I will have more tomorrow once some solid numbers come in but I will leave you with this.
The Republicans took on a wounded,lame duck president without a vision for the next 4 years. Obama will now have a free ride as a lame duck because the Republicans will be too busy bickering over what went wrong and who will get the next nomination.
What went wrong was this: In the run up to the nomination Romney was the lesser of all the evils candidate. If the whole party couldn’t get behind him enthusiastically,how on earth did they think the country would?
That and the discussion about religion and abortion. It will bite you every time!
Whether you want to hear it or not, the 2016 election has already begun.
Stay tuned.
This just in: Drive Thru Pot Locations Set to Open in Washington State
So on this eve of this historic ( they always say elections are historic) what will determine the outcome? Will it be, as they say, who gets out the vote better that determines the outcome in 2012?
Being as the Republicans wrote the book on Get Out The Vote ( henceforth known as GOTV) the Democrats better hope not. ( I know in 2008 the Democrats won this game but polls showed it was going to be a big win and most Republicans stayed home and licked their wounds.)
I can make that statement because as a Canadian Conservative I can tell you we have been using a facsimile of that book for our successful election campaigns of the past few years.
There are of course more factors than simply getting out the vote that determine an election outcome each unique to a specific election .
To Wit: When the race is close there is nothing like a good old fashion hurricane to get people to stand up and take notice of their politicians.
If you believe the mainstream media, the nod goes to Barack Obama for his handling of the recent crisis.
However it’s 2012 and as I have said before and so have countless others people want politics done differently and the nod might go to the Republicans for the way in which New Jersey Governor Chris Christie handled Obama and the situation. People might think this is a breath of fresh air and give the Romney team some support it hadn’t counted on.
If you believe what I have said about people wanting to do politics differently than you don’t have to look much farther than the stump speeches Romney and Obama have made in the last few days.
Romney has made speeches that detail Obama breaking this promise and that promise while Obama touts working together with people and families.
I think Obama has been saying what people want to hear lately more than Romney unless of course you believe they both have been preaching to the converted so to speak.
Ironic in that earlier in the campaign Romney offered the positive vision while Obama went negative and attacked.
Jobs and the economy will get people up and off the couches to vote. In the past week Obama got good news on the job front but he still broke his promise on cutting the deficit in half. Do people care? About jobs yes, about the deficit,no.
I think they will get 4 more years of Obama and it won’t be quite as close as everybody thinks.
Why? Because Republican VP hopeful Paul Ryan showed his inexperience and made women feel stupid with his abortion discussion during the Vice Presidential debate.
Watch the exit polls on women’s voting tomorrow. They will determine the election outcome in 2012.
If you live in the Eastern United States or Eastern Canada you could be up late.
There are ramifications for the Canadian Economy too. The Democrats are known to be more protectionist than the Republicans. We shall see.
The other thing that could have an impact on the Canadian economy are the votes regarding the legalization of marijuana. Polls show in the state of Washington,for example,that the pro pot vote might win.
The great Canadian excuse for not legalizing the drug is that it would hurt relations with the US. This of course would no longer be an issue if they voted to legalize. The other thing worthy of note is the BC is responsible for a large amount of sales in Washington.
This would no longer be the case as they would be able to grow their own.
The impact on the BC economy could be quite shocking.
All in all it will be a very interesting night. Political Insider will be there to sort through all the news.
I could not believe what I was reading this morning in a piece written by Jonathan Fowlie regarding the dismissal of Ken Boessenkool.
Tonight Vaughn Palmer follows that up with an excellent column of hos own describing the premier as amateurish and sneaky.
These are not exactly the qualities the voting public wants in a premier especially with the upcoming debate over the Enbridge pipeline.
It’s not exactly the confidence builder the folks who just left the BC Liberal get pumped from the election convention want to read about either.
It is basic human resources cover your ass stuff to have documented files from everybody that saw,knows and talked about the type of complaint lodged against Mr. Boessenkool.
In fact most companies I have worked for document files on 3 month junior employees just in case.
The type of complaint leveled against Boessenkool, senior employee, is not only documented but referred to legal counsel before anybody gets disciplined let alone canned.
In a ruling that probably shocked no one( especially readers of this blog), except maybe for Borys Wrzesnewskyj, the Supreme Court ruled that Conservative MP Ted Opitz can keep his seat and that the election results of May 2011 will stand.
The shocking thing was that the ruling was close. It was 4-3.
The court made the right call for the right reasons. They said that it would have been wrong for them to over turn an election result like this as it would have paved the way for more challenges.
It also is a rebuke of Elections Canada who will now have a little over two years to clean up its act as they prepare for the Canadian election or 2015.
The big loser in all this? Borys. He spent over $300,000 of his own money fighting this case.
Did the supreme court do the right thing? Did the Ontario court make a mistake in the first place throwing out the election results?
I have been listening to discussions a lot lately about what issue or issues the BC 2013 election will be fought over.
One pundit says the economy ( I guess that’s fashionable since James Carville coined the phrase ‘it’s the Economy Stupid!”),another says the election will be fought over BC Rail,another says it will be all about getting rid of the BC Liberals.
