This coming from your Blogging Tory insider. Must be a slow month.

You know that I made my two polls up, right Scott?

I would sooner have a hamburg with Steve than “beer & popcorn” with whats his name or share chewing gum with Dingwall. :em62:
I wonder if Dingwall got all of his entitlements?

Undecided Voter.
http://www.languagefairness.com/Quotes.php

Hey Undecided:

a) thats so old news it no longer resonates except among Blogging Tory and particularly among SDA fanatics.
b) Your handle is so untruthful - when are you switching it? You’re no Undecided Voter - you’re a Conservative partisan thru and thru.

Gee Scott - maybe your right - who in their right mind would vote for a party that segregates its employees and the country by language.
I guess you Liberals would just love to put this language thing to bed but its not going away.
I dont see your party fighting Quebecs anti-english language sign law, bill 101.
Hypocrite comes to mind.
Oh, when was the last time the grits had a leader from other than the Quebec Nation. Sure know how to bring the country together - bet your party is real popular in Alberta. :em62:
http://www.languagefairness.ca/
Game on!

[quote post="557"]At this point, I could care less about Alberta[/quote]

And that’s why the Liberal party is not going to make majority for a long time, because it has abandoned the West from its plans for the most part. That’s probably why the West doesn’t care about the Liberal party either.

I havent seen the NDP doing great in Alberta either of late.. and NBC Dipper, you know as well as I do Alberta is a bit different from “The West” and isn’t the only “western province” out there.

Nice attempt at NDP spin however :em50:

Actually all they have to do is win the Ontario rural areas and gain some in Quebec…

[quote comment="4390"]Paladiea,

You are forgetting simple demographics: the West, BC and Alberta is growing in population, and with that comes more seats. To be honest, I can’t see the Liberals getting much more seats in Quebec, and I don’t think that they could get the Ontario rural seats like they used to.
[/quote]

Hmm.. you’re lecturing me on how I can’t tell you about the “West”… and yet you’re lumping in BC as being part of “the West”??

I can point to a fair # of BC’ers politically who resent being lumped in with “the Western” provinces or “The West” when some of our Albertan separatists claim “The West” of BC and Alberta would make a fine country… they want nothing to do with that characterization.

Anyhow.. my point to that fella was… other then Alberta; who cares about language issues? And if it makes the Liberals unpopular, that hardly is news - there are a lot of other things politically that have caused that. So, my point was I dont really get concerned if our support of official bilingualism causes the redneck portion of the Alberta population to not want to vote for us.

Shrug.. there were others besides me who took those polls to be real.. for a minute :em49:

Everyone gets fooled once in awhile, Olaf; that doesnt mean one is or isn’t cut out for anything. After all, you just had a post up not too long ago which said I supported Jack Layton’s policy on negotiating with the Taliban, when I clearly did not say so.

I didn’t think that meant YOU weren’t cut out for politics (though if I had a choice between misinterpreting a joke post and misinterpreting someone’s position in a post.. mine is far less grievous I’d say :em19: )

It does belong to me, but the simple fact of the matter is that Alberta is and has been a wasteland for Liberal prospects (and every other progressive party) for years and years.. (and other then the Edmonton ridings will continue to be) and whether or not they hate that we happen to have a leader who hails from Quebec concerns me little… as also whether some of them hate bilingualism still or not.

I sounded blunter then I needed to be.. but that’s the simple fact of the matter.

“At this point, I could care less about Alberta…”

The Liberal Party at its finest, I see.

Scott,

since (Alberta has) built in culture to dislike the Liberals there, there’s no point pandering to them.

Unlike the rest of the country, which is ripe for the pandering? Only the citizens of provinces who seem susceptible to Liberal pandering will henceforth be granted the privilege?

Liberals at their finest, I see. :em36:

Sorry, I couldn’t resist.

Scott,

You know what I mean, Olaf.

I know what you mean: focus on the areas where the Liberals can do the most electoral damage, and forget those pesky unenlightened Albertans, they’re a lost cause. If you ever wanted to know why Bart (as opposed to so many Liblogers) is so well respected across party lines, that’s the reason; he doesn’t treat Albertans like huddled and ignorant conservative masses.

And if you’re willing to grant Alberta’s collective Conservative bias, are you so willing to grant Ontario’s collective Liberal bias? Perhaps, Ontario is so socialized into Liberalism, that they’re as incapable as Albertans of voting against their hereditary chosen party (or is that just a sign of erudition, to you?). I notice however that you don’t dismiss their collective concerns as easily as those poor unenlightened Conservative Albertans.

Apparently, Ontarians are collectively enlightened, but Albertans are not only irrelevant in considering broader Liberal policy, but they’re not even worth patronizing. Owch.

