Coalition Deal Completed

The NDP and Liberals have reached a deal to form a coalition government, according to the CBC. According to this deal, the NDP will get 25% of the Cabinet seats, and will not get to name either the Deputy Prime Minister or the Finance Minister.

This is a good thing. I was hoping for a few more Cabinet seats (more like 33%), but this is good. This gives the chance to put in place a government working in the interests of Canadians unlike the hopelessly partisan and bully-boy Conservatives. Given the opportunity, this new government will bring in fiscal stimulus, and avoid the harms of a couple more years of Harper.

I'm not going to be focusing on the blatant illegalities of the taping of the NDP caucus meeting by the Conservatives. It is a sideshow they are setting up to try to distract from their completely flop of a fiscal update. I won't be distracted, and I urge the entire progressive community online not to get caught up in it either.

I'll have more information on the coalition deal as it emerges.

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 51

Canada Has Our Very Own Watergate

Buried in a CBC News story about how the Conservatives are moving up the date of the budget, we find this:

The Conservatives, meanwhile, have released details of an NDP caucus meeting they say was held in the form of a conference call on Saturday.

The Tories say they released a portion of the transcript on Sunday because it shows the NDP was working very closely with the Bloc long before last Thursday's economic update to replace the government.

"Let's just say we have strategies," NDP Leader Jack Layton said during the call. "This whole thing would not have happened if the moves hadn't been made with the Bloc to lock them in early because you couldn't put three people together in … three hours. The first part was done a long time ago. I won't go into details."

NDP deputy leader Thomas Mulcair said at a news conference that nothing in the NDP-BQ talks is any different than the contingency planning Stephen Harper himself engaged in with the two parties during the last Liberal minority in 2004.

He said the meeting, whose co-ordinates were inadvertently given to a Tory, were illegally recorded and broadcast and that the party has consulted two experts including a legal specialist for an opinion on whether the Criminal Code was violated.

The Conservatives intercepting a telephone call is caught neatly under s. 184(1) of the Criminal Code of Canada which reads:

184. (1) Every one who, by means of any electro-magnetic, acoustic, mechanical or other device, wilfully intercepts a private communication is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years.

This is the Harper Conservatives bugging their political opponents. And who knows how long they have been doing this for. This is criminal. This is Watergate-type. Clearly the high-level Conservatives knew about this, and authorized both the bugging and the release of the information. They knew about it, and by authorizing the release of the recording, they abetted the offence after the fact. If Harper knew about and authorized it, he is equally guilty and should go on trial.

Even if criminal proceedings are not commenced against the dirty-tricks types in the Conservative Party, the Speaker should find the whole load of them to be in contempt of Parliament. Bugging the meetings of members is pretty much the definition of breaching the Parliamentary privileges of MPs.

The Harper government is inept, dishonest, desperate, and now criminal. When the Conservatives admit to a crime to cling to power, it is over. THROW THE BUMS OUT! COALITION NOW!

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 51

Harper Lies About the Constitution

Shame on Mr. Harper. Last night, at his specially constructed and pseudo-Presidential podium in the foyer of the House of Commons (does he really think he is too good to go to the Press Gallery as every PM before him has done?), Steveo lied to the people of Canada.

He got up on his hind legs and started spewing nonsense about how the opposition could not form a coalition and govern without an election. This is bullshit, and what is worse I'm sure he knows it.

The King-Byng affair, as well as numerous precedents in both the provincial legislatures and the British Parliament, affirms that the Queen or her representative has every right in a situation where the government loses the confidence of the House during the first sitting of the Parliament to ask an opposition party leader to try to assemble a government that can gain the confidence of the House. This is the whole point of our parliamentary system, and it is why the opposition is known as both "Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition" and the "government-in-waiting."

Steveo has unleashed his con-bots across the Internet, all screeching the same lines about a coalition government being anti-democratic and even anti-constitutional. This is part of a coordinated attempt to politically undermine the coming coalition government, but it is being done by lying to the people of Canada.

Part of the reason for the ferocity, and mendacity, of this response to the looming collapse of the government is surely fear. The Conservatives very likely cooked the books in the financial statement if not before, and they are deadly afraid of the opposition getting into the Ministry of Finance and finding the documents to prove it. The Conservatives have, in their three years in control of the government, surely lied and covered up multitudinous sins. Once the opposition gets in there, they are all coming out, and the Conservatives know that it will be doled out piecemeal, and they will be completely sunk in the next election. And so they are afraid.

And the result of that fear is the lies being spouted to the Canadian public by Conservatives from Steveo on down. This government lies to the public, and if for no other reason it thereby renders itself unfit to govern.

Update: The Con-bots now have their talking points for call-in shows. The CPC has a whole site set up for their partisans who are apparently either too stupid to think what to say for themselves or too untrustworthy to be allowed to come up with their own lines. You can find the CPC talking-points site here. I got their talking-points for the coalition negotiations (yes I was bad and put in a fake postal code), and here they are:

Opposition lacks mandate to take power

• Is anyone else outraged by what the Opposition Parties are doing in Ottawa?

• We’re not even two months removed from the last election, and a group of backroom politicians are going to pick who the Prime Minister is. Canadians didn’t vote for this person. We don’t even know who this person will be.

• Not a single voter voted for a Liberal-NDP coalition. Certainly not a single voter voted for the Liberals to form a coalition with the separatists in the Bloc.

• Add – what’s worse the Liberals even promised that there wouldn’t be a coalition with the NDP – this is all about power, all about money and they don’t even want to face the voters

• This is what bothers me the most. The Conservatives won the election. The Opposition keeps saying that the Conservatives have to respect the will of the voters that this is a minority and so on. …how about Liberals, NDP and Bloc respecting the will of the voters when they said “YOU LOSE”.
  

• And what’s this going to do to the economy. I’m sorry, I don’t care how desperate the Liberals are – giving socialists (Jack Layton) and separatists (Gilles Duceppe) a veto over every decision in government – that is a recipe for total economic disaster.

• Here is what is bothering me about all of this backroom opposition coalition talk.

• Sure it bothers me that parties Canadian rejected are trying to seize power through the back door.

• But how more phony could these guys be? I mean, I follow the news, virtually every single day you have Harper or Flaherty out there telegraphing exactly what they plan to do with the economy. And not once did you hear the Liberals, NDP or separatists talking about toppling the government in response.

• No – do you know what set this off. When Flaherty said he was going to take taxpayer-funded subsidies away from the opposition. Now there is a reason to try and overturn an election– because the Conservatives the audacity to say “Hey, it’s a recession, maybe you should take your nose out of the trough.”

