain an isolating stance of attracting only hard-left enviros then you need to reexamine the leanings of Canadians. There are insufficient numbers to elect Greens this way. At best we're talking 15%. And let's say we do manage to elect some greens, in addition to our leader, we will still wield little influence until we can approach the NDP in seat count.
no shunning involved
What's all this about "hard-left enviros"? Not one item in the slogan suggestions places Greens on the "hard left". GAI is libertarian at origin. PR is neutral. Pollution is by now on every politico's lips. What are you talking about? I don't like using the not right, not left, just striaght ahead kind of talk because of its fascistic origins, but it does apply. And regarding possible %s, at best for 15%, that is majorly short-term optimistic & barring major events an unreasonable expectation. 10% is a sensible mark to reach for this time which would further enhance GPC, gradually preparing for the day when the two major dissenting parties would become the reigning ones, but complementary in opposition, Greens actually holding to a relatively "right" wing side of things. So watch it about the "left" confusions. If you have youthful energy & desire in abundance, learn to drop the impatience, and do much more research. And I'm not suggesting GPC go out of its way to tar Conservatives, that's idiotic. But equally foolish is for misplaced sense of politeness not to tell it like it is about them. And the relatively fewer attractible from the Cons. camp would only know to come our way if appropriate & trenchant criticism is applied. See AT LENGTH from http://www.greenparty.ca/blogs/7/2009-07-14/stephen-harper-bashes-religi... & also elsewhere on that webpage to fill up with arrows a GPC anti-Cons. quiver. Any red Tory who hasn't been paying attention to how far off the mark Harperites are might clue in with knowledgeably directed criticism.
You want it both ways. You
You want it both ways. You ask for patience for GPC support, but I doubt you hold that same assessment on climate change. Social justice can wait a few more decades too while we're at it.
Also, not sure how GAI is libertarian. If you think GAI is Libertarian, then you don't what Libertarian means. On a previous topic, I outlined about 80 policy items that are either left or very-left. But you'd be hard pressed to find even one policy that is right of center. The Green movement started as an amalgum of left wing political parties. Social justice certainly extends right of centre. However, we don't attract many social conservatives -- I'm sure you think we do. We need to stop fooling ourselves that we're somewhere we are not, because it prevents us from getting there.
Bram
Bram, time after time you make yourself out to be a, let someone else fill in the blank. Ever heard of Milton Friedman, with Stigler inventor of GAI (as NIT)? In a hurry about climate disruption? I don't vote & support GPC because of delusion that my vote is going to hurry along knocking sense into Canadians' heads about reforming livelihood practices that impinge negatively as they do on the climate. If one sees how hard it is to change one's own life, one can't be sensibly in a hurry, especially on a national political front. (In Canada, provincially should be where it's at for Greens, where more of a hurry could be had.) On the other hand, if you immediately put a moratorium on upper atmosphere emissions, some rather interesting results would be found. The ailing airline industry is not going under fast enough for me (haven't been in a plane since cluing in in the 70s). Maybe I'll look at your list of 80, it's hard to get me to given your output thus far, and given your misuse of terms like "populist". Politics is obviously fun & attractive enough for some people to cling to a party they are even majorly at odds with. But some of their clinging can give counterproductive discomfort to those otherwise motivated to hang on. You're wrong again about "social conservatives", but it might be another one where you'd have a straying definition.
Daryl, I just want to make
Daryl, I just want to make sure we're all on the same page: You think Libertarians support GAI, and GAI means, "Guaranteed Annual Income."
Who else do CPC voters go to?
We need to keep from insulting anyone as ex-CPC voters will rarely go to the NDP and tend to have a dislike of Liberals. Thus they either vote CPC or quit voting. We are the only real alternative for them - a party where free enterprise is viewed as a good thing, but that it needs regulations/taxes to capture the hidden costs that otherwise are missed (environmental costs primarily, although there are others).
We are the one party that anyone can shift to as we are the ultimate big tent party - the environment affects us all and how it is managed can determine things for the rich and the poor, for business and charities, for young and old.
Now, when it comes to health care and the like we need to put a strong emphasis on how we see those areas - a milligram of prevention is worth a kilogram of cure after all and we are the only long term thinkers in politics.
