moon stephen harper

Don't forget moonstephenharper.ca

Intelligent vote swapping?

How do I know the Liberal I swap votes with will actually vote NDP when he's in the booth? Wouldn't his party gain twice if he convinces me to swap my vote but doesn't himself?

Sounds fun, are there 307 Liberals out there that would like to swap votes with me?

Cheating the system - not likely

Budd and Frank, yes it is possible to cheat the system.

But if the person at the other end of, say, Frank's deal votes Liberal, then one of two things must be happening:

1. They're wasting their vote, because of course you're only agreeing to swap votes with someone in a riding where the NDP is closest to winning.

or

2. You agreed to swap with someone in a riding where the Liberals are close to winning, which would be dumb on your part.

So I don't think that's likely to happen.

Dave Thompson: Please explain

1. They're wasting their vote, because of course you're only agreeing to swap votes with someone in a riding where the NDP is closest to winning.

How is the other person wasting their vote if their intention was simply to attract other voters to their party? They have voted for their party, and they have persuaded someone else to do the same, thereby yielding the party another $1.75 per year, plus a small step towards seizing an additional seat in Parliament.

Explained

Budd, they have wasted the only vote they can cast - the one in their riding, where their candidate is not going to be elected, and their party won't win another seat.

As for whether they "attracted" the other person's vote, we have to consider what that person is doing. They are agreeing to vote for the candidate most likely to defeat the Conservative candidate in their riding. Stephen Harper is thus closer to losing the election.

But of course if you think that the possible (but unlikely) gain of $1.75 by the Liberal Party is not worth the price of removing Stephen Harper, then by all means don't vote strategically.

Just remember whose interests you serve if you waste your vote on an opposition candidate who is going to lose. Nobody will be happier than Mr. Harper.

Dave

Since I don't know if the other person actually voted NDP in his riding as agreed I am actually hurting the NDP by not voting for them.

The NDP simply lose $1.75 and they are no closer to winning a seat. That's "strategic voting" in a nutshell.

Besides that, if I were to vote Liberal I'd be voting for a party with the same policies I'm supposed to be voting against.

According to CBC's host on that environmental platform vote last night, the tar sands will produce $51 billion in gov't revenue between now and 2020. The Libs and Cons both want to expand the tar sands and spend all the money in revenue from it on corporate tax cuts.

Doesn't sound like much of an anti-poverty strategy or much of an environmental policy. Dion wants to keep the biggest source of pollution going so he can reduce taxes on corporations.

Instead of "strategic voting" what we need is informed voting.

Strategic voting isn't a good idea

In fact, it may actually have the reciprocal of the desired effect.

We get turnouts of about 60 % in most ridings - I'd suggest that all the strategic voting promos in a riding like Lunn's for example - is more of a motivator for the Conservatives.

Thinking that they 'may' be facing a gang-up vote for, in this case, Penn, against their guy the conservatives in Lunn's HQ are going to redouble their efforts
(a) to motivate their troops for the effort and;
(b) to make sure they drag every barely breathing voter they've identified as supporting Lunn to the polls.

You may disagree with Harper, as I do, but don't assume that Conservatives aren't going to use these efforts in their own way too.

At every candidates meeting all the folks extolling strategic voting should actually be screaming blue murder for a commitment to changing to proportional representation.

Sorry, I just don't think it'll work.

It's already happening

G West, surely you're not suggesting that progressives split their vote in order to lull the Conservatives into not working hard? On that theory, we should tell progressives not to vote at all.

Yes, PR is needed, as I said. And no, it won't happen under Harper.

Yes, strategic voting will work, as explained in the article. But really the bigger point is that it's already working. People are doing it, regardless of what we or the pundits say. Over a million hits on one website - more than 40% of the number of votes the NDP got in the last election (their second best showing ever).

This train is rolling.

Cheating the system - not likely

Frank, you are characterizing an unlikely outcome as the only possible outcome. See my previous postings.

Did you read what I wrote?

As a leftist, if I knew (by going to their websites) that there was a cabal of Liberals and Conservatives (who'd placed 2 and 3 in the last election) who were organizing to back one of their number to edge out my candidate I'd be exercised about it and I'd do my damnedest to organize every one of my lefty friends to haul their asses to the voting booth on Tuesday.

In fact, as a sometime organizer in both BC and Ontario, I use any motivation I can get my hands on to move people who vote my way to get out and exercise their franchise.

