Brand X

Rick Bell hits the nail on the head about our Brand X government and the party in charge.

a good assumption is many Albertans will simply cling to the Tory brand unless the actual Xs on the big day show something different. It's the brand. It has nothing to do with political philosophy. We have seen billions in boondoggles, an attitude of denial causing a building backlog you feel everyday you get out of bed. We've seen cutting and spending and behaviour that would be a firing offence elsewhere. We've smelled the stench of scandal and been served up arrogance as aggravating as anything Ottawa dishes out.

All we can hope for is that the stench from this dying corpse of a political regime disgusts the huge undecided vote in Alberta enough that it decides to NOT vote Tory.

The key to election-night victory could be the support of the large segment of undecided voters, said Lois Harder, who teaches political science at the University of Alberta. "The issue in a province with a long political dynasty and a healthy economy is whether people are going to be motivated to vote."

Thanks to Ed calling a winter election, lets hope it remains so damned cold that rural Tories decide to stay warm at home in front of their pot belly stoves.

That and let's hope the oil boys decide that the WildRoseAlliance is the place to park their votes splitting the right.

The Tory leader found a more welcoming crowd during coffee shop meet-and-greets in Wetaskiwin and Calmar. But when his bus pulled into Drayton Valley for a chat to about 100 townsfolk at the 55+ Recreation Centre, he faced some tough questions from oil and gas workers upset with his royalty plan.

Ken Cameron, a 52-year-old co-owner of an oil and gas services company, told Stelmach that industry workers have been crippled by the soaring Canadian dollar and Ottawa's decision to tax income trusts. But "the final nail in the coffin" has been Stelmach's new royalty framework.

"I think the premier and (Energy Minister) Mel Knight are totally out of touch with conventional oil and gas," said Cameron.

Stelmach has vowed to review his royalty plan to ensure there's no "unintended consequences" for smaller oil and gas companies.

The review had better produce some major changes or Stelmach's lost another vote, this one from Dave Humphreys, a 42-year-old vice-president of an oil and gas company who also pressed the Tory leader on the issue.

"I'm very worried about the economic impact on the community," Dave Humphreys, vice-president of an oil and gas firm, told Stelmach. "It's going to have a terrible rippling effect."

The rough receptions in Red Deer and Drayton Valley only add to what's already been a rocky start to Stelmach's first election campaign as premier, suggested Peter McCormick, political scientist at the University of Lethbridge.

"This is the part of the campaign that should be on auto pilot," McCormick said.

"This was well set up to be a triumphant campaign, but it just isn't working."

If the Tories remain in power, after Stelmach's vote buying campaign let us hope it is with a decimated majority, with a balance of power in the Leg made up of the opposition parties. Now that would be usual for any other province, but highly unusual for Alberta.

Then the Tories would have to act like a government rather than as a feudal dynasty including having to have debates in the legislature and actually bringing budgets and bills to be voted on rather than passed 'in council' as they have done for the past twenty years.

Considering that this is the Party that had popularity ratings of 80-90% in past elections this poll does not bode well, despite the spin put on it by Dave Rutherford's right wing media mouthpiece;

CALGARY/AM770CHQR - The first poll of the provincial election campaign finds the conservatives are off to a good start and the opposition are yet to find traction.
Environics did a telephone survey February 1-4.
The Progressive Conservatives have the support of 52 per cent of decided voters across the province.
The Alberta Liberals come in at 25 per cent, the NDP ten per cent, the Green Party 7 per cent and the Wildrose Alliance 6 per cent.
19 per cent of respondants are undecided or chose not to answer the question.
Older and more affluent voters tend to back the tories while the liberals are more popular with younger voters and students.
The tories also have 48 per cent support in Calgary while the liberals are at 29 per cent.
It's not much different in Edmonton but in the rest of the province the tories jump to 57 per cent and the liberals drop to 19 per cent.

And Ed Stelmach's own poll numbers are even less than any other Tory leader, less than even the much maligned Don Getty.

That's what happens when a central campaign starts to fly off the rails. Ed's might be heading for a dry gulch even deeper than the one former Premier Don Getty's campaign crashed into in 1989. Like Stelmach, Getty made a string of money promises which he could not explain. They were deeply flawed as policy and made voters worry about debt.

Also, like Stelmach, Getty had no discernible vision for the province beyond providing something expensive to every group that might be upset.

It's all eerily familiar to veterans of that bizarre 1989 campaign.

Don Getty lost his own Edmonton Whitemud riding. Later he limped to a byelection victory in Stettler, and governed listlessly until his party ran him out of the leadership in 1992.

His only saving grace is that he is not alone in being a charismatically challenged leader.