• And I wish the media would be more clear on this point – the opposition aren’t being singled out by this fact the Conservatives stand to lose the most money of all. The only difference is that Canadians are voluntarily giving money the Conservatives, so they don’t need taxpayer handouts. The only reason the opposition would be hurt more is because nobody wants to donate to them. They should be putting their efforts towards fixing that problem.

• I don’t want another election. But what I want even less is a surprise backroom Prime Minister whom I never even had the opportunity to vote for or against. What an insult to democracy.

Not only is it stupid and inane, it is full of lies.

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 52

Harper Scampers to Save His Government

Craven Stephen Harper, the true small-man of Confederation has pushed back the opposition day scheduled for Monday by a week in a desperate attempt to save his government that is suddenly on the rocks. Flim-Flam Flaherty's economic update included more poison pills than the opposition could ever have been rationally expected to swallow, including not only the elimination of public campaign financing, but also a frontal attack on collective bargaining rights and the equal rights of women.

Flaherty took union busting to the next level, declaring that the government would use the power of the Crown to roll back collective bargaining and arbitral gains on wage increases, and eliminate the right to strike over wages until 2010-11. Not only is this piece of legislation mean spirited in the extreme, it is quite possibly illegal in light of the Supreme Court decision made last year that overturned BC's Bill 29 which tried to do much the same thing. Workers have a right to the gains they have made, and they have the right to withhold labour over whatever they please.

The government has also made a frontal assault on the pay equity of women, by stating in the economic update that pay equity would not be retroactive, and the right to recourse to the Canadian Human Rights Commission would be removed. This is insane. In the years since the courts forced the government into pay equity, this is the biggest attempt to go back on what was ordered. I don't know where the government gets off trying to eliminate the rights of women retroactively.

This stuff is red meat right out of the reform party platforms of the mid-1990s. This is our "moderate" Prime Minister. The opposition parties were never going to accept this, and it was a red flag. This is our government's way of kicking their opponents when they are down, like a bully on the school yard. We are being governed by people who behave like maladjusted eight year olds.

Dipper Chick summed up my feelings about the coalition quite nicely:

A month or so ago, I never thought that there would be a set of circumstances that would make me supportive of the NDP forming a coalition with the Liberals. But here we are.

...

I am not feeling the slightest bit complacent about any of this. The Conservatives need to be stopped. I still don't trust the Liberals, and I still believe that an NDP government is what Canadians really need. But right here and now, with things being as they are, a Liberal-NDP coalition is the best option.

My apprehension comes from wondering if the Liberals can be fair while negotiating the terms of the coalition. I have a hard time believing that they can put their sense of entitlement aside and offer the NDP a significant enough role to form a true coalition. But if they can come to an agreement that is fair, I say take Harper down.

This coalition is necessary, but Stephen Harper will do everything he can to avoid it. He's going to take the week of grace he fabricated for himself and try to turn the Canadian people against his bully-boy government. I have faith that the Canadian people will see through the thing tissue of rationalizations, excuses and lies that Harper is putting forth.

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 53

Coalition Government Looks Increasingly Likely

The news is breaking today that Jean Chretien and Ed Broadbent have been brokering the coalition talks between the Liberals and NDP. These two elder statesmen are working together to produce a workable coalition government that will be supported by the BQ.

Various opposition MPs have been sounding increasingly sure that the government will fall next week, including a statement by NDP Deputy Leader and Finance Critic Thomas Mulcair during question period today. If the Conservatives don't blink, they will get voted out of power by the House.

Even if the Conservatives do blink on the campaign financing, they may get voted out anyway, due to the failure to provide fiscal stimulus in the economic update. At this point, a coalition is entirely preferable to any Conservative government at all.

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 53

Coalition Talk Intensifies in Ottawa

The talk of a coalition government between the Liberals and NDP supported by the BQ is intensifying in Ottawa, with reports now surfacing of second-stage talks taking place, including between the opposition leaders personally. There looks to be one big bump on the road to a centre-left coalition government: the Dion factor. The NDP and BQ have signalled that they will not support a government that installs Dion as leader. This has led to an effort within the LPC to remove Dion as a leader early, and install an interim leader to see the LPC through until the May election. The problem is whether the country is prepared to accept an interim Prime Minister.

I see one way to resolve this problem, though it is admittedly massively unlikely to happen: have Jack Layton lead the government and become Prime Minister. He is a leader solidly in control of his party, and he isn't going anywhere. He has high positive ratings with the Canadian public, and is generally well respected. This is, of course, unlikely to happen because the Liberals know that letting Layton be Prime Minister is almost as deadly to their long-term interests as allowing the end of the per-vote subsidy. It would bestow huge legitimacy on the NDP federally, and cut further into the remaining base of left-liberals in the Liberal Party of Canada.

At the very least, the NDP needs to get Cabinet positions out of this deal, and Jack Layton needs to become Deputy Prime Minister and hold an important Cabinet portfolio (Finance would be good but is unlikely, Industry might be more reasonable). This is an opportunity to give a voice to the 62% of voters who did not choose the Conservative Party of Canada to govern this country. This is also a chance to prove that Parliamentary but not electoral coalitions can work as well, which is a key part of a proportional representation system.

As Dr. Dawg put it on his blog, "Form a coalition. That is all." As cliche as it is to say, the Chinese character for "crisis" incorporates both "danger" and "opportunity." And opportunity is knocking.

Update: CBC is running a poll on the cuts to democracy, which you can find here. It's currently being freeped (800+ anti-democracy votes in the past two hours, when it was running even just before then). I encourage everyone who reads this and cares about the issues to counter-freep it.

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 53

Conservatives Pushing Forward With Cuts to Democracy

According to Norman Spector, the Conservative attempt to repeal democracy (and thanks to Devin Johnston for that wonderful phrase) will be put to a vote before the scheduled rising of the House of Commons on Dec. 12. The Conservatives are trying to take advantage of the short time frame since the last election to push through this assault on democracy.

Is this supposed to be yet another example of Stephen Harper's ability as a brilliant political tactician? He has forced the opposition parties into a corner, from which there is no escaping. This policy would cripple the NDP and finish the Liberals and BQ. No matter that it is confidence, they cannot vote for this, they cannot let it pass.

Harper is taking an awful risk with this proposal. He is gambling that:

1. The opposition parties don't have the guts to bring his government down over this; and
2. The Governor General wont risk a repeat of the King-Byng Affair by refusing him dissolution and giving the Liberals a chance to govern with the support of the NDP and BQ.