All I'm saying is that the concept that a strategic vote organized over the internet in disparate and widely separated locations by anonymous people who may well be using anonymous labels could as easily be a conservative mind fuck as an effective way of corralling your supporters.

I don't care how many hits you have - the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

And, at bottom, even if it is marginally effective in the odd riding, the idea that you can marshal any kind of empirical evidence on the basis of anonymous reports is just plain silly.

People put up websites with a picture of what’s alleged to be Paris Hilton's ass all the time and generate a lot more than a million hits!

Dave

Strategic voting only works to the detriment of the NDP.

Hurting NDP - not anymore

Frank, it used to hurt the NDP, because people used to just switch to the Liberals.

Time have changed.

If you look at the voteforenvironment.ca website, you'll see that the NDP would actually get more seats, not fewer.

Another example Dave

If the Liberals were the kind of party you could actually count on then Brad Zubyk wouldn't have waited until the last w/end to pull his little skinny dipping stunt now would he?

Was that 'strategic'?

I think it was just politics as usual from our 'liberal' friends.

In this game it pays to have a good memory and not think that anyone from the right (which includes the greens in my view) is ever going to do anyone but themselves a favour.

Better To Vote Your Personal Preference...

Out of curiousity, I've gone to the voteforenvironment website on numerous occasions since the election began and frankly a few of the strategic preferences therein don't make sense.

Furthermore, they don't seem to indicate some shifts that have apparently been happening in BC here this week based upon polling and other anecdotal evidence.

One may take the following with a grain of salt, but the pollster, Nanos Research, nationally was bang on within 1/10 of 1% for each party in 2006.

In that vein, Nik Nanos released his firm's BC numbers today and also stated on CPAC that the electorate has been making some strategic choices of its own here in BC, moving from the NDP, the Cons, and the Greens, to the Liberals for various reasons.

CPC - 37% [-4% from 1 week ago, same as in 2006]

Lib - 33% [+9% from 1 week ago, +5% from 2006]

NDP - 24% [-2% from 1 week ago, -5% from 2006]

Grn - 7% [-2% from 1 week ago, +3% from 2006]

If these numbers hold on election day and I'm not saying that they will, if one strategically votes one way to defeat a Con (with their own information), they may, in fact, inadvertantly elect a Con in the vote splits.

I've got a bridge you might want to buy as well

Call my plan "intelligent bridge buying 2.0".

There is a good reason that there is no way to verify that a vote swap transaction has been carried out. I don't think too many people will support eliminating the anonymity of the ballot box. Even agreeing to do something, i.e. cast your ballot according to the wishes of someone else, so that they will cast their ballot according to your wishes may be against the law, and if not, it should be.

There is an answer to the problem that "strategic voting" is designed to solve, and that is proportional representation, or PR. We in BC have one more chance to implement such a system, next election, if we vote in favour of the STV referendum.

Electoral reform seems to be a very rocky road however. The chief beneficiaries of the STV system would have been the BC Green party. Nevertheless, their leadership campaigned against it, and such was the tiny margin of defeat, they can be said unequivocally to have defeated it.

It took these clowns almost 4 years to figure it out, but the Greens are now 100% in support of the STV referendum, which is being run again. However, the memories of both the Liberals and the NDP of unfair election results in the past are fading and STV's best before date may well have passed the Greens by.

But let's drop this talk of vote trading via the internet. Please? I've still got that bridge....

Luke

My own belief is that the latest Nanos poll is the result of people already making a decision to "vote strategically" which is always a vote for the Libs instead of the NDP.

Dave, according to your website, the NDP would get more seats, but most people simply look at the national numbers and vote for the Libs, not the non-Con party actually with the best chance of winning in their riding.

Strategic voting 1.0 vs. 2.0

Luke and Frank, you are quite right that strategic voting with poor information is a bad idea. An example of poor information would be numbers aggregated at the provincial or federal level. That's not what I would call strategic.

Strategic voting to defeat Harper requires information about YOUR OWN RIDING - nothing else will do. That's why the websites with riding-by-riding information are so important (voteforenvironment.ca is apparently not the only one).

David, we do need PR. But please don't fool yourself that it would ever happen while Harper is in government. He has the most to lose of anyone.

The short term priority is to get him out, so that we can get PR in.

Not against the law

PS David, I've heard people claim that vote swapping might be illegal, but I've never heard anyone try to back it up. It's not illegal unless there's a law clearly prohibiting it. And there isn't.