Some people even say that this election will revolve around the environment or post secondary education.
What about fracking?
One thing they all seem to agree on is that the government should be framing the ballot box issue.
In truth and in fact they are all wrong.
These are not issues they are files within a mandate.
Elections are about Leadership!
You don’t vote on the economy you vote on who best to lead you through a rough patch or who to lead and manage a good economy.
BC Rail? You are not voting on that, you are voting on who best to lead the legislature to make sure that never happens again?
The environment? Post secondary education? Those are not issues; the issue is who best to lead the province in the right direction and manage those two files.
The pipeline? Just another file. You vote on who best to handle the file.
The Government frames the issue right?
They should be. Gordon Campbell ( no matter what you think of him) was very good at framing the leadership issue. He won three elections. He also left when he realised he could no longer frame this as his issue.
Today the government is no longer setting the pace on the main issue for the upcoming general election.
If you believe the polls the BCNDP are framing the issue of leadership for the government.
Adrian Dix is waging a very calculated and to this point successful campaign showing himself to be the best leader.
He is including everybody in the discussion and is not afraid to release bits of his platform.
A case in point: His recent speech at the Vancouver Board of Trade. he told a largely pro business audience that if successful in the election he would raise corporate taxes back to levels of 2008.
He is showing extreme confidence and speaks with out emotion.
He lays claim to wanting to do politics differently and backs it up with statements like” If the Federal government changes their mind and does not close the Vancouver Coast Guard I will be the first one to issue a press release applauding the government and that decision.
Contrast that with the premier who, when asked on a radio show ( Bill Good to give credit where it’s due),to comment on the polls showing the women’s vote is going to the NDP said after a few callers phoned in, it’s early,people are not paying attention and I plan to run on my record.
What the premier should have said was’ those polls are on me, I am the leader and I have seven months to work hard and prove that I am the right person for the job.
So as of right now the she is right, she will be running on her record.It is a record of not taking simple leadership of a simple question.
Likewise the optics from the recent BC Conservative AGM and dissident fiasco were not good for the party and when contrasted against the backdrop of Adrian Dix’s handling of George’s Heyman’s position on fracking ( George is entitled to his opinion we welcome discussion here) once again gave the voting public something to compare them to.
There are seven months to go until the election.
To be successful the BCNDP needs to continue what they are doing, the other parties have to catch up.
The debate tonight was once again close and this and Obama won on experience but Romney held his own and showed calm cool leadership when he was on the hot seat.
The quick and dirty CNN post-debate poll showed the score to be 48-40 Obama but the big question out there is ” will it have any impact 15 days from now?”
The Obama record is mixed and Romney and company have very little experience on the foreign policy front.
In the series of debates Romney bested Obama on the key questions of Economy and leadership.
This election is too close to call which in itself is a shock given how far ahead poll wise Obama was at one point.
If the republicans kept control of the house and the Democrats kept control of the Senate, Biden would get to vote himself as VP under ans Electoral College tie of 269-269.
Can you imagine the log jam and mess the US would be in if that happened?
George Heyman was won the nomination as the BCNDP Candidate for Vancouver Fairview leaving city councilor Geoff Meggs either on city council or searching for a new seat.
This is good news for Vancouver taxpayers who just saved $1 million on the cost of a by-election assuming he does what he says and stays on council.
Most pundits had predicted this nomination would go the other way.
Both are excellent candidates and I am sure that George will represent the BCNDP well.
In fact George will probably keep Adrian Dix on his toes in that he would make an excellent leader himself.
National Security Will Be Front and Center Tomorrow Night!
Tomorrow night is the final presidential debate. It is strictly about foreign policy.
It is a chance for both candidates to spell out their vision on that topic.
Obama in particular has been hammered for not spelling out a vision for the country,let alone foreign policy.
This is important because national security, which is part of the foreign policy debate, is front and center on voters minds with all the goings on in the middle east.
Romney/Ryan have little experience in this area while Obama’s record is mixed.
Obama, if you recall, took out Osama Bin laden but has fumbled of late dealing with such issues as Iran,Syria ans the recent terrorist attack in Libya.
This past weekend Obama was hammered by the Romney people for the ‘leak’ regarding the apparent negotiations with Iran ( Iran eventually said the talks were a croc because they were not prepared to negotiate with anybody in the US on the eve of an election).
Hard working BCNDP Candidate Raj Hundal has stepped aside and shut down his bid to become the MLA for Surrey-Tynehead.
Hundal as you might recall won the nomination back in July of 2011.
Up until earlier this week Hundal was one of the more active BCNDP hopefuls on Twitter and Facebook.
Interestingly enough all of Hundal’s social media accounts were shut down soon after the announcement.
Her has yet to make a personal comment.
The press release made a reference to the old stand by ‘personal reasons”.
The timing is interesting in that the BCNDP is having a nomination meeting this weekend between two so-called heavy weight candidates Geoff Meggs and George Heyman in the vacant seat of Vancouver-Fairview.
It is rumored that both men are cabinet material.
It has been said that the BCNDP will find a seat for the candidate who loses on Sunday.
Could it be that they found a seat and asked Hundal to step aside?
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