Christian Conservative Christian "Independent"

I'm an evangelical Christian, member of the CPC, but presently & unjustly exiled to wander the political wilderness.
All opinions expressed here are solely my own.

Thursday, February 09, 2006

Wow... feeling some negative vibes here!

To everyone who seems to think that I'm 100% behind the Emerson defection or the Fortier appointment, read my lips... I'M UNDECIDED, LET'S JUST SEE WHAT BECOMES OF IT ALL!!! I believe, in my reading up of Stephen Harper in the last few months, that he's got a bold plan in mind, one that will be to the benefit of all Canadians. I was the first to confess that these moves didn't appear to be a great start, but, with what I've learned about Mr. Harper, he's up to something, and usually, it's something that people LOOK BACK ON years later as being the right move to make.

For example... the "Clarity Act"? Yea, it was Mr. Harper's idea... the Libs just took 5 years to climb on board. An appointed Senate? Yep, Mr. Harper supports that, which is why this first set of moves appears odd...

BUT, think about why he may be doing this... it's getting everyone riled up, so that when he proposes his Accountability Act, or by some other act soon thereafter, he'll put in his desired mandate for Senate elections? THEN what is the Opposition going to do? The bill is passed with ALL PARTY SUPPORT (except the BQ), since they're the ones crying the most about it! Then he'll pull the Senator and hold a vote for the seat... it's a win win situation. He'll have his Montreal rep. in cabinet in the interim, thus ensuring that "the BIG CITIES" have someone at the table, and he'll get his vision for an elected Senate pushed through!

All I've been saying all along is this... let's not call for his head just yet. Give him a couple of weeks to use that head of his, and THEN see what he's up to.

You know what? That's been the MAIN problem with the conservative movement for the last 20 years... we're to eager to eat our own young! GIVE THE GUY A COUPLE OF WEEKS TO GET THINGS SET IN MOTION, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!

I'll make this statement and will stand by it... maybe Emerson should run in a byelection, but let him get settled and down to work first... get the softwood lumber deal hammered out ASAP... GET RESULTS, which is what we voted for this party to achieve! (at least, that's what I voted for!) As for Fortier, let him get to work on the skeletons in the PWGS, and see what Harper does on the elected Senate front in the next couple of months.

posted by Christian Conservative @ 1:10 p.m.  

10 Comments:

  • At Thu Feb 09, 01:48:00 p.m. EST, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Stephen Harper's done a little more than that.
    1) Belinda Stronach and Scott Brison, among others, are going ot have a much harder time running for the party leadership now that Emerson has the LIBERALS screaming about party switching.
    2) This valididates the Conservative party as the ones in power. The Liberals and NDP are both trying to portray themselves as the ones really in charge (Layton is funny about this, btw), with the Conservatives merely holding the PM seat for the interm. Having a high profile Liberal cross the floor changes that.
    3) You're right about the Accountability Act - suddenly everyone cares about it.
    4) It gets even with the Liberals over Belinda. It might seem like a small point, but Belinda's become a very high profile figure in politics since then. Emerson's crossing has reminded everyone what she did and why.

    However, he should not run in a byelection. Bad move politically. It drags the situation out, makes us talk about it much longer than we would've otherwise, and validates the Liberal arguments about party switching. Let them scream about it all they want; it'll just make it harder for them to go back to defending Belinda and Brison when we come back to them.

     

  • At Thu Feb 09, 02:21:00 p.m. EST, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    A house divided, cannot stand. Conservatives need to moderate their tone and tune down the rhetoric, you dan't have to appease the media and the Libs anymore! Get to work and if they want to change Harper's mind talk to HIM about it, don't go cry to the media!

     

  • At Thu Feb 09, 02:53:00 p.m. EST, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    I"m surprised to see such comments on a CHRISTIAN conservative blog. Perhaps I'm old fashioned, but my idea of Christianity doesn't include 'political expediency'. I don't recall Jesus evaluating decisions based on what it can do. You do what's right because it's RIGHT. The idea that hand picking a personal friend and giving him a plum job, and giving a cabinet post to a liberal instead of one of over a HUNDRED well deserving, hard working conservatives is somehow defended by 'well, he's just so much smarter than you and me'. The Lord may work in mysterious ways, but so far Harper works in STUPID, BASE ways.

    Harper could have virtually guaranteed a majority victory by letting a province elect a Senator and saying that will be common practise for his duration. Canadians, even liberals, have been calling for an elected senate for over a hundred years. The idea that somehow this will HELP win the next election just boggles the mind. Harper is not the second coming, there is no point treating him as such.


    He is a politician. He wasn't voted for by the majority of canadians, even the majority of conservatives didn't vote for him. In this first outing he got no more votes than Stockwell Day. If it hadn't been for the scandal, he'd still be sitting across the floor.