A January opinion poll showed 28.5 per cent of Albertans think Stelmach would make the best premier, well in front of nearest rival, Liberal Leader Kevin Taft.

For some critics, the weakness in the polls is enough to compare Stelmach to Harry Strom, who was the leader of the Social Credit government when its 36-year dynasty was snuffed out by Peter Lougheed's Progressive Conservatives in 1971.

McCormick said there are some comparisons to be made -- Strom was a decent man in charge of a low-key government that was more progressive than it's remembered today.

"He just couldn't project it," McCormick said. "Where Stelmach is really lucky is, although he reminds us of Harry Strom, Kevin Taft doesn't remind us at all of Peter Lougheed."

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Diotte Endorses Mason and NDP

The Edmonton Sun's resident right wing city hall columnist Kerry Diotte actually praises Brian Mason and the NDP. Truly this election is going to see things shook up in Alberta.

NDP Leader Brian Mason is easily the most quotable and savvy of the three, but he's saddled by the innate fear of socialism in Alberta. The party has made a smart move, though, by gearing its policies toward the average Joe and Josephine and accusing the Grits and Tories of being too tight with big corporations.

Speaking in the heart of corporate Calgary, Alberta NDP Leader Brian Mason proposed legislation Friday that would ban both corporate and union donations to political parties.

"Big money in politics has a corrosive effect on our democracy and it undermines decision and policy making by political parties," Mason said at the Fairmont Palliser Hotel, a building surrounded by Calgary office towers.

"In the last couple of years the Conservatives have accepted over a half a million dollars from oil companies alone and the Liberals (accepted) close to $200,000 . . . .

"If they depend heavily on big corporations for their money, they will not stick up for the average family in this province when push comes to shove."

Lisa Young, a political science professor at the University of Calgary, sees the NDP proposal as a positive development. Alberta stands out from most Canadian jurisdictions in its "Wild West" treatment of political finances, she said.

The current situation in Alberta has helped create a longstanding tradition of "lopsided elections... that is very difficult to overcome," Young said.

The Edmonton Sun and Journal have done political leader bio's about Brian. Both pointing out that under Brian's leadership the NDP increased their seat count last election. Hardly the 'loser' party with no chance in hell of winning, that the pundits predicted then or predict now.

In fact Diotte is right on; Mason and the NDP have real chances of gaining ground as the best party to be the Opposition. Which is what the NDP has run for since their return from political purgatory under the leadership of Pam Barrett and then Raj ( Against the Machine) Pannu.

In 2000 the provincial New Democrats came calling.

They had fallen from 16 seats and official Opposition status under Ray Martin in the late 1980s to zero seats by 1993. By 1997 they’d crawled back to two seats when new leader Pam Barrett triumphed in Edmonton-Highlands and Raj Pannu won by just 58 votes in Edmonton-Strathcona.

“We took a kicking in 1993, and when Pam stepped down (in 2000) we were in serious difficulty,” said Martin.

But Martin had knocked on doors for Mason in civic campaigns, knew him as a scrapper with a conscience and convinced him to run in the Highlands byelection. He got three times the votes of his nearest competitor. “That victory probably paved the way for the future of the NDP,” said Martin. “If we hadn’t won that, I think it would have been tough slogging.”

By 2004, Mason was also party leader and the NDP had improved from two seats to four, giving him a chance to hone his skills for political theatre while his party pounced on the Tories on issues from royalty rates to skyrocketing rents.

After a Tory cabinet minister suggested Albertans chilled by high heating bills put on warm sweaters, Mason and Pannu sat in the legislature during question period and knitted.

When former premier Ralph Klein declined to debate health-care privatization in the 2004 election campaign, saying it was too complicated, Mason came out with a pamphlet entitled “Health Care for Dummies.”

He said his party prides itself on being ahead of the curve — it called for oil royalty increases back in the 2004 campaign. The idea was roundly derided at the time, but in 2007 the Tories announced even more drastic hikes.

SEE

Careful Of What You Ask For


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Ethically Challenged Ed

Ethically challenged Alberta CEO Ed Stelmach continues the Tired Old Tory tradition of protecting that ultimate special interest group; Tory Cabinet Ministers and MLA's. Smelling pending doom they quickly trashed Ed's first promise as Premier; accountability, transparency and ethics reform. And so once again Albertans suffer a Democratic Deficit.

Premier Ed Stelmach has given a free pass to cabinet ministers and senior aides who leave or get ousted after the election, ensuring that new conflict of interest rules won't apply until a month later.

Trying to distance himself from former premier Ralph Klein's distaste for ethics rules, one of the first moves Stelmach made as premier was to draft legislation that tightens the conditions for how top officials can peddle their skills and insider knowledge once they leave government.

