IntenseDebate - PhantomObserver

12 years ago @ Angry in the Great Whi... - Understanding why Mich... · 0 replies · +5 points

Just one problem: Michael Ignatieff isn't unique, among Liberals, in his view about how national health care should function. If you can name any federal Liberal who's advocated reducing the role of Ottawa in health-care funding, you'll have named a potential leadership candidate, and one radical enough that they won't be elected.

13 years ago @ Angry in the Great Whi... - Michael Ignatieff chea... · 0 replies · +4 points

You know what I get from this? Mr. Harper cared enough about Black History Month to get some thorough research done on what the government's doing. Ms. May cared enough to offer detailed, personal testimony. Mr. Layton cared enough to reminisce on party history.

Mr. Ignatieff? From what's being offered, he only cared enough to to do some quick Wikipedia lookups.

At the very least, you could argue that Mr. Ignatieff is not a details man. At the very worst, you'd have to say that this man tends to have the preparation skills of a last-minute high-school exam crammer, only focusing on *important* interviews (I'm not sure that Sway magazine has a big enough circulation to register on federal Liberal Party radar).

13 years ago @ Macleans.ca - How late is too late? · 2 replies · +1 points

I think what Harper meant was that the coalition idea *should* have been presented to the GG immediately after the election, to demonstrate that Harper *did not have the confidence of the House* despite having increased his seat count.

13 years ago @ Angry in the Great Whi... - If Michael Ignatieff w... · 0 replies · +3 points

Thing about scenario no. 2: you will remember that John Turner managed to improve the LIberals' seat count, quite substantially, in the 1988 election. Partly because he was able to harness resentment over the Canada-US free trade deal; partly because he also used his time as Opposition leader to launch a rebuilding process, that Jean Chrétien was able to take advantage of.

I'm inclined to think that a combination of scenarios 2 and 3 is the most likely. An election loss would allow Iggy the excuse to conduct a review of (a) the party's current electioneering strategies and (b) its fundraising apparatus. Iggy won't go into scenario 4, especially if he loses seats, because he's now on record as opposing a coalition and the Harper Tories would have a field day pointing that out.

13 years ago @ http://www.themarknews... - Why Ignatieff Hasn\'t ... · 0 replies · +1 points

Parnel: that's one of the big problems right there.

"An appetite to learn and fit things into the Liberal policy book."

As far as I can tell he hasn't been fitting things *into* the book, he's been quoting bits and pieces from the existing version that he happens to like.

What he *should* be doing is bringing that "intellect" of his into a complete re-writing of the platform, one that reflects who Ignatieff is and what he can bring as a leader of Canada.

The way the party officials have been behaving, they don't want a leader so much as they want a front man.

13 years ago @ Macleans.ca - What's the Worst Yogi ... · 0 replies · +1 points

Welllll . . . I'm not exactly enthused about the new Yogi, but from what I remember of the 1950s Hanna-Barbera shorts it's pretty damn close to that characterization. And Boo-Boo's voice seems spot on.
The only drawback, really, is Ranger Smith. Frankly you need the personality of Jeffrey Jones' Principal Rooney to get this character to work, and I'm not seeing that here.
As for the toon, I'm a bit offended by two things: (1) the idea that kid-sized versions of H-B characters would appeal to kids perfectly happy with the originals, and (2) the idea that the obviously-middle-aged writers were trying to make them "hip" to that generation. Ewww.

13 years ago @ Macleans.ca - None dead in crash of ... · 0 replies · +4 points

What you're forgetting, Mr. C, is the bad-luck meme. Which basically says that troubled campaigns will continue to attract trouble.

And in this case, there are lessons learned. For example, in the Liberals' campaign blog they made the specific point that they bought carbon offsets for using the bus, playing the environment card. Now, however, people will point out that the money would have been better spent on a maintenance check of that bus.

The other lesson learned is that having a backup plan is a good thing. That they were able to organize transport in an emergency is good; that a plan didn't exist in the first place, not so much.

13 years ago @ Macleans.ca - As to the situation of... · 0 replies · +4 points

Meaning: Fadden's remarks haven't been dumb enough or ingenuous enough for Harper to consider asking for his head. Which doesn't mean Fadden won't say anything in the future that triggers an instant demand for the noggin.

13 years ago @ Angry in the Great Whi... - Illinois: An example o... · 0 replies · +1 points

Other worrying thing: Illinois happens to be the home state of President Obama.

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