Comments for Santos Sez

Comment on Canada Day 2012 at Cataract Pass by walktassie

walktassie — Wed, 04 Jul 2012 01:29:59 +0000

Hey looks like an awesome trip. there is nothing better than the thoughts of the next trip in your head when you haven’t even made it home yet.

Comment on 2012 regional popular vote averages by A Tale of Two Tories – Mapping Alberta 2012 » The Calgary Manifesto

A Tale of Two Tories – Mapping Alberta 2012 » The Calgary Manifesto — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 18:23:11 +0000

[...] PCs 56% to 37%. (For a full breakdown and methodology, please check out John Santos' post on the regional vote totals). Were a pollster to call within the Calgary CMA, the results for Wildrose would have seemed far [...]

Comment on Fighting the enemy indirectly: Mulcair, Harper, Redford, Smith and the oil sands by Nicolas Roy

Nicolas Roy — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 17:41:10 +0000

“While politicians appeal to the principle of unity, consensus is impossible, and a party really only needs 50 percent plus one in order to seize or maintain power.”

Unfortunately, this is incorrect. Harper has a majority with less than 40% of the vote, while Redford and Clark also have a majority with about 45% of the vote. In fact, if Canada were to implement a proportional representation electoral system, this kind of practice (e.g. targeting specific “swing” ridings in order to get as many seats as possible) would be obsolete, forcing all parties to intead try to get as many votes as possible, no matter where they come from.

Comment on Memorable Debate Moments by Mung

Mung — Sun, 27 May 2012 00:06:28 +0000

Thus the problem with ceonoderatifn..We understand the idea of working towards a common benefit, we just don’t like the reality of it… And this isn’t a criticism of Ontario or British Columbia from an Albertan – it’s a comment on Quebec’s effort to derail Newfoundland’s efforts at equitable sharing of hydro resources.. it’s a comment on Alberta’s decades-old complaints over equalization payments.. and Ontario’s complaints over a high petro-dollar.. and so on.Provinces want “autonomy”.. but demand the benefits of confederacy.And they are, occasionally, mutually exclusive.If you don’t want to allegedly pollute the world with Alberta’s “dirty oil”, well, you’d best turn down any equalization coming from that resource (did you catch that Dalton?)Us.Them.It’s the age-old secret to consolidating power and distracting an electorate from realizing that you’re not doing your job.Now that McGuinty is seeing the writing on the wall – suddenly, Ontario’s failure is Alberta’s fault.Now that Alison Redford is, already, being called out for being the charletan she is (a budget premised on oil prices far beyond any rational expectation), she’s beginning to “circle the wagons”, and you can expect the blame for what promises to be continued financial mis-management in Alberta to be passed to British Columbia and others..Why not start with a discussion of our commonality, instead of the typical “us/them” meme?

Comment on Internal conquest: what non-conservatives must do first if they want to win by jbsantos

jbsantos — Sat, 12 May 2012 16:27:18 +0000

Yes, there is a chance they may both sink to irrelevance, a situation that most cynical conservatives believe has already happened. To be clear, while a tactical alliance or a merger are both possibilities, I think the practical difficulties of either mean that they exist purely within the theoretical realm.

However, your point about one party being pushed into the background is dead-on. However, I don’t think it’s the voters that must (or even can) do that. The party elites are the ones that have to functionally reduce the number of choices available to voters to ensure that the vote pool is maximized to one party’s benefit.

The ability of third parties to be effective in some sort of unification process is limited, so I don’t fault ChangeAlberta for anything other than not learning from the United Alternative, which had a similarly lofty, but impractical end. This will need to be solved at the party level, and the best that third parties can do is to openly work to support one and/or undermine the other.

Emulating the “Liberals for Linda Duncan” or “Liberals for Joe Clark” campaigns, but on a province-wide scale, is one idea that comes to mind.

Comment on Internal conquest: what non-conservatives must do first if they want to win by alvinfinkel

alvinfinkel — Thu, 10 May 2012 05:49:03 +0000

Interesting, John. But if it’s the voters who are supposed to impose a consensus on these squabbling parties by adopting one and firmly rejecting the other, it hasn’t happened yet. They may both sink into irrelevance before they reach either a tactical alliance or are forced into a merger in which one or the other essentially gets pushed into the backgrond

Comment on 2012 regional popular vote averages by jbsantos

jbsantos — Wed, 02 May 2012 00:54:42 +0000

We cannot be sure of the actual number without hard data to corroborate, but I’m inclined to agree that many PCs who stayed home in 2008 came out to support the home team in 2012. However, I don’t know if they pushed the PCs over-the-top, so much as they solidified the PCs’ win.

Comment on 2012 regional popular vote averages by chipsreid

chipsreid — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 02:10:14 +0000

The PC old guard did not vote last time as they disliked Klein so much they stopped participating when he won the first time and later disliked Stelmach too. Lougheed and Getty endorsed Redford and pleaded with voters publicly ( and no doubt privately) to come back and vote and so they did. Popular vote spiked from 41 per cent to 57 per cent. This is partially the roar back of old time PCs.

Comment on 2012 regional popular vote averages by jbsantos

jbsantos — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 19:15:03 +0000

Not having followed politics at that time, I rely on second-hand accounts. Rightly or wrongly, there is widespread agreement that the abortion comment was part of Decore’s undoing. Your counterargument is appreciated, and I’ll take a closer look at 1993 and may even do up a blog post, time permitting. Thanks again.

Comment on 2012 regional popular vote averages by The Invisible Hand

The Invisible Hand — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 19:00:18 +0000

The other irony is that the Wildrose did not learn from Decore that contentious social issues tend to destroy campaigns

It’s really time to end this myth that Decore lost the 1993 election because of his abortion comments. Just before he said them, he was polling at 35%. A couple weeks after the comments he polled at 37%, and on Election Day he got 40%.

There is no evidence that they did him any damage whatsoever.