But hours before Stelmach dropped the writ Monday, the Tory cabinet approved an order-in-council to have the Conflicts of Interest Amendment Act take effect on April 1, nearly a month after the March 3 vote. A government worker had earlier told The Journal the rules would be in place before the campaign began.

t means retiring finance ministers Lyle Oberg and Greg Melchin don't have to wait 12 months before they can start lobbying their former government on behalf of auto insurers or oilsands companies -- only the six months for ex-ministers under the old law.

And the premier's chief of staff, his deputies and all ministers' senior aides have no restrictions on their dealings if they hit the exits following the election, which they traditionally do in droves.

In fact, if the Tories get turfed from government, they all avoid the new rules Stelmach trumpeted as part of his approach to open and honest government.

Rivals said this proves Stelmach isn't much more serious about his ethics policies than Klein was.

"Maybe they should change their slogan to 'Change that works for Tory insiders,' " NDP Leader Brian Mason said. (The Tory slogan suggests the party's brand of change works for Albertans.)

"To them, (ethics are) a matter of convenience, and clearly they saw this as an inconvenience to themselves."

SEE

Fire The Bums

Transparency Alberta Style

Socialist Alberta

Where's That Damn Calculator

Alberta's Leaky Ship Of State

Alberta's next CEO


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Ed Deserts His Scud Stud

Bad enough Ralph Klein's Brain; Rod Love, doesn't support the Scud Stud (despite his back pedaling denials), but neither does his leader; Farmer Ed.

As Calgary Herald columnist Don Braid reports;

Tory leader Ed Stelmach stood up his star Calgary candidate Friday to ride his campaign buckboard around Edmonton and the rural north.

And Arthur Kent says the Stelmach campaign wants "nothing but my name, sadly." But he vows to fight on as the Tory candidate in Calgary-Currie.

The episode left local Tories gasping in disbelief, although they should be used to Stelmach's tin ear for Calgary by now.

It's just one more example of a Conservative campaign that has quickly become a mule-train wreck of bad policy, bad preparation, and bad politics.

Kent, the Calgary boy who became famous as a U.S. TV reporter during the first Gulf War, was personally recruited as a candidate by Stelmach.

When Stelmach promised weeks ago to attend the breakfast, Kent easily sold more than 100 tickets. Then the premier's campaign phoned Wednesday to say Ed wouldn't make it.

The call didn't even come to him, Kent tells me.

"I would have thought they'd have phoned me directly."

Later, though, Kent was harshly critical of Stelmach's campaign team. I've never heard anything like it from any candidate during an election campaign.

Kent says Stelmach's close knot of advisers doesn't communicate with him in any way.

"They've asked nothing. They want nothing but my name, sadly. But I'm not letting them discourage me. I'm going after the biggest majority in southern Alberta."

Kent feels Stelmach's people see him and his team "as competitors, somehow, rather than as partners. There should be a more inclusive attitude.

"They should be asking us what we're hearing on the doorsteps and where the campaign should go. They don't do that.

"Instead, they rely on those damn telephone surveys that are really pissing people off."

Then the most damaging zinger:

"One-way communication of the sort we experienced this week is not the way to go. You don't just call the bustling heartland of the most exciting city in North America and say, 'No, we can't make it.' "

This might get the candidate in trouble with his leader, but there's no sign Kent gives a damn.

The delicious irony is that it looks like "Scud Stud" Kent's campaign will be as successful as Saddam's Scud missiles were.

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Why Canada Failed Kyoto

The truth about why the Liberals failure to meet their Kyoto commitments,that the Harpocrites deliberately side step, was revealed last night by Jean Chretien when he spoke at the U of A.

He said his Liberal government of the 1990s had done much to pump up the economy Albertans now enjoy, including helping to push ahead development of the oilsands. "If I had done for Quebec what I had done in Alberta in terms of incentives for the tarsands, I would have won all the seats in Quebec," he joked.

Surprise, surprise development trumped the environment and Kyoto was window dressing. State Capitalism is the source of Alberta's oil wealth, unfortunately it is socialism for the rich. Them that's got gets.

H/T to AlbertaTory

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Ed Gets No Love

I am surprised more folks have not picked up on this earthshaking political shift. Ralph Klein's Brain supporting a Liberal.

The Scud Stud can't get no Love.

Rod Love, the one-time top adviser to former Conservative premier Ralph Klein, remarked Tuesday on a CBC radio show that in the current provincial election campaign, he is endorsing the Liberal candidate in his home riding of Calgary Currie.

