Vote Splitting Canard!

Rick Peterson

Rick Peterson, nomination candidate for the BC Conservatives in Vanouver-Quilchena, steps in this morning to explain the myth of vote splitting in BC.This originally appeared in the Vancouver Sun. Here is the piece in it’s entirety!

On Tuesday, B.C. Conservative leader John Cummins addressed a sellout crowd from the business community at a major fundraising luncheon in downtown Vancouver. I’d like to follow up with a look at the vote-splitting argument that the B.C. Liberals are flinging about in the business community with increasing desperation as polling results seem to indicate a death-spiral for their party in this province.

This vote-splitting thesis is, in reality, a “canard” — a false report that is deliberately misleading.

Purveyors of this myth love to point to 1996 and the vote split that resulted in the provincial NDP victory — keeping in mind that the NDP retained power that year, and didn’t come from opposition.

It’s a convenient argument, but a closer look shows that the those orchestrating this canard are using the wrong election to draw parallels and are also historically incorrect in using 1996 as an analogy.

The 1991 provincial election is best comparable to the one upcoming in May next year because both feature a long-in-the-tooth, very unpopular, crumbling governing party. The incumbent 1991 Socreds and today’s Liberals both tossed out old leaders and exchanged them for untried and overwhelmed replacements (Rita Johnson in ’91 and Christy Clark today) in a search for renewal. In both cases the parties slumped further.

Like the 1991 campaign, today’s features a rising opposition NDP that had not been in power for well over a decade, and therefore ripe for taking advantage of voter amnesia. Both periods also feature a resurgent and well-organized third party, with a long respected history in the province, which has not governed or elected MLA’s in decades.

In 1991, Gordon Wilson was leading the B.C. Liberals. The party had been in the political wilderness for ages, had not elected an MLA since 1975 and had not formed government since 1941. (Sound familiar? B.C. Conservatives have not governed since 1933.)

Just as today, in 1991 voters were leaving the governing party and were looking for alternatives. Just as today the coalition was failing because the party holding that alliance was floundering.

On the televised debates in 1991, Gordon Wilson scored a major blow when he interrupted Rita Johnson and Mike Harcourt and said, “This is why nothing gets done in Victoria.” It was a moment many of us remember. The coalition began to coalesce again, to a degree, around Gordon Wilson and the B.C. Liberals.

However, in the following general election, latent Socred voters handed the election to the NDP. The Socreds were decimated, receiving 351,000 votes and only seven seats.

The B.C. Liberals came from nowhere, winning 17 seats and 486,000 votes. The NDP won 51 seats and a majority with only 110,000 more votes than the B.C. Liberals.

The problem was that not enough voters realized, early enough, that the coalition needed to coalesce under the new B.C. Liberal tent. They didn’t realize until it was too late that the old regime was long gone.

The 1996 election, which simply kept the NDP in power, offered completely different dynamics.

By that point Gordon Wilson had lost an internal race and Gordon Campbell had taken over the B.C. Liberals. A group of marginalized and bitter Socreds, who had been defeated badly in the 1991 election, instead of joining the growing coalition, migrated to the B.C. Reform Party.

At the same time, another defeated and disgruntled politician, Gordon Wilson, started the Progressive Democratic Alliance (PDA).

In the subsequent election, the combination of votes siphoned off to these two parties (nine per cent for Reform and six per cent for the PDA) allowed the NDP to remain in power.

In both 1991 and 1996 it was those who still believed in the old coalition tent that handed the election, and the province, to the NDP. It was not those who understood that a new tent was required where everyone needed to regroup.

So history and mathematics are both providing us guidance and giving us the data needed not to make the same mistake twice. Unlike 1991 when the NDP were at 39 per cent in the polls, they are now at 50 per cent.

The danger is clear and present. A new free enterprise coalition will be formed sooner or later in B.C., and history tells us it will not take place under the fading B.C. Liberals.

The clear alternative is the Conservatives.

It’s only a question of when it happens. If free enterprise supporters look at history, and ignore the quacking of the vote-splitting canards, they will see that this needs to happen before next May — not after.

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Vote+splitting+thesis+misleads+voters/6857657/story.html#ixzz1zC7QcPVZ

Christy Clark will do and say anything to get your vote!

The Evil Queen!

Christy Clark is evil. She will do and say anything to get a vote.

Today she told a packed Philippine Independence Day that in her heart she was Filipina.

She then went around the crowd asking if they wanted a picture with her.

They were surprised.

Why would they be? This is the Queen of photo-ops who will do anything and say anything to get your vote.

What will she say or do next?

Any thoughts?

Christy Clark and The BC Liberals:Catalyst for Failure!

Brad Wall a Great Leader, Christy Clark out of her league

The government under Christy Clark and the BC Liberals brings to mind the sad tale of Emperor Nero in the stories of ancient Rome.

You remember the tale told that when Nero fiddled Rome burned.

Well guess what and her team are fiddling BC is catching fire.

Evidence of that would be their incompetence on both the Catalyst and the Dutch Elm disease files.

Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall is making a name for himself with his adept handling of the issue with an intellectual argument showing Leader Mulcair statement would result in higher resource taxes. In an even smarter move he asked Mulcair to explain what he meant.( Was this to be a revival of the National Energy Program? More carbon taxes?)

What was BC Premier Christy Clark’s response?

This is goofy!

This leads us to events this week and the cover up and abomination that was her non-attendance at the Western premier summit and her mishandling of the Catalyst file.

Clark’s excuse for not going to the summit was that she had business to attend to in BC. In her place she sent accomplished liar Minister Pat Bell.

She introduced the costly Family day holiday that most people in the financial district won’t be able to take and most small business people will have to pay through the nose to finance.

This was a total shell game in that Clark sent her jobs minister who has been lying and covering up her governments incompetence handling the problems with catalyst and the large amount of jobs at stake.

Why? So he would not have to face the consequences on the Catalyst File

The swap for her was that she did not have to perform with the rest of Western Canada’s real leaders that would have led to further exposure as the weak lame duck Premier that she is.

Premier Wall showed us that with his actions on the Dutch-file.

This is nothing but a shell game or cover up by a government on its way out.

Premier Clark and her team need to be reminded that governing the province and showing leadership in this country is not a radio show.

It requires a well thought out plan with competent people to carry it out,

This government has neither.

Thank god there is only 11 months left!

What will they screw up next?

What do you think?

Canada: Becoming a culture of Riots?

Rioting has always been a part of the culture of the Human Race; just ask the folks in Boston!

So it seems Canada is joining the world and becoming a culture of riots and rioters.

This is nothing new to the rest of the world, but why us and why now?

One reason is probably that we are a younger country and we are due.

Go back in time, people rioted when Julius Caesar was killed, they rioted in Boston in the harbor.

The big discussion nowadays is how to handle a riot. What can the police do? It must be frustrating to be a police person etc. etc. etc.

I think a better discussion might be ” What causes riots and what can we learn from history to help us prevent future violent out breaks?

It seems after a quick review of the history of rioting, a common denominator could be politics.

Specifically politicians not listening and taxing without representation.

That was the cause of riots like the Boston Tea Party through to rioting in Canada today.

Anything else? Yes Through high taxes the theme that middle class and lower class are being phased out leaving them nowhere to go and nothing to belong to, except maybe a riot or two !

Ask yourself this: What does a person or class of people think when a government decides to invest their money in flowers for a road meridian or bike lanes?

This might be a partial explanation for the hockey riots and is certainly an explanation for why over half of eligible voters don’t vote.

Has there ever been a riot or revolt without all this violence in any country including Canada?

I think yes and it would be our recent revolt against the HST. In fact there is no telling how that particular issue could have gotten out of hand if it wasn’t so well-organized.

Have our politicians got the message?

No they haven’t. An example of this would be in British Columbia right now and the big hurry to rush a whole lot of bills through the house without debate. ( Just wait for liquor prices to rise after the fast pedaling of the liquor distribution bill)

But it’s not just governments that don’t get it.

The recent labor mayhem with the teachers is a good example too! If extra curricular activities are taken away from students and from adults who enjoy putting them on. it will be one less place for those people to belong.

This is the fault of both, government and the union because neither are listening.

So am I condoning violent riots to strike out at the government?

Heavens no, the people who incite the violence need to be dealt with quickly and harshly.

What I am saying , the politicians who don’t listen also need to be dealt with quickly and severely in the same fashion as the HST.

They need to be voted out of office and replaced with a government who listens to all of their constituents.

British Columbians are lucky. They will get the chance to rise up and revolt and send the current BC Liberal Government packing in 2013.

In 2013 vote carefully, vote for the party that will represent your concerns ( links to parties websites can be found at the bottom of the highlighted blog post)

What do you think?

Is there a lesson in history?

Adrian in the Bubble!

Brian Topp: SSH Adrian, Not one word!

Today comes word that the Adrian Dix led BCNDP will bring in Brian Topp to manage their 2013 election campaign.

What will this mean to BC Voters and a greater extent to the Mainstream Media?

Back in the 1990’s Brian Topp worked Saskatchewan Premier Roy Romanow as his Deputy Chief of Staff.

What is remarkable about this and why it is a great move for the BCNDP is this : There are three amazing parallels to the Romanow win and our own upcoming BC Election.

1) Grant Devine and his Conservatives found themselves as far behind and as reviled as The Christy Clark BC Liberals are now.

2) There were 3 main parties who had candidates in that election, The NDP,Conservatives and the Liberals

3) The NDP ran a great campaign and won easily.

What the NDP did in Saskatchewan I suspect the BCNDP will do here. They ran a campaign dubbed in the media as the Roy in the Bubble Campaign.

This meant that Roy Romanow was so far ahead when the election started, he kept his mouth shut,held on to his big lead and won.

I suspect Brian Topp will bring some of that knowledge to this campaign and encourage Adrian Dix and the BCNDP team to do the same.

It worked then and it will probably work now.

What do you think?

Christy Clark: Leadership or Lack of it? You decide.

Whether you like it or not,the people are trying to tell you something!

I used to work for a small polling company back in 2000-2005.

When I was there this is how polling worked.

The company would get hired to poll customers or voters relevant to a specific question,product service or idea.