Frank & GWest

I'm fortunate in that I live in a riding where the NDP candidate is a shoo-in. However, if I lived in a "Strategic" riding, I would hold my nose and vote strategically.

A Harper majority government which will most certainly enact its hidden Reform policies presents such an ugly spectre that it is clear that wasting one's vote by voting one's ideological preference is literally cutting off one's nose to spite one's face.

If the $1.75 is an issue, one's conscience is easily salved with a small donation. After all, $1,75 x 4 = only $7.00. Give 'em 10 bucks and you can feel good about it.

not illegal

What's illegal is selling - or anyone else offering to buy a vote. Making a strategic exchange may be naive (or stupid depending upon your point of view) but it's not illegal.

On the other hand, it's hard to argue that the political process as it is presently constituted doesn't amount to a series of not terribly sophisticated attempts to buy the individual voter....

ME2

According to the website, the Libs would get 123 to the NDPs 52. That's a lot of NDP votes going to the Libs and a lot less coming back.

At $1.75 each that's a lot of lost revenue.

And in the end the Libs minority would probably be kept in power by the Cons rather than the NDP. After all they agree on more issues with the Libs than the NDP does and I'm sure they'd rather be the ones influencing the gov't than the scary NDP.

CYNICAL ATTITUDES

Budd, they have wasted the only vote they can cast - the one in their riding, where their candidate is not going to be elected, and their party won't win another seat.

Correct me if I am wrong, Dave Thompson, but you seem to be saying that every vote cast for a losing candidate is a wasted vote? I find that to be a very cynical attitude, a very anti-democratic attitude.

Imaginary Polling Data

In that vein, Nik Nanos released his firm's BC numbers today and also stated on CPAC that the electorate has been making some strategic choices of its own here in BC, moving from the NDP, the Cons, and the Greens, to the Liberals for various reasons.

CPC - 37% [-4% from 1 week ago, same as in 2006]
Lib - 33% [+9% from 1 week ago, +5% from 2006]
NDP - 24% [-2% from 1 week ago, -5% from 2006]
Grn - 7% [-2% from 1 week ago, +3% from 2006]

No one believes these numbers. Where did they come from?

Factual Polling Data :)

Budd, what you are REALLY trying to say is that YOU don't believe these numbers! :)

To re-iterate, today's weekly BC Nanos Research numbers, which are amalgamated from the further break-down of BC's 2 regions.

CPC - 37% [-4% from 1 week ago, same as in 2006]

Lib - 33% [+9% from 1 week ago, +5% from 2006]

NDP - 24% [-2% from 1 week ago, -5% from 2006]

Grn - 7% [-2% from 1 week ago, +3% from 2006]

http://www.nanosresearch.com/election/CPAC-Nanos-Regional%20October%209E.pdf

For further good measure, here is Strategic Counsel's latest tracking poll of BC's battleground ridings:

Liberal: 33 per cent (+6)
Conservative: 31 per cent (-7)
NDP: 23 per cent (+1)
Green Party: 14 per cent (same)

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20081006/election2008_poll_story_081009/20081009?s_name=election2008&no_ads=

Budd, it's just gotta be imaginary. :)

BC Nanos numbers

If those numbers are true its because of the call to "vote strategically". Either that or its because of the Vancouver Sun setting its hair on fire over the perceived NDP strength.

Frank

You conveniently forget, Frank, that in ridings where the NDP is a close second, many Libs-Greens will vote NDP, thereby recovering much of the $1.75s lost elsewhere.

But if Harper achieves a majority, the NDP will again get NO coverage in the press, and no amount of Party funding can replace that.

OTOH, in a minority situation, the NDP can become kingmakers, and their opinion will be sought, giving the NDP a chance to promote its policies, as in the Tommy Douglas days.

And in the final analysis, I'd gladly see a Liberal gov't as opposed to a Con one, esp since it would mean another rejection of Reform policies.

Frank...

Nanos works in conjunction with CPAC.

The Vancouver Sun today has endorsed Harper.

Let's see the next Mustel numbers.

Luke

"Nanos works in conjunction with CPAC."

Why did you say this? I think you misread me.

ME2

Why do you think I "conveniently forgot" something that I mentioned in my post previous to yours? Here it is again

According to the website, the Libs would get 123 to the NDPs 52. That's a lot of NDP votes going to the Libs and a lot less coming back.