That's the same riding where the Tories are running quasi-celebrity Arthur Kent, a former NBC reporter who earned his nickname for his good looks and unfazed live coverage of Scud missile attacks during the Persian Gulf War.

Liberal candidate Dave Taylor welcomed the endorsement, though he acknowledged Love is probably still firmly entrenched in the Alberta Tory camp.

In Alberta, well at least Calgary, you can't tell the difference between the Liberals and Tories. After all Ralph Klein was Liberal for a while. And Lougheed built the PC's on an alliance with Calgary Liberals and Socreds.

And no sooner had loose lips sunk Ed's ship Love recanted. Of course there is no love lost between Ed and Ralph. Which may have been why Love blurted out his preference. A little bit of the old stab in the back.

Rod Love, one of Alberta's most well-known Conservative backroom strategists, wants everyone to know that he hasn't gone "to the dark side" to support the Alberta Liberals.

Love took to the airwaves Wednesday to correct earlier reports that he was endorsing Liberal incumbent Dave Taylor in the March 3 provincial election.

On a radio panel Tuesday, the one-time top adviser to former Conservative premier Ralph Klein had conceded that Taylor has been a "very good" elected representative in Calgary Currie, where Love lives.

But he says his support still lies with the Conservative candidate, former reporter Arthur Kent, who earned the nickname Scud Stud for his good looks and unfazed live coverage of missile attacks during the Persian Gulf War.

Love told The Rutherford Show on CHQR radio that he'd no sooner support the Liberals than cheer for the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Taylor, meanwhile, says he represents all his constituents regardless of how they voted in the last election and is pleased that Love is happy with the job he's done.

It seems that Conservatives across North America lately suffer from Flip Flop.

“I woke up this morning to find out that I had gone to the dark side.”

-- Rod Love, long-time Alberta Tory operative, on Wednesday responding to a Calgary Sun story he had endorsed Liberal candidate Dave Taylor. Mr. Love told Calgary radio host Dave Rutherford the “torqued” story arose from a radio interview he gave on Tuesday. Mr. Love said he told the CBC that he lived in Mr. Taylor’s riding of Calgary Currie and he was a competent MLA.

And once the cat is out of the bag well its hard to spin it as yuck,yuck just kidding. Nope this key political strategist and back room boy did not misspeak, he said exactly what he wanted to get out there. The old Klein gang is not happy with Mr. Ed. Haven't been since he lost Ralph's seat in a by-election.


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Liberals Empty Promises

It is not just the Tired Old Tories that are making empty promises this election, so are the Alberta Liberals. They suffer from the me too syndrome.

Liberal Leader Kevin Taft reiterated today his pledge for "an absolute cap on greenhouse gas emissions from all sources" within five years of becoming Alberta premier as part of a plan to control oilsands expansions, offer subsidies for carbon sequestration and bar new coal-power plants that don't use the cleanest technologies.The Liberal leader did not provide specifics on where emission targets would be set, but said he would work with industry to establish caps.

An industry that donates to the Liberal Party.

Liberal Leader Kevin Taft promised today to give the natural gas sector a break on royalties amid its current struggles, but squeeze more from the oilsands to rebalance Albertans' fair share of energy riches.

But he admitted he doesn't know how to tweak the rates Ed Stelmach's Conservatives have already announced, saying only that the Liberal goal is to somehow reap 20 per cent more from royalties.

And like the Tired Old Tories the Liberals lack any plan on how they will cap greenhouse gases.

One prominent environmentalist said she likes that the Liberals were planning quicker short-term steps than the Tories, but contended their agenda was "empty" on detail."They're all great statements, but you have got to outline some steps on how you're going to achieve (the reductions)," the Sierra Club's Lindsay Telfer said.

Yeah no need to have plan now, wait till we are the government then we will plan. Wait a minute I have heard that before.

And like the Tories they are good at recycling, announcements that are not much different than those announced by the Tories. And like the Tories they are calculator challenged when it comes to costing their promises.

Taft explained a plan his deputy leader Dave Taylor first released in October.

The Liberals would temporarily cap rent increases until new housing units get built, hire a provincial housing director to co-ordinate various cities' 10-year homelessness plans, and boost outreach services.

Taylor said the plan would likely cost hundreds of millions of dollars, but couldn't say exactly how much.

Like the mayors of Edmonton, Calgary and Red Deer, Ed Stelmach's Conservatives have also pledged to end homelessness in 10 years.

And they also don't follow their own play book when making election announcements.

Liberal Leader Kevin Taft envisioned a day when school closures were banned forever in Alberta - but then he was reminded his party plan is for only a three-year moratorium.

A few hours after announcing a plan for an "indefinite" halt today, Taft was forced to modify his proclamation, because his Liberal policy book promises the more temporary suspension on school closures.