This is a bad gamble. This is an existential threat for the opposition parties. They would rather fight another election on this issue than face the political extinction that would come from allowing this measure to go through. Further, the fact that it will have been two months since last election (at the most) will disincline the Governor General to dissolve Parliament yet again. The Conservatives could face the prospect of a Liberal-led coalition government ruling with the support of the BQ.

If the opposition parties find some steel in their spines and fight this, they may force the government to back down and remove it from the economic update. That is the best possible result at this point, because we don't need a constitutional crisis at the same time as an economic crisis.

I encourage everyone who reads this to get in touch with their MP as I have done to let MPs know that this is not on, and that Canadians support public election financing, and that we support democracy.

Update: Talk of a coalition government is swirling around Parliament Hill in the wake of this plan. I will be very interested to see what comes out of this, since the government could fall on an unrelated Ways and Means motion as early as tomorrow.

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 55

Crass Conservative Games

Did anyone out there fall for the line from the Conservatives that they were looking for a new spirit of cooperation? Don't worry if you did, so did the whole media. Now, however, only twelve days into the new Parliament comes word that Harper is going to try to end the $1.95/vote/year subsidy to political parties that was intended to replace corporate and union donations, as well as to compensate for the cap on personal donations.

This is an astonishingly crass move from the Conservatives, since they stand to lose the least from this. Losing the subsidy would lose the Conservatives 37% of their income for the year, whereas losing it would cost the NDP 57% of their income, cost the Block a whopping 86% of their income, and (this is the critical one) the Liberals 63%. The Conservatives are trying to exploit the fact that they have a massive fundraising edge on the other parties to cripple them, in the name of austerity. This is, quite frankly, an attempt to apply the coup de grace to the Liberal Party of Canada by extra-electoral means. It is distinctly undemocratic, and in fact anti-democratic.

This is stupid. The subsidy supports a system that reduces donor influence in the political process, and only costs $30 million. This is another one of those mean spirited Conservative cuts, but this one is profoundly anti-democratic as well. The electoral financing system is not a tool to be used for partisan political advantage.

This is likely to be the beginning of a long list of cuts to progressive programmes that the Conservatives will propose in the name of austerity. They will use this as an excuse to cut programmes they don't like, while still handing over $50 billion in tax cuts to corporations. No economist in their right mind would suggest cutting corporate taxes in the middle of a recession like this. The correct response is spending, and deficit spending if necessary, to directly stimulate the economy, and create jobs for the unemployed. This puts money directly into the hands of the worst affected, as opposed to corporate tax cuts, which gives money to the most well off while cutting what goes to the poor.

Back to the main point however, this economic meltdown is being exploited for partisan and ideological gains by the Conservatives, and they should be ashamed.

Update: As Devin Johnston mentioned in the comment, he has started a Facebook group, which you can find here. As of the time of writing this, it has 45 members. I encourage everyone who reads this and cares about the issue, or about democracy in general, to sign up.

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 55

Shenanigans

I call shenanigans on the banks of Canada. You may recall that not that long ago, the government of Canada made $50 billion available to banks in case they were hit hard by the financial crisis in the United States. And yet today we get a statement from the CEO of TD Bank that it is highly unlikely that the bank will be cutting dividends.

This drives me nuts. For those of you that don't know, dividends are how corporations return profits to shareholders. The board of directors decides how much to return, and generally this is only supposed to be done when the company is profitable. These bastards are using public money to pay dividends to shareholders when the money was intended to help them survive a big hit from the financial crisis. These capitalists are robbing Canadians blind, and this crap flies under the radar, being mentioned only in coverage like the Report on Business.

Canadians should be up in arms that we are being fleeced, yet again, by the big banks. They must honestly think we're all stupid to pull this crap. Let's show them that we're not. Let's show them that they can't steal from the Canadian people. This is garbage.

How many people voted Conservative and not NDP in the naive belief that Conservatives would be better managers of the economy and the public purse? The NDP even ran ads telling people that exactly this would happen, including pictures of money being divvied up on boardroom tables. And that is exactly what we got. What is it going to take for people to realize that Conservatives are frauds?

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 57

Harper, the Coming Deficit and Conservative Class Warfare

Stephen Harper continues to move away from his declarations during the election campaign that if we were going to have a recession here in Canada we would already have had one, and that the fundamentals of the economy are strong. Today at the APEC summit, he was, to use the Toronto Star's language, "[drawing] on memories of the Great Depression." Is it not strange, that he can change his tune so radically over the course of a month and a half, from excoriating Stephane Dion for refusing to absolutely rule out running a deficit, to making the arguments for why we should be deficit spending.

There are two explanations for this incongruity, when you take into consideration that many economists saw this recession coming down the pipes at least a year in advance, and some saw it coming longer away than that (Marx saw it coming 130 years ago). The first possible explanation is that Harper is fundamentally incompetent at the role of managing the economy. If he, with an MA in economics, was unable to see this coming 45 days ago, when the majority of the western world could, then he is entirely incompetent to be making the big decisions. Of we adopt this explanation, he was too focused on blind partisanship to actually see that the train was about to go off the rails. The second possible explanation is that Harper deliberately deceived the Canadian people, that he lied to us. This explanation is supported by the rapid about-face he performed when it became undeniably clear that the economy of the western world was headed into the shitter.

Harper has already committed the country to a $50 billion bank bailout, which when you consider the proportional sizes of the Canadian and American economies is actually a bigger bailout than the $700 billion Wall Street bailout. He wants to send the country further into debt to bail out the auto industry by handing them a no-strings-attached cheque. And mark my words, this deficit that he created to bail out failing capitalists is going to be used as an excuse to cut services for the working class. This is the Conservative modus operandi. Transfer wealth to capitalists. Use resulting deficit to justify programme cuts. Rinse. Repeat.

Now, I think that so long as we are operating under a market-capitalist system, Keynesian spending is a good way to stimulate the economy, but it has to be targeted correctly. Shovelling money into the gaping maw of transnational capital is not correct targeting. The best way to stimulate the economy is through direct transfers to the most impoverished. These are the people living pay cheque to pay cheque, and spending every cent that comes in on necessities of life like food, clothing and rent. These people will not take the transfers and squirrel them away. They will put every last cent back into circulation, thus getting maximum value for the government's stimulus dollar. Whereas transfers that benefit the rich wind up being saved, taken out of circulation and ultimately sent overseas to nontaxable Swiss bank accounts. Supposed stimulus measures targeted at the rich are a deception. They will not stimulate the economy because the money won't go into circulation, it will go into bank accounts to be inactive and gather interest.