    The idea of deifying him, even proclaiming him a 'genius' is a bit of a stretch, and seems more of a 'well, OK, none of the other excuses hold up, so what if we call him a genius'. It reminds me of Catch-22 where they blow up the wrong bridge and the officers proclaim 'well, let's give him a medal and call him a hero-that always seems to work'.

    All that is being done is making comments on blogs and newspapers. Nobody is talking about storming the capital and beheading him or any craziness. All comments are just talk, we have no more power over our government than we have over electing our own senators. However, we certainly don't need to be doing the government's PR for them-they have people who get paid for that.

     

  • At Thu Feb 09, 03:15:00 p.m. EST, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    I'm more worried about the fact the PMO vetoed the softwood lumber deal because it was more convenient to run against the Americans in the election. What do the people who lost their jobs think about a Liberal PM who put his interests above their own. Anything Harper has done is small potatoes compared to Martin's betrayal of B.C.

     

  • At Thu Feb 09, 03:38:00 p.m. EST, Blogger rtsimplicity said…

    A lot of posturing and a lot of people upset over the appointments of two cabinet ministers. But is it duplicity and a sell out?

    I won't attempt to justify Mr. Harper for his decisions. But being pragmatic, I can see the logic of what he did.

    In the case of Emerson, he (Mr. Harper) approached Mr. Emerson to join his government and to represent the greater Vancouver area at the cabinet table. I do not know the motives of either men, but I do know that pragmatically, Mr. Harper felt he had few options in getting representation around the cabinet table from the three major cities in this country. He did what he felt was needed to have a broad based inclusive government.

    Appearances can deceive, and there are risks with what Mr. Harper has done, but he is not governed by appearances, but the grim realities of cities not being representented at the cabinet table. He did the pragmatic thing. He offered Mr. Emerson an olive branch in the name of inclusiveness and non-partisan politics. Both men stand to lose in the public eye, but they were elected to conduct politics and to govern.

    There is more than enough blame being attributed to Mr. Harper for this "compromise", but how many people in the cities that did not elect a single Conservative would be screaming for attention, money and influence, if Mr. Harper had not reached this compromise? How many leftists and centrists, would have screamed bloody murder, and Mr. Harper could have played hard ball, and said, "Hey, you did not vote for any of our candidates, so tough luck! You made your choice, you are now left out in the cold! Scat! Leave us alone to govern!" He could have done that, but he didn't. It is not in his nature to do that, politically or ethically. He had to find a way to be inclusive. He made a tough choice, and as PM, he has to make those tough choices in order to govern well.

    Did he "sell out" on his proposed "accountability" legislation? I don't believe so.

    He invited someone in from the cold, so that could represent the interests of a region that without the invitation, would be left out in the political tundra and excluded from the decision making process, devoid of influence, and devoid of attention from the Feds in Ottawa.

    Criticize if you must, but you cannot judge Mr. Harper for trying to govern with the best broad based cabinet as possible. He cannot be faulted for that. The ones who are complaining the most are the ones who voted Liberal.

    These same people should look long and hard in the mirror, and ask themselves why they voted that way, guaranteeing exclusion from the table where decisions are made. They (the left) called it strategic voting, I call it strategic blunder. Mr. Harper has bitten the butllet to include the people of Vancouver at the table. They should give him a break.

    As far as Mr. Fortier is concerned, Mr. Harper used the latitude allocated to him under the "current" system. He has violated nothing, although he prefers an elected Senate, currently no such beast exists. For people to lambaste him for going against that principle is lacking in couth and courtesy. Mr. Harper is using the existing system to bring about as broad and inclusive cabinet as possible, and as in the case with Vancouver, Montreal needs someone from the city at the table. Mr. Harper has used the options at his disposal, and as he stated, Mr. Fortier will run for election in the next election.

    We need to remember that no one really knew that the Conservatives would do as well in Quebec as they did. Some projected 2 to 4 seats, and they got 10, but none from Montreal itself, which gave Mr. Harper the same problem as Vancouver.

    Mr. Harper felt the city needed representation from someone who lives in the city. He laid out the condition that the position as a senator for Mr. Fortier is a temporary one. The bottom line is the creation of a broad based coalition to govern, constituted from small c conservatives, to social conservatives, to progressive conservatives, to fiscal conservatives, to centrist former liberals.

    Mr. Harper has held together the diverse CPC, and will attempt to do the same with this cabinet. He made pragmatic choices, and in my mind necessary choices to include Vancouver and Montreal.

    To the ones screaming...just stop long enough to think it through and take a big breath and relax.

    We don't want or need an election any time soon. We need to see Mr. Harper govern for at least two years. Having the input of the major cities at the decision table is going to be crucial. There are a lot of urban issues that will need to be addressed. Having cabinet ministers from these regions is not only the only credible thing to do, but the necessary thing to do. All these urban areas need to have a voice, be it Montreal, Toronto or Vancouver. NOW, they have a voice.