I mean, you can freely reject the idea that Ontarians are all hopelessly and irrationally Liberal, without minds of their own that can be changed, and thus not thinking members worthy of wooing, although it’s difficult when you consider Albertans hopelessly Conservative, and no matter how attractive Liberal policies are, those poor Albertans can’t help but vote Conservative. If Ontarians are capable of voting Conservative, why aren’t Albertans capable of voting Liberal?

It’s the condescension that is more offensive than anything, and goes a long way to explaining why your party is rejected. Liberals have always been the party of power, and thus have always been more concerned with getting Ontarian and Quebecker votes than Albertans. If you’re curious as to why the party has difficulty getting support in the Prairies, don’t blame ideological biases.

Dan lives in Alberta.. its expected he is to be more hopeful. He has a bias about that
But, outside of Edmonton, I don’t see a lot of progressive thought out there. And, in case you didn’t notice, Ontario is not a complete monopoly for Liberalism - there are 3 active parties there that can get seats. During Chretien’s terms, yes, he did stunningly well in Ontario, but there was no Liberal monopoly before him, nor has there been since (nor will there be).

Alberta has been a monopoly for the Conservatives both provincially and federally for as long as anyone can remember… and when they weren’t voting for Tories provincially.. they were putting in Social Credit for ages upon ages. They are not attuned to the more progressive political values that many of us on the centre-left espouse.. I frankly don’t see any part on the progressive side making a break through - be they Liberal, NDP or Green.. not unless we can get some more mass immigration to there from the East to work in the oil fields… progressive thought through assimilation might be the only way to go :em23:

And, Alberta isn’t “the West”. In my opinion, We (as in the Liberals) should be focusing more on places we have chances in - like everywhere else BUT Alberta. There is good electoral hope for us in BC and Manitoba.. less in Saskatchewan, but I’m counting on the NDP to wipe up the Tories there over the fiscal imbalance discontent.

Your outrage is amusing, Olaf.. but my point has been (which you Conservatives have all gotten sidetracked from in your anger at it being pointed out the rather obvious fact that elections aren’t won or lost in Alberta’s rural ridings) that I could care less whether some Albertans hate the fact the Liberals have a leader from Quebec (There wont be one from Alberta any time soon, if that’s what they want) or they hate official bilingualism. A long line of leaders has come from Quebec for the Liberal Party dating back to Laurier, and the party embraces bilingualism. If some of the Alberta rednecks hate it.. I shrug.. they weren’t going to vote for the Liberals anyhow. If they hate that so much, there’s no point in trying to appease them.

Good thing we have tolerant Ontario to protect us from mean ‘ol Alberta. Where is Brockville, again?:

Images of intolerance littered our newspapers and polluted our television screens. Again and again, the media showed the spectacle of a handful of zealots in Brockville, Ontario, trampling the fleur-de-lis. Ontario mayors who declared their municipalities English-only were portrayed as anti-French and anti-Quebec.

Some advice. Forget Alberta. See if you can actually win your own Ontario riding back from us evil Albertan Conservatives. Then worry about Alberta. :em19:

That said, Scott, as an Albertan who is progressive, I really, really hate what you have said here. It sounds arrogant and simply feeds the fire.

I consider myself well informed and progressive. When I read things like:

“At this point, I could care less about Alberta…”

It makes me wonder why I bother. Please try to remember you are also insulting the people who share your point of view, as well as cementing the opinions of those who do not.

Gayle: I’ve already clarified what I meant by that statement.. As with the Tories.. you’re looking at the original statement and not the clarifications.

As for Alberta and Albertans, the Liberals have their platform, as do the NDP and the Greens. if Albertans want to show they’re progressive, they can vote for one of those, instead of voting for the Conservatives, and in large #’s. Till then however, or until we get a form of Mixed Member Proportional Representation electoral reform that will take into account those progressive votes in Alberta which would allow the non-Conservative parties some seats, I view Alberta as a lost cause, with the possible exception of maybe Edmonton.

“Perhaps, Ontario is so socialized into Liberalism, that they’re as incapable as Albertans of voting against their hereditary chosen party”

Olaf, you can’t be serious?? Ontario has had many Tory provincial governments, has voted for the Conservatives in national elections. Just because Ontario rejected a hard right Reform Party doesn’t translate into Liberal only. I believe Harper won more than a few seats in Ontario when the Conservative Party was re-constituted.

When is the last time Alberta had a provincial government that wasn’t Conservative? Yep. How many Liberals have been elected federally in the last decade? Yep.

That argument has no factual basis. If you want to say Ontario leans Liberal fine, but to compare itto the monolith that is Alberta politics is apples and oranges.

I don’t buy the argument that Albertans are all social conservatives and wingers. Having said that, I was constantly amazed to hear people I met, who exhibited liberal leanings saying they voted for Klein. I attributed the strange affiliations more to a sense that only the Conservatives really stood up for Albertan interests, which seemed to trump root belief systems.