I understand that many people are worried about the looming failure of the big three American automakers. So am I, since there are plenty of jobs that will be lost, with the resulting knock-on effects through the economy. That is why I support finding a way to save them, but not in their present form. The only way I would ever support a bailout is if it resulted in the public acquiring, on a permanent basis, majority equity and voting control over the companies. That way, the government can insure that the bailout money goes to the right places, not into paying dividends and obscene executive pay packages. The government can make sure that the companies are serving the public interest by building fuel-economical (not the same as fuel-efficient, though generally fuel economy requires fuel efficiency) vehicles for sale to the public, as well as retooling some plants to produce public transit vehicles like buses, street-cars, light-rail vehicles and trains to meet the longer-term requirement for effective, efficient and widespread public mass transit.

Nationalization is ultimately the best bet precisely because the nationalized companies can be made to serve the needs of the people, rather than the people serving the needs of the companies and their controlling capitalists. Government ought to be for the people, not for capital, but I can't call to mind a time when Canada truly had government for the people. In fact, the only government I can think of that was ever really for the people in Canadian history was the CCF government of Tommy Douglas in Saskatchewan that introduced many great programmes, built many strong Crown corporations, substantially increased the standard of living across Saskatchewan, and managed to do all of this while running 17 straight balanced budgets, making that government the most effective manager of public funds in Canadian history.

Conservatives like to wrap themselves in the mantle of sound fiscal management, but their version of sound management is transferring wealth to the wealthy, and making up for it by cutting services to the working class. That isn't sound fiscal management, that is the class warfare for which they so readily decry socialists. The only difference is that conservatives around the world wage class warfare on the working class. Since the capitalists and their political puppets on the right are waging class warfare on the workers already, it is time that the working class said "enough already" and started to wage class warfare back. Enough sitting around and passively taking it. It's time to organize and fight back.

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 58

Canada Signs Free-Trade Agreement with Colombia

Well, this isn't good news. It seems that Stephen Harper craftily, and without any fanfare, signed a free-trade agreement with Colombia today. That's right, the same Colombia that allows right-wing paramilitaries to kidnap and execute union leaders (see, for example, here, here or here) and journalists (see here, here or here). The same Colombia that tramples on the rights of women (e.g. this), the indigenous people (e.g. this) and LGBT folks (see here). This is not a government with which Canada should be consorting.

Free trade is also a deeply problematic notion for the working class on both sides of the equation. In Canada, we lose yet more manufacturing jobs to places where the companies can pay peanuts, and in Colombia they get goods dumped on their markets at very low prices, essentially forcing local competitors out of business. This is especially a problem in the market for food. History shows that free trade in food leads to market gluts and greatly depressed prices. This means that small farmers can no longer make the income they need to stay in business. They are forced off the land and wind up in the barrios of the big cities, living in the attendant squalor, because there are some meagre jobs to be had. This is a recurring problem all over the world, wherever the west gets to dump its surplus grains.

The only people that free trade works for are the capitalists. The Canadian capitalists get to slough of the expense of paying decent union wages in Canada in exchange for the pathetic wages that workers will accept in Colombia, and their profits go up. The Colombian capitalists get to find an increased market for the goods that they make in Colombia now that all the factories are moving down there, plus they get to force more and more small farmers off their land, clearing the way for large plantations growing cash crops for export. For them, it's a win-win.

The deal supposedly has a clause requiring respect for human rights, but the only penalty imposed for breaking the clause is payment into a fund for strengthening human rights. Ooh boy, what a penalty, a fine into a fund that they can probably tap themselves. That's a deterrent. And our hopeless leader, Stevie Harper, seems to think that such a pathetic clause "answers" all the criticisms. Well guess what Stevie. Not even close.

Oh wait, I get it. The Conservatives don't much care for women, aboriginal people or gays and lesbians. That would be why they don't care that Colombia stomps on the rights of all three groups. It's so obvious now.

Stevie, your little deal goes against Canadian values of tolerance and social justice. Shame on you.

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 59

The Liberal Leadership Race

Things seem to be firming up in the race to take over the most haplessly managed party in Canada, this side of the Greens. It's been a long time since we've seen a new entrant to the race since Iggy formally announced (and no-one was surprised). Indeed, there's been a veritable parade of notable, and not so notable, Liberals to declare that they will not be seeking the leadership.

The highest profile person to declare a non-interest in leading the Liberal Party of Canada is Gerrard Kennedy (sorry for the National Post link, but it was the first one that came to hand and I can't be fussed to look elsewhere). To that, I say "good", and wipe my brow, because if he had been Liberal leader there would be no chance to knock him off next election. Now there is. Also, he remains an empty suit with a good haircut, and unqualified to lead the Liberals.

It is increasingly looking like a three-man race, starring Dominic LeBlanc, Bob Rae and Iggy in what is already turning into an entertaining gong show, what with the debate fiasco last week. We know where Iggy and Rae stand, generally speaking (though with Rae you never can be sure), but LeBlanc is more of an unknown quantity, lacking much profile beyond his home province of New Brunswick. This is something like Alex Atamenenko (good guy though he is) theoretically running for the leadership of the NDP. He is a second generation politician, as his father was also a Liberal MP, and LeBlanc's highest position was parliamentary secretary to various ministers. There is not much information available that I could find with regard to his political leanings, but I have heard some mutterings (mostly from the bobbleheads on the CBC's At Issue panel) that he is trying to wrap himself up in the generational change flag hoisted by the victory of Barack Obama in the States.

Unless someone new and high profile joins the race, and aside from Dalton McGuinty I can't think of who that would be, this contest will come down to Rae and Iggy, with LeBlanc shouting from the sidelines. Both of these two major candidates have significant baggage though, and both of them will face attacks from both the right and the left should they get elected leader.

Something about Iggy, besides the right-wing policies really grates on me, and from what I can tell most of my political junky law school friends (who I should say are mostly Conservatives): his condescension. He spends most of his career in the States, and then deigns to come back and grace us with his presence and wisdom. I think he may well see himself in the mould of a Platonic philosopher-king, to some extent like Pierre Trudeau. Sorry Iggy, but that isn't what Canada wants or needs right now. And you've made quite clear where your ideas would lead us: American imperialistic aggression as tag alongs. So no, thanks, Iggy. If you get defeated one more time, why not go back to your position at Harvard. I'm sure they're still holding it open for you.