    Like I said, the electorate from these cities could have had direct influence, but they chose to resist change, and chose to be dogmatic and not embrace the opportunity afforded to them election night. They could have paid the price for it by having zero influence. Mr. Harper could have paid the same price. He chose to govern, and to govern with a non-partisan cabinet, with many viewpoints and opinions, and to be inclusive of those regions that rejected him and the CPC.

    The very least these people could do is hold judgment, for at least the end of the year. Then, and only then, can we all discern and see the results and the effects of this government. Let's all give Mr. Harper a break!

    Cheers,
    Sam
    http://irishredwhiteandblue.blogspot.com/

     

  • At Thu Feb 09, 06:15:00 p.m. EST, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    It's perfectly 'logical' what he did, the only issue is whether it was 'right'. I've not seen ANY defense that says it's right, a few say it's 'pragmatic', which sounds like code for 'liberalspeak' to me.

    Harper needs to hear this stuff from bloggers, because mark my words, he's obviously hearing bad advice elsewhere. This isn't vitriol against conservatism, this is simply the conservative way-when you stop ACTING like a conservative you are no longer one. The conservative party will live on, it's not the Stephen Harper party. If some bloggers want to put his poster on their wall and blow wistful kisses, that's their business. Politics is not a 'game' for the sycophants.

    As for Jesus, I didn't ask what he'd do, we KNOW what he'd do-what is right. You stand up and say "I'm for an elected senate, and by god we're having one". That remark will get double the votes next time. You don't give it to a pal who worked on the campaign and only got 5% of the vote when he ran (of the many times). That's a LIBERAL trick, and the PM needs to be told that it won't be tolerated. Kissing ass and 'having faith' is what liberals and NDP do. Conservative WALK THE WALK.

     

  • At Fri Feb 10, 12:28:00 p.m. EST, Blogger Christian Conservative said…

    About your PR comment... you're doing the left's PR for them. You KNOW they feed on these divisions like CANDY.

    About "walking the walk"... IT'S BEEN THREE WEEKS! LET THE GUY GET THE JOB STARTED FOR CRYING OUT LOUD! Like Kate from SDA said, if Mr. Harper DIDN'T use every tool in his arsenal to get the job done, HE'D BE COMMITING POLITICAL MALPRACTICE. I voted for the Conservatives with the belief that they would use every tool at their disposal to accomplish our agenda. If you didn't vote for that, then what was it you were voting for? (where do you live? Did you even vote for the CPC? Are you really Carol Jamieson in disguise? I'm starting to wonder...)

    By the time the House sits again, an agenda will have been set, and if the issue of an elected Senate is not on it, THEN would be a reasonable time to start squawking.

     

  • At Fri Feb 10, 08:16:00 p.m. EST, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    A conservative disagreeing with patronage cabinet positions is what the left preys on and not the patronage cabinet positions?

    Honesty is what voters respect, and I guarantee that a conservative candidate stands a better chance in the next election by virulently disagreeing with these choices than by being an apologist. Not all people vote along party lines, and not all the time.

    This is all talk, that's all. Nobody is saying Harper will not make good decisions in the future, but being silent when he makes bad ones and 'waiting for the good ones' serves no purpose. What I disagree with is the cabinet appointments, if somebody had simply 'nominated' our Prime Minister they MAY do a good job, but that isn't the point, how they got there is.

    My name is Mark Anderson, a vague enough name that I don't mind printing it, but I sign it differently because I am a 'dismayed Conservative', and I hope very much that I won't be signing it that way for long. But being silent won't make that happen. There are tons of forces at work in the political world, and bloggers are just one. Anybody who thinks the battle ends with the election simply hasn't been around politics very long. There's a reason companies have lobbyists on staff on the hill year round.

     

  • At Sat Feb 11, 04:01:00 p.m. EST, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    "Harper needs to hear this from bloggers" and "not his advisors"..??("bad advice")...Dismayed: we all have our opinions but I think we would have delusions of grandeur if we think Mr. Harper should listen to us and not his advisors. I've been to Ottawa once...I have no clue how to run this country.
    Sometimes my kids(we have 4) like to tell me how I should parent the others. My usual response is to affirm their feeling, and remind them that they haven't written the book on perfect parenting yet, and when they do to share it with me. Let the experts make these heavy decisions, they know more about it than we do.I know a few Mark Anderson's...Hi!
    VF

     

  • At Sat Feb 11, 11:04:00 p.m. EST, Blogger Christian Conservative said…

    Mark, "This is all talk, that's all. Nobody is saying Harper will not make good decisions in the future, but being silent when he makes bad ones and 'waiting for the good ones' serves no purpose."

    We're one the same page there, I was just concerned at how quickly everyone jumped on the "attack Harper" bandwagon, knowing that the MSM just loves it when we do that. Just looking for all of us to respond in a more reasoned fashion, rather than the incredible and quick anger I was seeing. Thanks for the further replies.

    ps - Mark of SBF?

     

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