The Hook

the party without a history

> The Greens had, for the first, time
> secured a place at the leaders' debate
> and a candidate for each of the 85 ridings.

Hello? The Greens ran a full slate in 2005. They've been in every leader's debate this century.

Why is that every time the Greens do anything, people assume it must be a first?

Green Coalition

I don't think the Greens could work with the NDP as long as the NDP has mandated a no carbon tax policy, which was in turn mandated by the big smoke stack unions in Ontario. As long as said unions have a major say in NDP policy, I cannot see the Greens and the NDP working together. When the CAW go the day of the dodo along with GM and Chrysler, such an alliance is conceivably federally. Provincially, I doubt it because the NDP is not really a "big tent" party anymore. It is largely a movement of public service unions.

The Liberals, OTOH, will take anybody they can get who opposes the NDP. It is amazing the differences in opinion in that party when you actually meet their members but they all have a common goal, keeping free enterprise happening. That said I am not sure they would want that because the split the Greens provided them got them elected in one key riding, Vancouver Fairview.

Partisanship is dead

And the Greens have pounded this last nail into the coffin.

People are absolutely appalled and disgusted with the Greening of Gordo. The Green party does not need to "merge" with the libs they have been the Green wing of the party since Campbell showed up.

What is needed is not a merging of parties but a purging of parties. When one party finally offers people what they want and it is not cloaked in neo-con double speak they will win. And that can only happen when a party shows the leadership that involves pushing the fixers of one agenda in all parties to the back of the bus.

Politicians need it, the environment needs and most of all democracy needs it, cuz without it they are all dead.

Clarification

The Greens did run a full slate, 79 candidates, in 2005. 2001 was the first year a Green party leader was included in the leaders' debate.

Carbon Tax and Liberals

Ummm. Were you asleep during the last Federal election?

The Campbell Tax is not a carbon tax - it does nothing to reduce CO2, is administratively complex and costly and launders money - that all.

I think a better name would be the Tony Soprano Tax...still it does go to show how stupid BC liberal supporters and certain so-called environmentalists are.

Never underestimate the stupidity of the BC electorate.

That'll always be a winning proposition.

At the present rate of

At the present rate of advance, I figure hell will freeze over before they get a seat in th house. Listening to their latest BC leader should give you a hint about the ideas they have. Why not make Crack Cocaine lega she indicated. My God how mnay people are breaking into cars to get their next hours fix? How many youth are brain dead from such a contolling drug.
The Green Leader came bottom of the pile in the Elections in Esquimalt-Royal Roads. Nothing wrong with running and coming last, but its a long way from the top

Green Milk. It Does the Body (Politic) Good.

STV is dead. The Libs and Dippers split the electorate down Big Business and Big Labour lines. We're left with no mechanism to democratically represent the votes of the 10 percent (or so) Green remainder.

It's time for the Greens to do some soul searching and head scratching. Here's what I'm thinking.

Coalitions won't fly. This is because innovative and visionary policy--not political candidates--have always been the Green's primary source of political capital. An established party may be willing to barter for a promising potential MLA, but ideas, important to parties as they are, don't carry much weight in such markets. Innovative ideas can simply be 'borrowed' a few years down the road once they become more palatable to the public or are otherwise opportunely adopted (read: the carbon tax, which was but a twinkle in Campbell's eye when the Greens were pushing it abroad).

In other words, the Libs and Dippers aren't going to buy a Green cow when they can have the milk for free.

But (if you'll forgive me for pushing the metaphor), the Greens have been happy to be milked for years. The broader policy community is, in the end, the better nourished for it.

A coalition would be bad for Greens too. Once tied to the constituencies of either the Libs (big business) or Dems (big labour), Green policy would be reigned in by interests resistant to change (the unions find policy innovation just as threatening as big business, if not more so--as seen by the crawling pace both parties have set for retooling our economy to face ecological and economic crises that have recently beset us. are making towards a carbon-reduced economy.

So, my suggestion is this: Embrace your strength. Become the Green Think Tank that just happens to run a handful of MLA candidates each election. Your milkmen, as it were (ok, that's the last time, I swear).