As for Rae, I just plain don't like him. He sold out the NDP when in government, betraying the principles of the party and our supporters in the labour movement. He governed ineptly, allowed a free vote on equal spousal benefits for same-sex couples (the measure failed), and blackened the name of the Ontario and federal NDP for the better part of a generation. He is a pro-Israeli hawk and shows a marked void of any sort of principles whatsoever. But then again, he is a high-profile Liberal. That comes with the territory.

In summary, and I'm sure surprising no-one, I don't like any of the contenders for the Liberal leadership. However, in my mind Iggy represents the best bet to kick Harper out of office while still allowing for further NDP growth, so I hope he wins. He won't get a majority, but if he gets a minority the NDP can wield some influence, and we can get better governance out of it. Yes, I know that's selfish and partisan. So sue me.

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 61

Rallies Against Hate Across the World

Across the United States, and around the world, rallies were held to protest the passage of Proposition Eight in California on Nov. 4. There are some phenomenal pictures out there, from protests all over the United States, as well as some that I could track down from the protest in Toronto. The site with the most pictures is Towleroad, and the pictures from Toronto can be found at This. That. No Other.

The numbers for turnout are absolutely remarkable. The Los Angeles crowd was reported at 30-40,000, and the San Diego crowd was reported at 25,000. This moment may mark a new revitalization in the campaign for equal rights for LBGT folks in the United States, and may mark the point at which the momentum moved from the bigots and haters to the supporters of equality.

In Canada, it is easy to be complacent, to think that because the battle for marriage equality was won here those who support equality here can rest. But it's not true. On the day that the Conservative Party held the plenary session of their policy convention, we have to remember that there are still those in Canada that would roll back equal rights, and that they form the government.

The object lesson of Proposition Eight is that while rights can be won, the bigots will not rest until they find a way to take them away. That means that those of us who support equality can't become complacent. We have to remain on watch until the bigots either see the error of their ways, or die off.

Being angry is good, being angry is healthy. But being angry alone is not enough. In the words of Solidarity Forever, and as equality supporters in the United States are showing, what is necessary is to organize and fight.

Good on everyone who came out to protest, and hopefully this is the beginning of a new, strong, movement for full and equal citizenship for all.

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 65

Eva Ariak Becomes First Female Premier of Nunavut

Eva Ariak, the only woman in the Nunavut legislature, was elected by the Legislative Assembly of Nunavut yesterday to be the new premier, defeating incumbent premier Paul Okalik. She becomes the second premier of Nunavut, and the first female Premier of the territory.

I confess to not knowing much about Ariak's policies, but it is always good to see more members of historically disadvantaged groups, such as women, attaining high office. I do wonder to what extent Nunavut's consensus-style government eases the way for this to happen. After all, Ms. Ariak did not did not have gain the leadership of a political party as would be the case in any of the provinces or in the Yukon. Party structures have traditionally militated against female party leaders, particularly at the federal level but at the provincial level as well.

I wish Ms. Ariak well, and I hope that her election will lead to more women running for and winning seats in legislature both in Nunavut and the across the country. Good luck Ms. Ariak!

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 66

Unite the "Left"? I Think Not

In the month since the general election of October 14, there have been an increasing number of calls to “unite the left.” Generally when this is proposed, the writer or speaker means that the Liberals, New Democrats and Greens (and sometimes the Blocists) should unite to form a single party, as the Reform/Alliance and Progressive Conservatives did in the early years of the decade to produce today's governing Conservative Party of Canada. Protagonists of this view believe that this is the only way in which the opposition to the current government can gain power.

Even those on the right who don't want to see this but think it would be a good idea for the opposition parties (I was talking with one of them about this yesterday), suggest that it would be successful, and would allow the NDP to gain a greater ability to push through policy proposals, as opposed to the “freak of mathematics” (as my friend put it), that results in the NDP every so often holding the balance of power for a Liberal minority government.

As you may have gathered from my previous mentions of this proposal, I think the whole idea is a crock, designed to subsume more principled opposition into the Liberal Party, and effectively render it impotent. If the NDP were to go along with this, the Party would simply become the left wing of the Liberal Party of Canada, which is really not acceptable, considering the substantial differences on policy between the parties. Liberal brass loves this idea, because it allows them to no longer have to worry about electoral opposition on their left flank, and thus to concentrate on matching the Conservatives tax cut for tax cut. The only pain the Liberals would suffer from this agreement is having a very vocal, but ultimately powerless, left-wing faction within their party.

The subsuming of the NDP (and to a lesser extent the Greens) into the Liberals would also be profoundly anti-democratic. The people are far better served by a system with more than two political parties. For an example of what happens when there are only two national parties with any real representation, look no further than the United States. There, the red and blue wings of the Property Party trade power back and forth, stultifying in a stagnant swamp of political theories long gone sour. The democratic processes are far better served when there are third and fourth parties able to compete for seats and a share of power. Even the old Westminster-style Parliamentaries democracies have multi-party systems now: Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, India and the mother of them all, the United Kingdom. The US is one of the few industrialized democracies in the world clinging to a two-party system, where the space between the parties on most issues is so small as to be negligible. A two-party system reduces voter choice to a minimum, and that is anti-democratic. I don't want to see that for Canada, and that is another reason I oppose the idea of uniting the “left.”

But the most important reason that I oppose this idea is that it pre-supposes that the Liberal and Green parties are in fact parties of the left, or even the centre-left. As my Conservative friend pointed out to me, the Liberals have the capacity to occasionally elect a centre-left leader. However, this has not happened since the days of Pierre Elliot Trudeau. Some, perhaps many, would disagree with me and point at the hapless Stephane Dion. However, Mr. Dion was not left or even centre-left. His public face is a mix of dated and stale Liberal centre-left proposals that we have heard every election since 1993, such as universal childcare that was never delivered, and a wink-wink, nudge-nudge to his party's friends on Bay Street, promising more and deeper corporate tax cuts for the Conservatives, and a policy to fight greenhouse gas emissions that would have directly placed the burden for changing consumption practices on the poorest members of Canadian society. The Liberal Party is expert at putting on a veneer of the centre-left come election time, but the Liberals have not governed from the centre-left in a long time, indeed governing from the centre-right during the long Chretien/Martin years. No, the Liberals are not a party of the centre-left, and to unite with them is to lose one's soul in pursuit of power.

