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, September 17, 2009

Liberals "Go Negative"

And Ignatieff's Liberals SAY they want talk about the "Politics of Hope" (TM Obama Campaign 2008).

Meanwhile, they stick with their good old trusty standby of the "Politics of FEAR" (TM Liberal Party of Canada, 36th, 37th, 38th, 39th, 40th Canadian General Election, etc...).

Hello? "Reform-Conservatives"? Liberal leader Iggy & Co. are still troting out that old "Reform-Conservative" line in their News Releases, trying to put FEAR into the hearts of Canadians with their "Scary Harper" image.

Wow, that's like, sooooo 2004 guys... our parties merged like six years ago, where've you been? Oh, right, I forgot... YOU WEREN'T HERE FOR THAT EITHER.



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5 Comments:

  • At Thu Sep 17, 02:44:00 p.m. EDT, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    "Our parties merged like six years ago".

    Yes.

    Wouldn't that make the "Reform Conservative" title fit?

    It was the title used by the party itself for a few years.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Reform_Conservative_Alliance).

    The Progressive Party and Conservative Party came together like six decades ago. And the party is still referred to as called "the Progressive Conservatives" (at the provincial level at least).

    Besides... "Reform Conservative" and "Progressive Conservative" seem to be, equally, contradictions in terms. Which has never been an electoral handicap, as far as I can tell.

    ...

    Can we come to a shared definition of "negative ad" or "attack ad". Surely it can't be defined simply as an ad saying or suggesting bad/unflattering things about the other party.

    In fact, the liberal site you link to seems to mention fairly substantive things: EI policy, Bill C-10, the oil sands, the forestry industry, bilingual judges, etc. Far more complex and nuanced than "Harper is Scary". The conservative line you're pushing, by contrast, seems limited to "he wasn't here for 34 years", "he's not canadian enough", "he's not one of us", he/they are secretly trying to destroy the country.

    I find when a party (any party, the Liberals have not been above doing this themselves) starts claiming that the choice between one party and another is a choice between Canada or not-Canada, a choice about the very survival of the nation, they are probably distracting from more substantive issues.

    I'd like to think that all parties in a democracy all want what is best for the country. (Even the Bloc doesn't say that what they want is bad for the country as a whole).

     
  • At Thu Sep 17, 03:02:00 p.m. EDT, Blogger Christian Conservative said…

    SQUAK! TALKING POINTS! SQUAK! LIBERAL WANNA CRAKCER?

    For the record, try looking up the original "Progressives"... certainly had nothing to do with it's twisted definition today.

    Today, you use the word "Progressive" in an effort implying that the "Conservatives" are not "socially progressive", a twisted interpretation of the origins of the movement. In fact, the "Progressives" had a whole lot more in common with the old Reform Party than the Liberals of today.

    So you see, once again, it's all spin, smoke and mirrors... something you Liberals are pretty good at.

     
  • At Thu Sep 17, 04:40:00 p.m. EDT, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Dear CC,

    First, I do not consider myself a liberal, at least not in the context of North American Politics. (The general philosophical tradition is another matter). I have no love for Mr. Harper. But I miss Preston Manning....

    Any semblance of liberal talking points in my post is no doubt due to the fact that I visited the liberal website you pointed to, and (though I did not look at it in any depth) I did not notice anything "negative" (or, negative+simplistic+non-substantive). At least compared to the two youtube ads you included in your post.

    That said...I suppose I wasn't as clear as I wanted to be. It happens when I ramble on about several things at once. (Sorry).

    I did not use the term "progressive" to make any insinuations. I just wanted to point out that it does not seem that strange (or "negative") to refer to the Conservatives as the "Reform Conservatives", since it was only a few years ago when they used the term to refer to themselves. As you note, the current Conservative party is the result of a merger (or two) between the Reform party and the Conservative party.

    That six years have passed hardly makes the term illegitimate. Just as the term "Progressive Conservative" was used for decades after the merger (or pseudo-merger?). Of course, I still find myself referring to the Skydome instead of the Rogers Centre...

    I even thought that I was drawing a parallel between the Reform Conservatives and Progressive Conservatives. Implying that the one term is not much different from the second. (I did of course focus on the oxymoronic nature of both terms... but suggested that that isn't exactly a bad thing, at least in terms of getting elected. Perhaps I should have added that John A. McDonald once ran as a candidate for the "Liberal-Conservative Party".

    More importantly, however, I wanted to see if we could come to a shared understanding of what constitutes a "negative ad" or an "attack ad"--in the hopes that, in the coming days/weeks/months, we could both look at an ad, and be able to classify it as an attack ad or not, regardless of the ad's origins. Do you think we could ever look at a party's ad, and agree on whether or not it was an "attack ad", even though we would disagree as to whether or not the party is worth voting for?

     
  • At Thu Sep 17, 08:11:00 p.m. EDT, Blogger Jerry Prager said…

    The majority of Canadians voted against Harper specifically because we are afraid of his neo-fascist tendencies. Mr. Angry with a majority would be a very vengeful person and anyone who has ever crossed him would pay dearly. And then, the more we hated him for being himself, the more reason he'll give us for hating him. We don't need to be told by the Libs to fear him, fearing him you can get to all by yourself, you just just have see him when he gets that Karla Homolka look in his eyes, like something dead is moving around in his soul.

     
  • At Fri Sep 18, 10:30:00 a.m. EDT, Blogger Bert said…

    Jerry Prager ?. You're a sad, sad person to compare PMSH to Karla Homolka. At least He has a soul, unlike most Liberal supporters.

     

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