Wellington-Halton Hills
"ex-CPC voters will rarely go to the NDP"
That is false, John. Look out West to see why. And it is also false to claim that NDP-ers are not for "free enterprise". That is a seriously false misrepresenation.
They have their ways of addressing questions of corporate scale & aggression & irresponsibility, and have preceded Greens in that by generations, and they have favourable approaches to small business. We just have a different angle on criticism & prescription, but the dissent is largely shared, and it is not in being anti-free-enterprise. And what keeps NDP from having become the "big tent" has had more to do with historical aggression against them by sponsors of corporate & financial interests -- do you even know how Tommy Douglas, for example, had the RCMP tailing him for so many years? Not only younger Greens need to do some research. (I speak as one who has only once ever voted NDP, and that was provincially as a protest vote.)
Daryl, everyone has differing
Daryl, everyone has differing opinions, and in the absence of a comprehense and scientific survey on the matter no one can prove correctness of either John's or your position. So until then, they are each perspectives, worthy of consideration.
The bigger picture is that there's little benefit in alienating people who think they may belong in the green tent. Don't you agree?
NDP, Green, Liberal, and CPC
Checking past polls that have come out via various groups we tend to see that people who say they will vote Green tend to be closer in viewpoints to the CPC voters than to the NDP voters.
Sadly I cannot find some of my old posts that showed the similarities offhand (I am at work after all and cannot spend too much time on this).
The NDP has traditionally been the party you vote for if you are angry at your prefered governing party - CPC or Liberal - but not mad enough to vote for the other potential governing party. For example, I have voted NDP (yes, one of the many in 1990 who regretted it later) but never Liberal. When I decided the CPC after the Reform takeover was no longer a party I wanted to vote for I found the Green party and how it was closest to my world view. I suspect a lot of people who currently vote CPC or who have stopped voting due to the actions of the current leadership in the CPC would like the Green policies if they knew them. So lets not push these people away, or try to become NDP-classic (ie: when they cared about the environment rather than provide lip service to it). Lets stay in the true political centre where all voters can vote for us and not feel like we are just the lesser of many evils.
Wellington-Halton Hills
centre, shmentre
John, if left & right are in context outdated political terms, so must be 'centre'. And the dynamic is quite different out West, where "the other potential governing party" has historically been seen to be the Eastern establishment perpetually governing party, thus contributing to the NDP-Reform-&c swing. See the amusing Cooper railroad quote I brought at http://www.greenparty.ca/blogs/930/2009-06-25/i-would-have-said-no-ill-f... (but of course way back the Tories were the main party supporting the Eastern -British banker establishment). Greens are potentially more popular on different grounds in different places, it does not everywhere have to do with comfortable "centre" placement.
We do relatively well in Conservative strongholds
Read into this what you will but we tend to do well in strong Conservative ridings. If you take our best 20 ridings by populuar vote in the 2008 general election, you'll see that 15 of them elected Conservative MP's with an average of 52% of the popular vote.
The views I express on this blog are purely my own and should not be construed to represent the official position of the Green Party of Canada.
Cons Strongholds - Easy 10% ridings - Hard to win ridings
We do relatively well in Conservative strongholds - up to a point.
The larger political parties are very practical where they focus their efforts. A fairly well understood number is 200 - being the rough number of ridings where the bigger parties actually contest the riding. They want to win 155 seats to get a majority and they focus their efforts on the top 200 ridings in order to be most effective. No point for them to spend money where they have no chance to win based on the demographics and voting patterns of the people in the riding.
This leaves some ridings relatively uncontested. Our message tends to appeal to what are called progressive voters. So in Conservatives stongholds where the other bigger parties are not competing, except the dominant incumbent, the so called progressive voters are up for grabs. Even a modest Green campaign can capture 10% in these riding.
It doesn't work the same way in the Liberal or NDP strongholds since our messaging is not as appealing to the conservative voter. No matter what we say, we are a progressive party. People perceive that we want change - big time.
So although we can easily grab 10% in conservatives strongholds, our chance of electing someone in those ridings is actually lower than in some other ridings. Our best chance to win is in ridings that are not strongholds and where the vote is very mobile from party to party from election to election.
Rob Brooks, Hull-Aylmer
If you're talking about
If you're talking about focusing our efforts, it's not going to be in 200 ridings, or at least it shouldn't be. Not all ridings are "winnable" as we like to pretend. If a riding is winnable, we should focus efforts there, otherwise we should be building base.