Similarly, political pundits seem to revel in identifying the Green Party as a party of the left. Sorry, no. Green Party policies focus on market based solutions, and reverse-wealth transfer schemes, such as a carbon tax. They are led by a woman who said that women do not have "the frivolous right to choose" to have an abortion, and who worked for Brian Mulroney, identifying him as the "greenest" Prime Minister in history. The leadership of the Green Party, and increasingly it's electoral base, is drawn from former Progressive Conservatives. Not exactly the left. Caring about the environment is not a left-right issue. How you approach environmental protection is, and that is where the Greens show themselves not to be a party of the left, as the media and many pundits would have us believe.

As for the BQ, merging with a party seeking the dissolution of Canada is incompatible with the mission of a federal political party representing the entire country. They have some good, left, views and policies, such as opposition to the use of replacement workers during strikes, but their policies of radical decentralization are a right-wing position to take.

The reality is, despite the mass of pundits who would like to see a subsuming of the NDP and Greens into the Liberals, there is no collection of left-wing parties to unite. Canada has a party of the far right, two parties of the centre right, a party of the left-centre-left, and a party devoted to Quebec independence. The left is already as united as it can get without pawning its soul to buy power. And if you don't have any principles, then all you have is power, and all you are is a Liberal.

If the NDP were to merge with the Liberals, I would rip up my membership there and then. For this socialist, the NDP has drifted too far right as it is. Drift much further, and there is no more value in the party for me.

I'll have an entry updating the Liberal leadership race within the next couple of days.

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 67

Once Again, It's All About eMay

Elizabeth May (eMay), has written six page memo for the Green Party summarizing what went well and what went badly for the Greens in the recent election. I'll save you the trouble of hunting it down and reading it (it's remarkably hard to find the original version, rather than the edited version that eMay released on her blog, which if you want you can find here) and summarize it for you. What went well: Elizabeth May. What went badly: everything and everyone else.

Some fantastic (and wince-worthy) quotes:

Sadly the media was stuck in their old story line. Despite polls to the contrary, the media story was that Peter MacKay was unbeatable. This certainly hurt our last stretch messaging.

Uh huh. I couldn't have anything to do with the fact that you were actually running several thousand votes behind?

We accomplished a great deal. In late August, we made history when Blair Wilson became the first Green MP in Canadian history. The announcement of that coup was flawlessly executed and positioned us well for the campaign.

Oh yes, a great coup alright, bringing in a disgraced Liberal to force your way into the leaders' debates and then proceeding to lose his seat in the general election.

In relative terms, we did better than any other party.

HAH! Two other parties gained seats, four other parties elected their respective leaders, every other party finished in first place in at least one province or territory in terms of popular vote.

There are many lessons to learn, but top of my list was that our vision and aspirations were not matched by a machine on the ground to deliver the vote.

So, its the fault of your volunteers? Classy eMay.

... the media in Canada was not ready for a message for change. Our national media was working from an old script. Ironically, the media agenda and partisan bias was more fixed in Canada than in the U.S..

Media bias was clearly a major factor in this election. By this, I mean more than the usual media bias against the Green Party. There is no question that our policies were either ignored or misrepresented. Our policy announcements were often completely ignored. If not for a telegenic whistle stop tour, I do not think we would have had any major coverage once the "debate over the debates" was resolved. The times we did the more traditional major photo op media event with a big policy announcement attached, we received nearly zero coverage.

Bwa-hah-hah!! Oh, eMay, you slay me. The media was biased in their favour. Aside from the strategic voting nonsense, I can't recall a single negative story about the Greens from the last campaign. eMay got far more face time than her party's standing warrants.

What did get coverage was repeated efforts to throw us off-stride, generally originating in the blogosphere, then in major papers and to scrums and media questions. For the most part, the communications team did a great job shutting these down.

Yes, the threat to sue Buckdog for posting the clip in which she called Canadians stupid was a great piece of work. Fantastic.

I believe the Conservative Party let their favourite media mouthpieces know that they wanted the Greens marginalized by treating me as a "bizarre" or "off the wall" (both Mike Duffy and the Macleans piece last year have tried this spin). It is clear to me that CTV orchestrated the situation so that I would be informed on Mike Duffy Live that the consortium had decided to keep me out of the debates. It was a deliberate ploy to spring the news on me in hopes of having a television clip of me over-reacting, being angry or tearful. They could have used such a clip to confirm my unsuitability to participate in the debates - thus letting Harper and Layton off the hook.

Oh, that's a good one. Paranoid much?

No campaign planning document was ever prepared that I saw. No campaign discussions and strategies calls took place during the campaign. My feeling throughout the campaign was that I was flying by the seat of my pants.

So, a) it's all someone else's fault, and b) she was doing all the work. Well, doesn't it seem to anybody that, perhaps, a leader's job is to coordinate this kind of stuff? Perhaps if there were no campaign planning documents, eMay should have initiated the process to write a few. As for the phone calls, I'm pretty sure eMay's phone can make calls as well as receive them. She could have initiated campaign discussions and strategy calls herself.

The biggest problem area to sort out by the next campaign is how I can win in my riding (any riding) when I am out of the riding more than half the time. The push and pull is tough. Can we have any kind of decision that the Leader winning in her seat is a top priority? (*the* Top Priority?) If I had been in Central Nova the whole time (except for national debates), I would have won.

It's all about MEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!

I pledged constantly, from my opening press conference seeking GPC leadership, to never say something I believed to be untrue.

Oh stop, stop, you're killing me! Explain how you could say "There’s something wrong with Jack Layton if he’d rather open up discussions with the Taliban than the Green party" if you are such a relentless truth-teller (note: a link is to a Green Party blog because it was the only source I could still find for the quote, since the original Chronicle-Herald story has disappeared behind a subscription wall. If anyone wants to help me out with a link to the original story, I'd appreciate it).

As long as I am leader, I will ensure the Green Party of Canada is a beacon of truth in a sea of spin. I will not allow partisanship to betray our children's future.

I can't say anything about this that I haven't said before, but my gawd, the hubris.

I'll just leave you with those quotes and my commentary. I think that's about all that needed saying from me on that topic.

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 69

Keith Olbermann and Proposition Eight

Keith Olbermann is incredible.

I just stumbled across his Special Comment on Proposition Eight, and thought it was something that merits sharing. Good on ya Keith.



Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 70

Ignatieff Poised to Enter Liberal Race

I'm working on my entry on the "unite the left" nonsense, but that will take a while if it's to be anything other than a ranting screed. Meanwhile, life carries on, and I'll be commenting on the Liberal leadership race primarily.