Yep Liberals Tories same old story.

He may say he favours hard caps on greenhouse gasses, but Liberal Leader Kevin Taft and his party voted against motions to that effect when the subject came up in the legislature.

On April 10, 2007, members of the Liberal caucus voted against an NDP motion in favour of Kyoto- compliant hard caps on green house gas reductions. Liberal environment critic David Swann spoke against the motion.

“This highlights exactly what we have been saying about the Liberals and Conservatives in this campaign,” said Mason. “They talk a good game when they want your votes, but when push comes to shove – they support their financial backers in big oil and other large polluters.”

Mason also slammed the Liberals for continuing to call for an end to home heating rebates, noting that the Liberals want to take rebates away from families while subsidizing big oil for carbon capture projects.

“Alberta families will suffer,” said Mason. “The Liberal plan will particularly hurt tenants who pay their own heating bill, but live in homes that have not been retrofitted.”

“Kevin Taft’s ideas are not practical for average families. They simply don’t reflect the reality of the struggles Albertans go through to make ends meet.”

“The Liberals, like the Conservatives, put the needs of big oil over regular Albertans.”

SEE

Careful Of What You Ask For


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Wait For It

Ed promises more doctors and the Harpocrites promise reduced wait times. Yet in Alberta hospital beds are closed and basic surgery wait times are increasing. That is the Conservative legacy. Including the legacy of building hospitals during the Lougheed/Getty era to garner votes and then blowing them up, closing beds and cutting staff during the Klein years. Chickens, home, roost.

And inquiring minds want to know what happened to that Liberal Federal funding Paul Martin gave the provinces to reduce wait times? Why it went into building new facilities named after old Tories like Don Mazankowski who called for more private health care.

The Tories legacy after 37 years is to build infrastructure to win votes, with no plan on how to staff that infrastructure once it is built. A sop to the construction industry in Alberta.

It's ridiculous for Premier Ed Stelmach to promise Albertans an extra 225 doctors a year when current surgeons are being sent home because operations are cancelled, two Edmonton doctors say.

"It's exceedingly frustrating that we can't do our jobs and it's getting worse, not better," said Dr. Clifford Sample, a gastrointestinal surgeon at the Grey Nuns Hospital.

Sample was sent home Wednesday after his two major surgeries were cancelled because of shortages in beds and nursing. Across the region, about two dozen elective surgeries were cancelled.

At peak times this winter, the problem has been even worse, with up to 40 operations cancelled over two days.

"We get announcements from Mr. Stelmach that he's going to bring on all these extra physicians and I ask him: Where are they going to work?" asked Sample, who is president of general surgery for the Alberta Medical Association.

"What are they going to do when the physicians in the system now can't do their jobs due to lack of resources?"

One of Sample's cancellations was a woman who has waited three months to have her stomach moved from her chest back into her abdomen. She can't eat without pain or bend over without losing her breath, he said.

A second woman has waited three months to have a paraesophageal hernia fixed, but will now have to wait at least two more. Sample said the operation ideally occurs within two months, since there's a risk of the stomach becoming twisted in the chest of patients with this hernia. That carries a 50-50 chance of death.

"If that happens between now and the time I can do her surgery, I'll feel pretty awful," Sample said. "I haven't seen any bad outcomes (from surgery cancellations). It will happen eventually."

Sample said the province and Capital Health need to focus less on building acute-care hospitals, such as those set for Sherwood Park and Fort Saskatchewan, and more on immediate creation of long-term care beds.

In Edmonton-area hospitals, 150 to 200 patients a day occupy emergency or acute-care beds while they wait for long-term care spaces. Coupled with a severe nursing shortage, that has kept hospitals from performing more surgeries.

Alberta Health's promise of $300 million in the next budget to open 600 new long-term care beds in the province falls short since the facilities won't open until at least 2010, Sample said.

"These are mythical, long-term care beds in the budget," he said. "I don't believe anything until it's actually built."

He said that until new, long-term care facilities open, beds should be converted in the soon-to-open Mazankowski Heart Institute, the joint-replacement centre across from the Royal Alexandra Hospital and the Lois Hole Hospital for Women.

SEE:

Ed's Ides of March


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Ed Promises More Temporary Workers

Another unrealistic election pledge by Ed leader of the Party With No Plan. Like his more doctors pledge, this too relies on hiring more temporary workers from other countries.

Premier Ed Stelmach made a campaign stop in Red Deer today to announce daycare help for families, but a group of moms who were watching say they were not impressed.

Stelmach promised minor improvements to the Family Employment Tax Credit, but he couldn’t tell more than a dozen moms at the daycare centre how much they would save.