Continue to raise the level of political debate on preventative health care. On holistic, long-view approaches to crime. On investment in wind, solar, and geothermal. (And for God's sake, SOMEBODY sound the alarm on the mining epidemic that has silently swept the province, and is poised to poison our rivers and lakes for the next two thousand years, without so much of a freakin' peep from party leaders!)

Good luck, Greens. We'll all need it.

Stay the course

I'd rather have a party with no seats that sticks to principles and generates ideas than one with seats that looks like the two big parties.

NWN is right - don't form a coalition with anyone. If you do, your voters will abandon you for the next party that sticks to principles and generates new ideas.

The next time electoral reform comes up....

...say in 40 years, maybe the Greens will consider asking themselves whether the proposed system is good enough, or at least a step towards a better system.

If they'd done that in 2005 instead of accepting the knee-jerk response of their leader, they might've secured some seats in this election.

With FPTP ...

... real coalitions only come into existence in a minority government situation anyway. Moot talk.

Was talking with my dad about STV. All he could say in response to any of the "pro" arguments that I raised, no matter what, was, "that's an elitist argument!" Is this why the No side won? Were they able to inculcate this simple, effective subtext in the electorate? Score another one for kneejerk populism, always a vote-getter in BC.

Green political acumen.

We can thank the greens for giving us 8 more years of Campbell than we should have suffered. They take direct responsibility for that. All the damage done and what will be done to the environment during those years, courtesy of the Liberals, lies on their heads. If or when they finally gain a seat they can delude themselves into thinking that they actually made a difference. It is almost laughable.

The Campbell crowd were are the only ones talking about the Campbells Gas Tax .as something significant. It never became a hot issue except for the greens who were manipulated by Campbell. A real display of political acumen by the Greens.

@ Skywalker

1. The NDP lost the election because they ran a negative and crowardly campaign. Instead of challenging the Libs on contested territory (i.e. the economy), they played it safe by making cheap shots at Campbell and clinging to issues of health care and education, issues which wouldn't sway undecided voters anyways.

2. What makes you think that Greens voters are any more inclined to vote NDP than Liberal? As I stated above, the union-control of NDP policy is as thick a wall blocking progressive policy measures than the Lib love affair with big business.

You can continue to whine about Green votes you wish the NDP could woo, but seriously: this was a dead argument 10 years ago. Take a look in the mirror. WE've all got some strategizing to do.

Lib 38 NDP 47 finals

If the Greenie vote had collapsed and gone NDP.

More realistically, from Angus Reid's last preelection poll:

“uncertain Green voters are twice as likely to list the NDP as their second choice (36%) than the BC Liberals (17%)”

If we run these numbers (69/31) riding by riding through the latest results we get Liberals 45 ND 40 assuming a simple collapse in the Green vote - say all the Greenies withdrawing their candidacies. However if the Green's and NDP had come to some kind of Israeli type accommodation, which presumably would have included the NDP espousing some form of carbon tax Reids 69/31 vote split would only have had to change to 76/34 for an NDP/Green coalition win.

The NDP forgot that that Green voters are mostly idiots who haven't had an original thought all their lives and when a mainstream media celib says something it must be true. DaGucci. Berman, Weaver, Pembina and Harcourt must be permanently ostracized from the Green and progressive movements and if possible financially ruined by their odious sellout.

Had somebody in the NDP campaign beaten some sense into Carole James and/or Gerry Scott, they would had realized that the Green factor was the key to a win and dumped the carbon tax thing right away. That Campbell's carbon tax was simply a method of funneling campaign donation kickbacks to humongous bank and had utterly no effect on carbon consumption was logic. Despite their love of Spock, the fevered mind of a Greenie is utterly incapable of logical thought. How a person could claim support for the Green platform and/or the environment could vote BCLiberal is so incredibly stupid as to defy description.

The Green's are universally despised in the US after their leader Ralph Nader elected George Bush and sent the greatest Green politician the world has known Al Gore to the sidelines. The NDP need to study how progressive leaders decimated the American Green party.

Full Slate Needed for Debate?

Do you think the Green leader would still get a place in the debate if they weren't running a full slate?