It looks like Michael Ignatieff will declare his candidacy for the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada in the coming days. Obviously, this is long expected, since along with Bob Rae he is considered one of the front-runners for the leadership.

Mr. Ignatieff is, despite appearances to the contrary, a very polished and skilled politician. I saw him speak at Dalhousie Law School and he spoke quiet eloquently, though in a rather stilted manner, on the duty to protect under international law. This "duty" is a hallmark of the position of 'liberal hawks' such as Iggy. Clearly he firmly believes in the duty to protect. A Liberal who firmly believes in something is a refreshing change. Mr. Ignatieff is also consummately skilled at dodging questions, another important skill for a potential leader of the Liberal Party of Canada. He was asked a number of tough questions about how his support for Iraq and the duty to protect could be reconciled with the dominance of the concept of sovereignty in international law (including by yours truly). He didn't give a straight answer to any of those questions. Iggy has the smooth interpersonal manner that one expects from Liberal politicians, with the effortless assertion of an unquestioning moral superiority. He very adroitly handled a couple of protesters that had attended his address to the Law School, with the typical Liberal mix of crocodile tears and imperious condescension. This is the man that would be philosopher-king.

However, Iggy's position as a liberal hawk will stand him in bad stead with the majority of the country. Canadians have turned against the occupation of Afghanistan, and it's exaltation of the parasitical and corrupt quisling Karzai. Iggy's vocal support of the invasion of Iraq will not go over well with Canadians who are tired of fighting as American proxies. He will be made to wear that support for George Bush's war by the left if he becomes the leader of the Liberals.

Where Iggy would be politically good for the Liberals would be on fiscal policy. He is a classical economic liberal, seeing a smaller role for the state in the economy, and favouring reduced taxes on the rich and scaled-back social programmes. He has the capacity to entice lapsed Liberal voters who moved to the Conservatives back into the fold, bringing many seats into play.

What is sad is that a candidate so damaged should be considered one of the best bets to lead the Liberals through the wilderness. There was a long time when the Liberal Party attracted titans to fight for it's leadership, people like Sir Wilfrid Laurier, William Lyon Mackenzie King, Lester B. Pearson, Pierre Elliot Trudeau and even Jean Chretien. Neither Iggy or Rae are in the same league. We are watching the decline and final stages of the decline and fall of the most successful political party in the western electoral democracies. The Martin years were the last fluorescence of Liberal decadence before the fall.

The question that remains to be seen is how softly the Liberal Party will go into that sweet night. Will it struggle one more time for life, or will it end not with a bang but with a whimper?

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 70

Liberal Leadership

It's looking increasingly like it will be a small field for the Liberal leadership this time around, rather than the 12-person gong show it was last time. New rules put in place by the Liberal executive place stringent financial requirements on would-be entrants, that will screen out many lesser lights at the entry stage. Also, the party is forcing candidates to hand over 10% of all donations to their campaigns to the central party. That's how close to broke the formerly-dominant Liberal Party of Canada is.

Interestingly, a number of pro-Iggy MPs have been trying to hustle the party toward an undemocratic decision, with Judy Sgro going as far as to suggest that the Liberal Party should "flip a coin" to determine who takes it. And these people wonder why they are seen as out of touch.

I still believe that the best thing for the Liberal Party in terms of electoral success would be to elect someone from the right wing of their party, but they are rapidly running out of such people willing to run. Of the three high-profile figures than answered that description, both John Manley and Frank McKenna have indicated they don't want the job. Of the immediately apparent contestants, that leaves only Iggy and maybe Scott Brison. Electing Mr. Brison would probably help the Liberals regain ground in the Atlantic provinces, and he would likely appeal to the red Tory-blue liberal swing votes in southern Ontario as he is fiscally conservative but socially liberal.

Something that has been very annoying lately is the inane blather coming from certain corners about "uniting the left," by which the people writing seem to mean the Liberals, NDP and Greens, and sometimes the BQ. This very much annoys me, since the Liberals are not, by any stretch of the imagination, social democratic or left-wing, and neither are the Greens. I think I will probably write a longer piece on this topic at a later point. However, this meme will likely gain some traction in the Liberal Party, since they are always looking for a way to co-opt the voters of other parties.

If the "unite the left" blather picks up steam, the Liberals may elect someone from the left of their party in an attempt to de facto unite the left, and if this is so they will likely pick Bob Rae or Gerrard Kennedy. Rae is an untrustworthy turncoat, sharing some views with the far right wing (most evidently on Israel), but because he was at one point a wolf-in-sheep's-clothing New Democrat, he will be seen as left-leaning. Gerrard Kennedy is simply an empty suit and a good haircut. He did squat as education minister in Ontario and is only in the running because he is charismatic on TV. In person he is slime incarnate. I say that having met him on a couple of occasions.

What ever way the Liberals go at their convention in Vancouver next May, they have a long roe to hoe to get back into a government situation.

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 72

Homophobia Lives in the United States

I am bitterly disappointed with voters in California, Arizona, Florida and Arkansas today. In all of those states, voters opted to pass ballot initiatives, some of them constitutional amendments, to eliminate certain rights for gay, lesbian and bisexual Americans. In an election in which racism was shown to be on the decline, voters still proved themselves to be bigots. I am especially disappointed in California. They had marriage equality, and they have opted to tell everyone that their state constitution is a vessel for bigotry, by voting in favour of proposition 8. The most flabbergasting part of these results is how strongly black voters supported prop 8. It is incomprehensible to me that members of a group that 45 years ago was suffering the brutality of segregation could turn around today and tell another group of people that separate-but-equal is good enough (especially since "civil unions" are not as good as marriages, for all the reasons put forward in the now-annulled California Supreme Court decision).

Some day, Americans will look back on the plethora of homophobic ballot initiatives over the last eight years as a dark period in American history. Someday the veil of hateful superstition will lift, and the people of America will realize that holding someone to be less of a person and less entitled to equal benefit of law because of some factor about themselves that they have no control over is a fundamentally wrong thing to do. Someday Americans will look back on this period of ignorance and hatred, and be astonished that the people of California thought that this was an acceptable way to behave.

But until that day comes, LGBT Americans will continue to live in a country where denying their basic rights is common practice, and where embedding hatred and bigotry in a constitution is deemed an acceptable practice. The pall of racism has begun to lift, but the dusk of homophobia is settling further across the United States. For shame.

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 75

A Seminal Moment

Tonight, an African American was elected President for the first time in American history. This is a pivotal moment in the history of the United States. This is an opportunity to turn from the old prejudices and hatreds, and to look to a brighter, more equal tomorrow. Congratulations to you, President-Elect Obama, and congratulations to America for having the courage to elect him.