Attracting voters, wherever they are, will increase our base. That can only be a good thing. It lends to improved credibility, better donations, and an increase in the voter grant.
And I dispute your claim that the majority of our voters want "big time" change. You have no evidence of that. I think it's far more likely that our average voter -- not activist, but voter -- wants smaller doses of change, but in the green direction. Do you have anything that shows which one of us is right?
Strategic Voting At Work
Hi Ard,
While we do very well in solid Conservative ridings, I think this reflects strategic voting in the others and the fact that the Liberals and NDP target specific ridings rather than all 308. If the CPC is already getting 60% in my riding and I am thinking of "sending a message" by voting for ideas that I like, strategic voting considerations never enter my head. Our numbers in these ridings probably better reflect our soft support among non-Conservatives. Polling has regularly shown that Conservative voters don't often consider Greens an option.
What our next question should be is this: how can we craft our message in these strong-Conservative ridings to appeal to these voters? I'm not saying we change our policies or values, but that we examine the features of the party to find which features would be viewed as benefits by these voters. And this research can be done both nationally and riding-by-riding.
right
right, "little benefit", but the point is that there are far fewer pickings from one direction than from others, so telling it like it is will slowly serve to peel away the thoughtful ex-Cons., leaving the other ones to, well, don't you look at the polls, one generation gives way to another...
and if you were referring to John's misplaced left-right claim, there is plenty of data on Western voting patterns to show movement among the same crowd between NDP & Reform-&c., thus another case of my maybe wasting my breath on saying to you, "wrong" (it's gotta be fun, eh)
[edit to say: the way posts appear in this format make it seem like I am addressing John instead of Bram]
Voter Intention
The left to right pattern is simplistic, as only about 5% of people are members of political parties. Party leaders, voting issues, and other factors influence voters intention much more than some grand ideological platform which no one may read.
Rural voters and industrial areas often shift back and forth between NDP and Conservative. Skipping over the Liberals altogether and ignoring the center.
Saskatchewan and Manitoba voters may overwhelmingly elect federal conservatives while they have a NDP provincial government.
The Green Party can attract fiscal conservatives who consider themselves socially progressive.
Political activism numbers
Hi Dan,
just a quick quibble about the number 5%. The only surveyed numbers I have ever seen were collated by, I believe, elections canada. I don't have time to dig up a link, but the number was closer to 4% of Canadians have EVER held a membership in a political party. If you looked at currently active, the number would be much smaller. Even if it's only 1% that's still over 300,000 Party members in all Canada.
see now...
... http://greenpolitics.ca/2009/08/why-i-am-standing-as-a-nomination-candid... (mine 2nd comment)
completely shameless
For Cons' brother Republicans, recently resigned Van Jones had a term, for how they manage to politically get things done, including crude pressure on his progressive self, and the term referred to a nether orifice. By this report now in the Gob in Pail, "Tories to stoke fear of opposition coalition", Cons are about to shamelessly display that aspect of themselves again, in an attempt to dupe enough of angloland their way. ""They should have been hooted down or, better yet, greeted with the dismissive laughter they deserved", and even "worse were their reprehensible efforts to retain power by stirring up anti-Quebec feeling"". Those words to remember from Prof. White about the dangerous C[l]o[w]ns, see
http://www.greenparty.ca/blogs/7/2009-07-14/stephen-harper-bashes-religi... . And see again the rest of what I brought to that page, to prepare for capably heaping it on them in a campaign as required.
rump-ling of brows in the backrooms
Hébert agrees with me about Liberals' danger: "That is not an unreasonable set of assumptions; it certainly accounts for the higher-than-average trepidation that the prospect of a fall election has inspired in the backrooms of all the parties. But if it should turn out to be wrong, the result would be more than a dismal failure for Ignatieff, it would also be a devastating setback for the Liberal brand."
She also gives prominent mention to GPC, esp. in the BC context.
http://thestar.com/news/canada/article/692812
If Liberals fail to meet some expectations, GPC should be ready, at the next modernist party to meet its demise, although a Liberal rump would survive, possibly to make overtures, maybe hostile ones, towards Greens. Meanwhile, Cons. more shotgun approach to PC past continues with that Van Jones application -- once it's out, it's out, no "rump" left even...