The premier also promised that his Tories would help private groups and others create 14,000 new child care spaces over three years, but again the moms were skeptical.

Stelmach says even existing daycares have trouble attracting and retaining staff, so he says foreign workers would be recruited for Alberta’s new daycare spaces.

But several moms at the campaign event later said they’re reluctant to send their children to daycares where the staff are not adequately trained or don’t speak English.

Gee aren't those called nannies?

And as this Liberal Blogger points out, those daycare spaces were already paid for by the Liberal Federal Government. Talk about recycling Ed and the Tired Old Tories truly are the green party when it comes to announcing nothing new, and nothing they could not have done in the past twelve months.

And apparently the Tired Old Tories are making promises they have not calculated the costs for, again. Tax breaks for instance that do not pay for real out of pocket costs of daycare.

Sharlene Dolan, who has a two-year-old daughter, says she doubts the premier’s announcement will have any significant impact on the $875 a month she pays for daycare.

"OK, he's going to cut our taxes, right, but it still doesn't put a cap on the daycare [fees]," said Sharlene Dolan, who pays $875 a month for her daughter's care. "It can sound really good right now on paper but if the daycare costs go up it doesn't help," she said.

The Tory promise focused on changes to the Family Employment Tax Credit, which Stelmach said would help up to 170,000 families with tax credits ranging from $639 a year for one child to $1,685 for four or more children.

Stelmach could not say how much money those families would receive as a result of having those additional deductions on their tax returns.

These guys cannot budget nor do they seem to know what a calculator is for.



SEE

Padrone Me Is This Alberta

Alberta's Free Market In Labour

The Labour Shortage Myth

Baba Sitting

Feminizing the Proletariat

Build It And They Will Come

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Mitt Quits To Win Bush's War

The American Right is obsessed with using the old Nazi "stab in the back" argument to justify being wrong about Iraq. As Mitt Romney did yesterday. Romney tried to cloak his ignoble defeat in the robe of Imperial triumph appearing as the retiring Ceaser not the vanquished Republican Presidential gladiator.

Explaining his decision, he said he believed it was in the best interest of the country's national security -- he told conservatives a Democratic victory would lead to the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, defeat in the war on terrorism and future domestic terror attacks.

"If I fight on, in my campaign ... I'd forestall the launch of a national campaign and, frankly, I'd make it easier for Senator Clinton or Obama to win," Mr. Romney said.

"Frankly, in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign be a part of aiding a surrender to terror."

The much vaunted Bush War On Terror was lost the day the U.S. left Afghanistan for Baghdad, and since then it has become the Politics of Fear, which Romney stooped to use as a parting shot in his wimp out speech.

No sir he was no quitter he was doing this for the good of the party and the good of the country and the good of the war, he was a good old boy. Seems though that it did little to quell the split in the party or on the right.

For one long, uncomfortable moment, John McCain was silenced by the boos at a meeting of the influential Conservative Political Action Committee.

They erupted from the back of the ballroom at the Omni hotel in Washington, a lusty chorus of catcalls from conservatives not ready to accept they were almost certainly listening to the next Republican presidential nominee.

And what does it say of Ron Paul the Republican Presidential candidate who also opposes the Bush War and who has not dropped out of the race. I guess he too is a defeatist prepared to surrender America to her terrorist enemies. Logic was never Romney's strong suit, opportunism was.

Ron Paul tapped in to a wide array of interests, and his appeal went well beyond the simple "opposition to the war" explanation arrogant journalists favored. But let's just say he could have tapped in a lot deeper and with more lasting results. It's not like we don't need the help right about now. The country is seeing the beginnings of a real leftwing backlash and the Republicans are about to nominate a "national greatness" conservative who is in every respect the anti-Goldwater. (Good luck getting any libertarian leverage from those Paul delegates at the convention.)

After the smoke cleared at the Conservative Political Action Conference – the public withdrawal of Mitt Romney from the Republican presidential race, and the attempt of John McCain to make friends with the party’s staunchest conservatives – a conservative crowd-pleaser stepped forward .

Ron Paul, the Republican representative from Texas.

Paul was playing on the frustrations in this hall, with many voicing worries about McCain, the all-but annointed nominee.

Now the party has an apparent candidate who is a friend of Sen. Russ Feingold – on campaign finance reform – Paul said. And now the party has an apparent candidate who is a friend of Ted Kennedy – on immigration – Paul said.

He raised cheers in the hall – perhaps the first genuine cheers of the day.

“If you think we can lead this country back to conservative principles… you have another thing coming, because it’s not going to happen,’’ Paul said.

“The answer is found in fiscal conservatism – live within our means,’’ he said to cheers in the hall.