Unfortunately, this wind of change, hope, acceptance and tolerance does not seem to reach to all. Voters in several states have voted to restrict the rights of gay and lesbian people, whether it be a ban on adoption by same-sex couples, or bans on equal marriage in Florida, Arizona and California, they have all succeeded or are leading at the moment. It is a sad statement that America and Americans are willing to try to move past racism, but are unwilling to move past homophobia.

The Democrats have strengthened their hold on both the Senate and the House of Representatives, but will fall short of the sixty-seat super-majority needed in the Senate to block Republican obstructionism, and as a result will face more filibusters and delaying tactics on the part of an embittered and hateful opposition.

There are many races not yet done, and I hope especially to see Al Franken win in Minnesota and to see Prop 8 fail in California. We shall see.

I will try to post a more fulsome analysis later, when I'm not sleepy.

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency (Day Until Obama Presidency): 75

Long Lines in Many States and Continuing Irregularities

Another quick update. Long lines are being reported in many states, with continuing strong turnout, including an estimated 80% turnout in Ohio.

In some eastern states, wet weather is causing problems with voters dripping water on optical scan ballots, while there were problems with registration books in a county in Missouri, and voting machines are rejecting some ballots in Florida where voters abstained on certain questions. All of these have been addressed so far with what appear to be satisfactory solutions.

More concerning is text messages reported by voters in Texas, Missouri, Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas telling Democrats to vote on Wednesday. Apparently, someone has also paid for robocalls in Missouri telling voters the same thing, and an e-mail saying the same has been circulating in Arkansas. This is clearly a fairly well financed attempt to distort and alter the vote in these states. The police should be looking into who is responsible, particularly for the Robocalls in Missouri.

I'll try to keep abreast of what is going on and update again before polls close. Though being in class all day is making that tough.

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 76

Substantial Voting Problems Reported in Florida, Ohio

CNN is reporting that significant problems with voting machines are occurring in Florida and Ohio, with sporadic reports of problems elsewhere in the US. So far today, 11,000 calls have been made to CNN's hot line reporting problems, and of those 1,500 are in Florida and 450 are in Ohio. Both of these are states that McCain must win if he is to have any chance of winning the Presidency. These must be closely watched.

I do wonder how long the Americans will continue to accept Diebold voting machines in their elections. The rest of the world seems to manage just fine with paper ballots, and yet American governments seem to have a fascination with electronic voting machines. Hopefully the Americans will force their government to return to paper ballots.

I will try to keep updating during the day, but since I'm in class for most of the day, that may be a bit difficult. Also, I won't be live blogging the election tonight, since I'll be watching the returns at a bar with friends. I will write something later tonight once the outcome is clear.

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 76

Twenty-four Hours

That's how long we have before the first polls start reporting in the Presidential election. In twenty four hours we'll start seeing exit poll results from Vermont, Virginia, Indiana, Kentucky, South Carolina and Georgia, with real poll results soon afterward. If Obama takes Virginia, Indiana and Georgia, it will be lights out for John McCain and an early call to this presidential election. An important thing to remember is that Democrats voted strongly in early polls where they were availalble. This may well act to skew the results of exit polling in favour of Republicans, so take exit poll numbers with some additional grains of salt. If McCain holds both Indiana and Georgia, then we'll have to wait for the 7:30 EST closing states to assess the election. Those are Ohio, West Virginia and North Carolina. If Obama has taken Virginia and proceeds to take either Ohio or North Carolina, once again it's lights out for McCain. McCain's path to victory is extremely narrow, and I don't see any realistic way that he wins this election.

The important question to be asked now is just how much change a President Obama will bring. On too much, he is simply a reiteration of the status quo ante in American politics: unqualified support for Israel, opposition to marriage equality, bellicose attitudes toward Cuba and Venezuela and the orthodoxy of capitalism. Not that I expected anything different from him. Let's face facts. Even a left-wing Democrat would be, at best, a centrist Liberal in Canada. Horatio Alger-ism and class misidentification have produced a phenomenally distorted public perception of class in American society. American society is deeply inculcated with a Pavlovian hostility to socialism, despite the fact that socialism would produce better lives and more true freedom for a great majority of the population. The American political spectrum is so skewed to the right that a depressing number of Americans actually believe that Obama is a socialist. To their credit, many do not, but in a country where "liberal" is a slur (despite the country being deeply liberal in the classical sense), it is hardly surprising that so many react with snarling hostility to the cry of "socialism."

All of that aside, Obama is still a better choice for President. While he will not likely move significantly to the left on either foreign or domestic policy (if he does I will happily eat crow), John McCain would continue the move to the radical right, appointing judges to strike down a woman's right to choose, continuing the abusive excesses of executive power perpetrated by the Bush government, further reducing tax rates on those with the most, cutting services for those with the least, bloating the military further, running up ever more ruinous debt loads, pursuing ever more violent foreign policies and seeking to destroy the United Nations to replace it with some NATO-type proxy.

No, Obama is not what I would want, or even want to settle for, but he is still better than McCain, who is, quite simply, scary. I hope that Americans vote for Senator Obama tomorrow, and I hope that he proves me wrong and becomes the transformational, progressive, President that there is an opening for him to be.

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 77

Coming Down to the Wire

The American presidential election is finally drawing to a close. At the moment, it is looking like the earth would have to move in order for Barack Obama to lose this election. There are only two states where his lead over John McCain is very thin: North Carolina and Florida. Obama can win without either of those state. John McCain cannot win if he does not get both. But even getting both of those would not be enough to put John McCain in the White House. He would need to take more states away from Obama, states where Obama has a much more solid lead - states like Pennsylvania and Virginia. I think this is unlikely, especially given the number of early voters.

More interesting, at this point, is the race for control of Congress. The Democrats will control both houses when the show is over, but the question is whether they will have a filibuster proof majority in the Senate. At this point, it's looking unlikely, though Minnesota is a true toss-up, and both Georgia and Texas (astonishingly) are in play as potential Democrat gains. Watch those three states on election night. If the Dems take North Carolina, those three states will tell the tale, since if all three go Democrat, they can have their filibuster proof majority without counting on Joe "Turncoat" Lieberman or moderate Republicans like Olympia Snowe of Maine. Unfortunately, this doesn't seem likely, since Georgia has been trending GOP over the last couple days.

It should be interesting, and I may live blog it happens, depending on if I'm watching at home.

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 78