Why I won't be voting strategically
Two days before the election now. Time to make a choice.
It's been pretty clear since the start of the campaign that my riding (Winnipeg South Centre) is going to go one of two ways in this election. It could stay a Liberal seat as it has for years now. Or it could go Conservative as they've been building moemntum here as nationally.
Now, neither are my first choice. And to be clear, I'd really rather not have the Tories pick this one up. I've pretty much resigned myself to the fact that Stephen Harper is going to be the next Prime Minister (hopefully in a minority government), but I really don't want to open the paper on Tuesday morning, look a those nifty colour maps of the ridings and see mine there in a deep blue. Yuck.
But at the same time, I find very little reason to vote for the Liberals. The rash of scandals is a bit off-putting but isn't a huge issue for me. It does kind of point to a general issue of arrogance (the word is overused, but seems accurate) or complacency. The Liberals have done a decent job of governing on the whole but haven't demonstrated any sort of real vision - their best ideas never seem to be their own - and they've basically stayed in power by having rival parties that can't seem to get their act together to win enough seats to challenge them. On a local basis, our MP, Anita Neville, didn't seem too bad... just not too good either. She's kept a pretty low profile through her tenure so far. I can't point to anything she's done of substance for the riding or nationally, and even her campaign literature isn't highly convincing.
Thus, I've been somewhat conflicted about how to vote. Certainly I was never going to vote Conservative. But would I hold my nose and vote Liberal? The polls were closing in... on Friday a Free Press poll put the two parties dead even at 32%, with the NDP back at 25% (note the margin of error, 19-times-out-of-20, was +/- 4.9%, so it might not be that close). My vote might actually mean something. Yikes. Time to think about it, hard.
And then, Friday afternoon, I come home to find an Anita Neville campaign flyer in my mailbox. Well, I think somewhat facetiously, she's actually making an effort. Must be getting worried about her chances. So I open it, and take a look. There's a stock quote about her from the justice minister (can't get one right from the PM, eh?), then this: In this election, in Winnipeg South Centre, a vote for the NDP is effectively a vote for Stephen Harper's Conservatives.
Well. My first reaction is against the sheer logic of this statement. A vote for the NDP is a vote for the Conservatives? Really? So even though I'd be adding to the NDP vote count, it would somehow count for the Conservatives? By that logic then... an actual vote for the Tories must 'effectively' be two votes in their column. No wonder the Liberals are worried, the Conservative votes count double!
After assessing that this statement had insulted both my intelligence and loyalty in one turn of phrase, I realised it ties in directly to the whole problem with recent Liberal leadership: arragance and complacency. Arrogance, for suggesting that they are the only real alternative to the Conservatives, and complacency, evidenced by the fact that they're basically running on a 'we're not the Conservatives' platform to begin with, rather than coming up with any inspiring ideas of their own. To paraphrase Walter from The Big Lebowski, say what you like about the tenets of the Conservative Party, at least it's an ethos. If the Liberals are driven from power and from Winnipeg South Centre for a while, and as long as the Conservatives are kept in check by the other parties, maybe it's not so bad. Perhaps they will have more convincing ideas and candidates next time around, following the fall what presumably will be another short-lived minority government.
I'm not going to feel guilty about voting my conscience this time around. Sorry Anita and the Liberals, you don't have my vote.
It's been pretty clear since the start of the campaign that my riding (Winnipeg South Centre) is going to go one of two ways in this election. It could stay a Liberal seat as it has for years now. Or it could go Conservative as they've been building moemntum here as nationally.
Now, neither are my first choice. And to be clear, I'd really rather not have the Tories pick this one up. I've pretty much resigned myself to the fact that Stephen Harper is going to be the next Prime Minister (hopefully in a minority government), but I really don't want to open the paper on Tuesday morning, look a those nifty colour maps of the ridings and see mine there in a deep blue. Yuck.
But at the same time, I find very little reason to vote for the Liberals. The rash of scandals is a bit off-putting but isn't a huge issue for me. It does kind of point to a general issue of arrogance (the word is overused, but seems accurate) or complacency. The Liberals have done a decent job of governing on the whole but haven't demonstrated any sort of real vision - their best ideas never seem to be their own - and they've basically stayed in power by having rival parties that can't seem to get their act together to win enough seats to challenge them. On a local basis, our MP, Anita Neville, didn't seem too bad... just not too good either. She's kept a pretty low profile through her tenure so far. I can't point to anything she's done of substance for the riding or nationally, and even her campaign literature isn't highly convincing.
Thus, I've been somewhat conflicted about how to vote. Certainly I was never going to vote Conservative. But would I hold my nose and vote Liberal? The polls were closing in... on Friday a Free Press poll put the two parties dead even at 32%, with the NDP back at 25% (note the margin of error, 19-times-out-of-20, was +/- 4.9%, so it might not be that close). My vote might actually mean something. Yikes. Time to think about it, hard.
And then, Friday afternoon, I come home to find an Anita Neville campaign flyer in my mailbox. Well, I think somewhat facetiously, she's actually making an effort. Must be getting worried about her chances. So I open it, and take a look. There's a stock quote about her from the justice minister (can't get one right from the PM, eh?), then this: In this election, in Winnipeg South Centre, a vote for the NDP is effectively a vote for Stephen Harper's Conservatives.
Well. My first reaction is against the sheer logic of this statement. A vote for the NDP is a vote for the Conservatives? Really? So even though I'd be adding to the NDP vote count, it would somehow count for the Conservatives? By that logic then... an actual vote for the Tories must 'effectively' be two votes in their column. No wonder the Liberals are worried, the Conservative votes count double!
After assessing that this statement had insulted both my intelligence and loyalty in one turn of phrase, I realised it ties in directly to the whole problem with recent Liberal leadership: arragance and complacency. Arrogance, for suggesting that they are the only real alternative to the Conservatives, and complacency, evidenced by the fact that they're basically running on a 'we're not the Conservatives' platform to begin with, rather than coming up with any inspiring ideas of their own. To paraphrase Walter from The Big Lebowski, say what you like about the tenets of the Conservative Party, at least it's an ethos. If the Liberals are driven from power and from Winnipeg South Centre for a while, and as long as the Conservatives are kept in check by the other parties, maybe it's not so bad. Perhaps they will have more convincing ideas and candidates next time around, following the fall what presumably will be another short-lived minority government.
I'm not going to feel guilty about voting my conscience this time around. Sorry Anita and the Liberals, you don't have my vote.
posted by Druski at 3:12 p.m.
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