“As long as a government can stir up fear, sometimes real and sometimes not real, the people are expected to do one thing, sacrifice their liberty,’’ he said to cheers.

And then there is the war in Iraq, with Paul the only one of several Republican candidates for president this year who took a stance against the war.
.
“McCain says we should stay there for 100 years if necessary – I say there is no need,’’ Paul said to more cheers in the hall.

“We campaigned in 2000 for a humble foreign policy, no policing of the world – and now we are doing the very same thing,’’ Paul said.

But this is where he started to lose his audience: “Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.’’

The Paulites in the hall were happy, but the rest of the crowd was starting to part ways with a Republican who has sharply parted ways with most of the candidates.

Romney was never the real conservative contender against McCain, Mr. Slick was just another liberal in conservative clothing. The real conservative contender is still in the race; Mike Huckabee. Watch conservative voters swing to him not Ron Paul despite the illusions held by his followers.

However the party establishment and the Conservative Political Establishment won't, most rank and file Republicans will hold their noses and support McCain. While those who remain McCain's critics will remain ineffectual offering no alternative since they backed Romney. And that will put them between a rock and a hard place, as the impact of their denunciations will give the conservative base of the party no alternative but Huckabee.

While the pundits like Chris Matthews, see Romney's quitting as giving McCain his coronation as the Republican Presidential nominee, it ain't over yet. And the divisiveness on the right will not be quelled by Romney's absence. The right and the Republican party is irreparably split.

"I will not vote for John McCain and it is our belief that he will destroy the Republican party," Vincent Chiarello, a retired foreign service officer from Virginia, told Al Jazeera. "I'd rather vote Democrat."

At a Friday campaign stop in Denver, the Texas Republican Congressman spoke to a standing room only crowd of 2,000 supporters-nearly double the number that came out earlier in the day to cheer on ordained front-runner Mitt Romney.

Paul’s speech was greeted with the eagerness of a religious revival. One supporter broke down in tears at the microphone as she described Paul as her “hero.” Sitting next to me in the front row was a 61-year-old lifelong Republican. She said she had never missed an opportunity to vote in her four decades of eligibility. Without Dr. Paul (this is how the obstetrician’s supporters affectionately refer to him) she said she would have sat this election out. She says she is most motivated by his anti-war stance. When greeted by a 20-something activist, they both nod in unison about their frustration with the drug war.

The interaction is a familiar one. This is not your father’s Republican party.

Dred-locked hippies stand united with Christian homeschoolers. Democrats and independents also pepper the crowd, proclaiming our need for renewable energy initiated within the private sector. There are no staged applause lines. On multiple occasions, an impromptu chant begins, “Ron Paul Revolution! Give us back our Constitution!” On stage, Paul is greeted by a drum line dressed as Revolutionary War soldiers.

The Democrats will continue to have the advantage, because even if McCain is now the presumptive candidate, the media will focus increasingly on the horse race that is on between Clinton and Obama. This is an advantage not a disadvantage in particular for Obama who can now make the case that only he can defeat McCain as national polls have shown.






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Careful Of What You Ask For

Some Liberal bloggers in Alberta are wondering why there will only be one leaders debate during the upcoming election.Because this is Alberta and the Legislature only has one 'official' sitting.

They should be careful of what they ask for. The charismatically challenged leaders; Hinman, Taft, and Stelmach will bore viewers into a slumber only to be awakened by the quick wit and sharp retorts of the bus driver who leads the NDP.

And a sleeping voter is safer than an awakened one.





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Gee I Said That

Here.

Red Deer Advocate Editorial , Thursday, Feb. 7, 2008

Amazingly, the Conservatives — who have been in power since 1971 — are campaigning under the slogan “Change that works for Albertans.” They are apparently determined to run against their own record, after realizing many Albertans are tired of their arrogance and mistakes.

“I think we can deliver as much change as anyone else,” said George Rogers, Tory MLA for Leduc-Beaumont-Devon, with no hint of joking in his voice. After 37 years in government? That makes absolutely no sense.

Do the Tories think voters are stupid enough to consider them the party of change?

Apparently they are underestimating the intelligence of Albertans. Comes from Tired Old Tories talking to themselves in caucus.

H/T Cowboys For Social Responsibility

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Harpers War The Manley Solution

All the conditions for the Manley recommendation to become Harpers War Wet Dream were already made in the back rooms.

The Harper government will set the stage for a possible spring election on Canada's role in the Afghanistan war by tabling a motion as early as this week calling for an extension of the mission in line with last month's Manley report.The motion is expected to adopt the central recommendation of the panel led by former Liberal cabinet minister John Manley. In its report, the panel recommended extending the mission beyond February 2009, the current expiration date, provided Canada can secure more equipment and convince its allies to commit roughly 1,000 more troops.

