Things that make no sense to me...

[bcholmes]

Why is it that, in the minds of so many Ontario voters, the Bob Rae experience has forever tarnished the NDP, yet John Tory is a viable leader despite Mike Harris and Ernie Eves? I mean, Bob Rae never caused the deaths of people in Ipperwash and Walkerton.

Comments

[secretsoflife.livejournal.com]

working door-to-door for the NDP, I've had numerous people slam the door in my face saying "I still remember the Social Contract" or something to that effect. when it hits their pocketbook the average person remembers it much more than when it hits some no-name small town or some random Indians (<--sarcasm).

That's my theory anyway :/

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

And yet a lot of those same people got laid off entirely when Harris implemented massive cutbacks.

I don't get it either.

[secretsoflife.livejournal.com]

yup, that was exactly what the contract was trying to avoid. i guess in pissing everyone off a bit, Rae erred; the tories chose to just piss a smaller percentage off, more :/

A wild guess?

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Rae pissed off the sort of people who voted for him, while the Tories targeted people who mostly didn't?

[the-fury.livejournal.com]

"The Sun" never let them in on that fact.

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

Because the percentage of people who actually live in Walkerton or Ipperwash is very small and ultimately most people only really remember the things that impact them directly.

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

I think also that there's a little of the, "I was in one poly relationship and it blew up, therefore poly relationships don't work." factor there. Because Tory leaders are much more an accepted and usual thing, the misadventures of a particular Tory leader are attributable to that person rather than to the concept of "Tory leaders", wheres if NDP leaders are somewhat rarer, then the misadventures of a given NDP leader are more likely to be attributed to the concept of "NDP leaders," in general.

Both of these are just random shot-in-the-dark theories, mind you.

[dragon3.livejournal.com]

Maybe because it doesn't seem as petty as rejecting Howard Hampton for being boorish enough to repeatedly invade my phone with recorded political calls to support the NDP and "working families".

[kat-chan.livejournal.com]

Well, the short form answer here could be the same as my short form response to the post that came up just before this one in my friends list when it asked "And why the hell are liberals lining up behind Ron Paul? What the FUCK!?"

"People are morons"

But that's a little bit on the cynical side, don't you think.

Alas, I don't think that people care if two towns of people they don't know are hurt, so long as it's not them. But look at the Prairies. You have had NDP governments there that have worked. What's to say that an NDP government in Ontario couldn't? Especially if it's not followed up by a Tory government that swings back so far to the right that it destroys things and you can blame it on the predecessors and their "flawed" policies.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

What's to say that an NDP government in Ontario couldn't?
Their actual track record?

Of course, there's no reason the Ontario NDP couldn't headhunt the Saskatchewan NDPers and put them in charge of the Ontario NDP for as long as it takes to build the same organizational institutions as the Saskachewanian NDP [1] has. Heck, Roy Romanow is available, isn't he?

1: Grant Devine's administration is evidence that fiscal (and other forms of) prudence are not necessarily features of Saskatachewanian politicians.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

If it helps, I'd vote for the NDP before the Tories (Although I plan to vote for the kitten-eater, rather grudgingly). There are a lot of parties I'd vote for over the current version of the Tories.

For that matter, I'd have picked Bob Rae over Michael Ignatieff, on the grounds that failing to deal efficiently with a recession is better than advocating torture.