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Friday, April 13
Today Green Party leader Elizabeth May and Liberal Party leader Stéphane Dion announced their deal not to run a candidate in either person's riding, making Peter MacKay more vulnerable in his Central Nova riding. But the thing that got me was Dion's quote that this was putting "progress ahead of partisanship." Nothing could be further from the truth. This is a purely (and crass) partisan play, producing the ability to unseat a very important and high-level cabinet minister and make the Liberals seem both more cooperative and environmentally friendly (both of which are ranking high on voters minds these days). Why Peter MacKay? Because not running a Liberal in Calgary Southwest does little to damage MP Stephen Harper. MacKay was simply next on the Liberal list of "man, who do I wish we could defeat..."
Now, I don't think the move is as short-sighted on Dion's part as those Liberals who are saying "Not running a candidate in MacKay's riding is truly the stupidest thing that a group of people who wrote the book on stupid things have done yet. Dion still thinks he's at the convention brokering deals. He better realize elections are one ballot.” It does accomplish many partisan goals, and I think Dion is slightly more electable today than he was yesterday, reeling from Belinda's announcement. But it is an extremely short-term gain that puts Dion in a corner of possibly never running a candidate against May - if she's capable and amazing enough today, I have trouble imagining Dion getting out of doing it in the future. Also, I would hate to be a member of the Central Nova Liberal Riding Association - at least Newmarket-Aurora got to have a Liberal MP in Belinda, even if she was a candidate for the Conservative Party leadership just a year earlier.
I wonder how the Greens feel about this - I imagine they are ecstatic at coming even closer to electing an MP - but they will almost forever be aligned with the Liberals, something which many Canadians, even Joe Comuzzi are eager to be doing the opposite of.
If Dion were really serious about ensuring May win, giving up a safe Liberal Toronto seat would at least not smack so obviously of partisanship.
Labels: federal politics
posted by Duncan @ 8:19 AM© 2003-2010 Duncan Wojtaszek
No reproduction whatsoever, in any form, without permission.
All views expressed here are those of Duncan Wojtaszek and no other person or organization.
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