Let's see Poland has offered to help.

Poland to share choppers in Afghanistan

The irony of the former Warsaw Pact nation now extending its mission in Afghanistan is rich indeed. Too bad they hadn't done this when the Russians were there and none of this would have been needed.

Meanwhile MacKay is off lobbying NATO.

MacKay to stress demand for 1,000 troops from NATO

And he may get them.

In a rare piece of good news, there were suggestions that the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, would provide an extra 1,000 troops.

British officials hope the extra troops will be stationed in areas of the bloodiest conflict in Kandahar in the south, but Nato defence chiefs will discuss the position at an informal summit starting today. Nato is seeking to draw together a new three-year structural plan for the country.

Rice did not disguise her concern at the scale of the threat in Afghanistan. "I do think the alliance is facing a real test here. Our populations need to understand this is not a peacekeeping mission" but rather a long-term fight against extremists, she added. "This is a different fight from what Nato was structured to do.

The messaging is the same from the White House and Harpers House; prepare for a long war.

Meanwhile the Taliban will have Pakistan's support in going back into Afghanistan to conduct their operations.

Of course Pakistan is not a member of NATO.

Pakistan Taliban declare ceasefire - spokesman

Pakistan calls truce with Taliban after secret talks
Ismail Khan, a journalist who reports on the border area for the newspaper Dawn, said both sides appeared to be respecting the truce. But he said the military's apparent decision to halt its operation against militants in south Waziristan raised questions about Pakistan's strategy in dealing with the Taliban.

Also See:

Afghanistan




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What A Rush

Rush Limbaugh the self appointed voice of the Conservative right is a drug addled failure. His attacks on McCain and their failure to influence Republican voters shows that this pill popping loser has no credibility. He and other conservative mouthpieces like Ann Coulter and Foxy Sean Hannity have bewailed against McCain and Huckabee and even Ron Paul. For them it is the brylcreme slick huckster and flip flopper Mitt Romney that reflects their values. Luckily for the Republican party the base is divorcing itself from its self appointed 'values' based leadership.

But nailing the nomination is starting to look like the easy part of the task facing McCain over the next 10 months.

The closer he gets to securing the Republican candidacy, the louder the protests from the right of the party denouncing him as a traitor to the true cause of Ronald Reagan conservatism.

Rush Limbaugh, the radio talk show host who has emerged as McCain-basher in chief, was back on the offensive within hours of the polls closing on Super Tuesday. Through his website and his radio broadcasts to 612 stations across the US, he lambasted the senator for Arizona for his allegedly anti-conservative positions on a raft of issues from immigration to tax cuts, and hinted that he might consider voting for the Democratic candidate in November.

"I'll just tell you, there's far more apathy or anger out there than the Republican establishment knows. One question I asked myself: if, if, if, if down the road you think that the election of Obama, Hillary, or McCain is going to result in very bad things happening to the country, who would you rather get the blame for it?"

The conservative talk-radio assault on John McCain and Mike Huckabee has backfired in a big way.

Supporters of Huckabee are so angry that they have launched a “Send it Back” campaign, asking people who have copies of books by Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity to send them back to their authors. They’re angry that Limbaugh and Hannity were trashing Huckabee on the air. Limbaugh and Hannity were joined by Laura Ingraham in trying to rally their listeners around Mitt Romney. The ploy failed. Romney won in seven contests on Super Tuesday but failed to win either California, where he expected to win, or any Southern state.

The “Send it Back” campaign also applies to Ann Coulter, who attacked Huckabee as the “Republican Jimmy Carter.” Coulter, who has achieved notoriety for making personal attacks and writing books blasting Democrats, also said that McCain was so unacceptable that she would vote and campaign for Hillary Clinton if the Arizona senator was the Republican presidential nominee.

Ironically Limbaugh is using traditional right wing rhetoric to attack McCain, the old Nazi stabbed in the back accusation.

Suggesting he has come under intense pressure to get on board and back McCain, radio personality Rush Limbaugh held his ground Monday, saying on his program: "John McCain has stabbed his own party in the back I can't tell you how many times. He stabbed his own president in the back on legislation a number of times. He doesn't support his party or his president when the chips are down."

The stab in the back first gained currency in Germany, as a means of explaining the nation's stunning defeat in World War I. It was Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg himself, the leading German hero of the war, who told the National Assembly, "As an English general has very truly said, the German army was 'stabbed in the back.'"

Truly a drug addled brain at work here. Not unlike Goering, whom Rush bears a striking resemblance to ideologically as well as physically.






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