Well it's been a busy week for myself and for what's been happening in the news! Since my last update, there has been tons of political upheaval. To recap, NDP leader Carol James has resigned and now the party needs to work on a leadership convention to find the next party leader. The 13 dissidents (so-called Bakers Dozen) within the NDP party has caused enough turmoil and infighting which ultimately influenced Carol James' to discontinue as their leader. To Carol's credit, she boldly made this decision in the best interest of the people. She believed that her party was not going to accomplish anything by continuously fighting with each other and if she stepped aside, the NDP would hopefully sort things out between themselves and be able to re-unite and strengthen the party again. Next blog post will focus on the NDP leadership race. Below is a link to Carol James resignation:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2010/12/06/bc-carole-james-challenge-leadership.html
As for the Liberals, Christy Clark, has joined the race to be Premier. A survey was performed to see if she would be a good Premier, and apparently the public opinion result scores her highest amongst the other candidates. One of her primary objectives is to keep the NDP out of power. Her plan to kill the HST does not seem to be popular move within the Liberal party. I think this is a good strategy to win back votes for the liberal party.
From a political perspective, this is probably the most activity I’ve ever paid any attention to! I’m still a “sit back and watch the chaos” type of person, but I certainly have a few cents to toss into the ring.
ReplyDeleteFirst off: Why is Christy Clark such a popular candidate amongst the public?
Upon watching the various newscast polls of random people, it sounds to me like many of those views are based on her looks, her flair, and/or her so-called anit-HST stance.
But what really lies behind that? I must say, I’m suspicious. This is a woman who left the Liberal party under a somewhat dim light, in favour of (unsuccessful) municipal politics, and when failing to succeed to her liking, went into television. Ah...the limelight at last.
Sure, the Liberal party does need something the breathe life into its now ailing-in-popularity party....but if looking at this from a Liberal supporter point of view, she doesn’t exactly seem like a true blue, stick with you through thick and thin kind of candidate. This appears to be particularly apparent with her anti-HST angle. Gord’s Liberal MPs were mostly supportive of the HST on the public face. They promoted it, backed it, assured the public of the benefits. This was “the liberal party stance” on the subject. What’s the likelihood that if you were a Lib MP, you are now willing to rescind your previous views? How much would rescinding hurt your MP reputation? What if you truly do support the HST philosophy, as they claim to? Then as an MP who stands by Gordo’s decision, wouldn’t you be even more hard pressed to support Christy?
It’s interesting to me that Christy took that on. Is she trying to impress the public first? Does she really expect to win over the MPs to gain party leadership? It seems almost backwards to me in terms of a “win the job” game plan. But alas, she’s the politically savvy candidate, not me.
Second: Oh, poor Carole. It’s been a battling season for her. Whether she ‘deserved’ to be ousted or not is (as usual) beyond my scope of insight. But regardless of her competency as the NDP leader, this was a pretty harsh way to go. There’s plenty of talk about the difficulties in finding the next candidate who can reunite the party. One report noted that Jenny Kwan is gonna be receiving quite a few boos and hisses at future NDP meetings so there’s no chance she’s going to run. Two days later I hear another report that rumors are Jenny is going to run. Is she the one that’ll reunite the party? Um..doubtful. Not with the deeply hurt feelings of some party members. I’m guessing the rebels are on the black list of many of the Pro-Carole team. Same with the super-pro Carole supporters. It’ll be a tough road for anyone who shot harsh words at the baker’s dozen to try to unite the party.
I am starting to get the feeling the Liberals might take the glam and glitz road. Wouldn’t that be interesting? Perhaps that’s their only salvation at this point.
If the NDP wants to come back strong and fight the good fight, they will definitely need a leader that exudes confidence and solidarity on behalf of their party. I believe a relatively neutral candidate would be their best bet- for within the party and for regaining the largest number of NDP supporters in the community.
Let the games begin?
Thanks for your post! I agree with you, glam and glitz seems to be the strategy. Will it work, we'll have to wait and see. Perhaps we'll be surprised as we learn more about Christy Clark. Either way, it appears both parties are in need of fresh leadership with fresh views. Its safe to predict that there is going to be a minority government for the next election result. We need to have at least 2 parties, one strong opposition to keep the other honest. Check out this link for the interesting and wacky history of BC Politics:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.timescolonist.com/news/wacky+world+politics+look+back+forward/3965454/story.html