A script would be written,approved by stakeholders and loaded into a computer so that those trained in a call center environment would phone and ask a question.

They did not browbeat people into answering but rather were instructed to be overly nice as the competition for the consumers time was unbelievable.( It’s worse now even with do not call lists)

The caller would enter the data into the computer and from there a report was generated and sent out for statistical analysis.

The person doing the analysis was an experienced statistician who had analyzed data for a number of years for a number of different polls.

From there reports were present to clients and released to the news.

Lately we have seen polling done on the BC political climate with the pollsters telling us what people think today. The most obvious question they would have asked would have been” If an election were held today,who would you vote for?”

The most recent result on a poll done by Angus Reid showed us that 50% of the people would vote BCNDP if an election were held now.

The current BC Liberal government polled at 23%.

This means that as of today, Christy Clark and the BC Liberal Government are not connecting with 77% of the electorate.

It was reported that when asked about this, Premier Clark blasted the polling company.

I can tell you from experience that it is hardly the polling company’s fault that Ms Clark and her government is not connecting with the electorate.

Had she come out and accepted the blame ( or at least some of it) she would have taken leadership of the situation.

She didn’t and once again missed a glorious opportunity to connect with the people she needs.

I recall years ago another politician missed a chance to do the same thing.

His name was Stockwell Day. He made a grave error in a speech in Niagara Falls.

You may recall he said Canadian Jobs were flowing south like the Niagara River. When it was pointed out to him that the river actually flowed north,he lashed out and said he would get the person who wrote the speech with the wrong facts.

As you know by now he went on to lose the election because of this and other gaffes. Had he taken leadership of that,the result might have been different.

My point is that through lashing out, politicians like Day and most likely Clark lose because they don’t know how to lead.

In Clark’s case she has 12 month’s to learn.

Do you think she will? ( A clue might be that Stockwell Day is one of her mentors)

What are your thoughts?

Voting: For Politics or Economics?

So there we sit, our GDP low enough to keep us out of trouble but close enough ( 90% or higher) would get us going down a lane we don’t want to go.

This gives cause for thought in that we ( The country) are facing 3 major provincial elections in the next year and a bit.They would occur in British Columbia, Quebec and Ontario.

I have lumped Ontario in the group because although they have just come through a provincial election, it resulted in a minority of tenuous proportions.

With pollsters releasing numbers here at home in BC and 48% of people saying they would vote NDP, the chart above gives me cause to wonder why anybody would even answer that question at this point in time.

With all the problems in the world’s economic situation, why would anybody say they would vote one way or another without reviewing a parties economic platform and seeing how it would affect them?

Why would almost half of the polled people say they would vote BCNDP when history speaks of all the economic mismanagement and mayhem they caused as recently as the 1990’s?

( I know you are thinking the BC Liberals have made such a mess of things we need to give them the boot! We do, but there are other options than the BCNDP) )

In these coming elections, voters need to be better educated than ever. They should review the policies and platforms each of the 3 main parties lists on their web sites.

Go to BC Consertvatives, BC Liberals, BCNDP, or BC Green Party and see for yourself.

Can’t find any policy? Then you should wonder what those parties are trying to hide.

Before you cast your vote or answer pollsters, you as a voter need to decide whether you are voting for politics or economics.

In this day and age the answer should be economics.

What do you think?

Watch this space between now and May 2013 for policy and platform as each party releases it.

BC LIberal Throness blames sagging poll numbers on irritants

The biggest irritant to the BC Liberal lousy poll numbers is incompetent Premier Clark

BC Liberal candidate today blamed the BC Liberal lousy poll numbers on ” irritants”. He listed such things as HST and a rise in ICBC premiums.

Uh why stop at two Laurie?

What about the BC Hydro Increase? Increased gas taxes? Increased carbon taxes?

What about The senate bill slowed down by Liberal House leader Rich Coleman? Could Coleman have slowed that down for his own benefit?

Or What about the biggest “irritant” of them all? That would be knucklehead Premier Christy Clark; the veritable queen of the gaffe?

Those sagging poll numbers are there not just because of a few minor irritants but because of a high level of incompetence and mistrust of a tired, worn out government.

Have I missed anything?

B.C.Liberals trot Vampire Chuck Strahl out of the coffin yet again!

Chuck Strahl : Boo! Don't Split the Vote!

They must think the voters of Chilliwack Hope are stupid.

Every couple of weeks, the B.C.Liberals open up the retired coffin door and out creaks Chuck Strahl with his vote splitting horror stories.

B.C. Liberals don’t get it. The people will not be told their vote is a waste of time if they vote for anybody but the Liberals.

Chuck Strahl spoke at the nomination and then espoused his BS in the Vancouver Sun. He has been with the BC Liberal campaign since day one.

In fact trotting him out today is an act of desperation from government on it’s last legs.

The people of Chilliwack know that and won’t fall for that crap.

Over and above the NDP, they have a choice. They can vote for John Martin a Conservative that runs on his own merits or they can Vote for a Faux Conservative who runs under a Liberal Banner.

The people of Chilliwack are smart, they will do the right thing.

Don’t you think?