Friday, October 8, 2010

Partisanship and not ideology

Interesting comment on the radio this morning.

The Conservatives don't stand for much anymore but they are highly partisan.

That would explain, for example, the curious attacks on blue Liberals. Politics isn't about getting an agenda in place -- it's just a team sport. No point in building a consensus -- at least not if they wear a red shirt on ice.

I'm nostalgic for Preston Manning ... .

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is in contradiction to the Libs long held belief that the "neocons" have a hidden agenda.

Now it is argued that they don't stand for anything.

This is a lot of nonsense.

Canada has now had 6 years of minority parliament. It is unprecedented. This constant is largely responsible for the hyperpartisanship now prevalent in Ottawa.

Anonymous said...

Politicians stand to get elected, nothing more, it's not a secret. They bend to the party line or are whipped into voting by the current autocratic leader. Their personnel believes matter not. Their voters can go to heck, the leader dictates where they sit, what they say and how to vote.

The Rat said...

I'm nostalgic for Preston Manning ...

Then I guess the red shirt team shouldn't have gone down the road of labeling Reform a bunch of red-neck religious nuts. Maybe you shouldn't have let guys like Kinsella mock beliefs like Day's. Maybe you'd have a seat outside of the city limits somewhere if Chretien hadn't started this little war. What I do know is that now that team blue has the puck there isn't much desire over here to share. What Martin said about Harper's hatred of Liberals comes as no surprise to me because I despise almost everything Liberals stand for. So sorry James if you feel we are too hard on you blue Liberals but you don't have the power in the party to do anything, you are dominated by your Rae/Kennedy/Dosanjh wing. I wouldn't cross the street to pee out the fire if you know what I mean.