That's 123 ridings where NDPers will support Liberals and only 52 ridings where Liberals may support NDPers. Which by the way I doubt would happen because unlike the NDP to Liberal most Liberals have no history of voting strategically. Anyway, considering that nationally there's only about 7% more Liberals that seems like a pretty good deal for them.

When this election is over we'll see if Liberals in large numbers voted NDP in the ridings voteforenvironment has called for. Until then I can only predict I have a lot of doubts.

As for balance of power, I think the Bloc will get that position.

And lastly, a Liberal gov't is not a rejection of Reform policies, the Liberals of 1993 on basically adopted the entire Reform economic platform and served it to us.

Obama isn't good news for Canada.

I wish Canadians took a stronger interest in Canadian politics.

I also wish Canadians looked harder at the so-called, 'Security & Prosperity Partnership' & other 'Free Trade'/ G8/10/20/IMF goals of the Canadian ReichWing establishment.

What's the first thing Canadians heard after the US economy began to tank?
FIRESALE!
Start Talking Free Trade Deal with India: CEOs - Embassy...
10 Sep 2008 ... Over the last year, Canadian and Indian CEOs have met and studied the feasibility of launching free trade negotiations...

Let's remember: Canadians are NOT the 'barely liberal' Obama/'MasterCard' Biden or McCain/HockeyMom's first interest, save as a source of revenue & resource.

Nor are the best interest of Canadians served by selling everything we've got to 'foreign investment' (aka, 'foreign ownership & control') Abu Dhabi owns HOW MUCH of the toxic tar sands? yeah, & they'll be around to clean up the mess? riiiight.

Foreign investors aren't even interested in HIRING resident Canadians to harvest our endangered resources. Newfoundanders can tell you how short Hibernia returned for their local citizenry.

So we're left with ONE image to drive our electoral choice:

PICTURE CANADA AT THE NEGOTIATING TABLE WITH:

-Putin?
-Obama / McCain?
-Manmohan Singh?
-Hu Jintao?
-Angela Merkel?

for the duration of Harper's tenure, we've become de facto American puppets & handed over all our power, principles & resources. Have we simply become used to that role?

- Will Harper represent Canadians? not unless you're a millionaire or an American investor with a company in Canada... or you like making incredibly expensive weaponry & waxing poetic about the US 'War on ... vices'

- Will Dion strongly represent? um...

- Will the articulate & uni-principled American, May, get enough votes? no. Which isn't to say she would be a bad choice, we simply don't know her enough for her to actually win this time.

...WHICH LEAVES, an incredibly GOOD choice: Layton. He's capable, principled & motivated.
Hell, Layton is a strong FIRST choice...

Soooo,

what's the confusion, folks?

Don't tell me you're counting on OBAMA to represent Canadians... because that's simply ignorance & naiveté.

Spread Love, not corporate dependence... BlueBerry Pick'n
can be found @
ThisCanadian
~~~
"... tolerance of intolerance is cowardice..." ~ Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
"We, two, form a Multitude" ~ Ovid.
"Violence can only be concealed by a Lie, & the Lie can only be maintained by Violence." ... "Any man who has once proclaimed violence as his method is inevitably forced to take thelie as his principle" – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." - Voltaire
~~~
"Silent Freedom is Freedom Silenced"

David Thompson: voteforenvironment has no riding information

Strategic voting to defeat Harper requires information about YOUR OWN RIDING - nothing else will do. That's why the websites with riding-by-riding information are so important (voteforenvironment.ca is apparently not the only one).

You're right that riding level information is needed. This is available from Elections Canada, and in provincial elections from the corresponding provincial agencies. That of course is simply the results of the last election in that district.

Beyond that, there is no riding level data on current trends. Period.

What sites like voteforenvironment.ca do is to use provincial and national level polling data, plus their own qualitative judgements based on press inputs, bloggers, and party strategists friendly to the site (READ: Liberals) to calculate by some unstated method the supposed current standings, and then to make their recommendations on who you are supposed to vote for, whether you feel like it or not.

Individual candidate's qualities, performance and positions on the issues, including the enviroment, are not taken into account. These sites, their explicitly stated purpose, and their vote for recommendations are about party only.

Frank and Budd

Frank, it would give the NDs 52 seats, which is 20% better than their best ever showing, and 80% better than what they have now. I think a lot of people haven't heard this, so I will say it again: It will give the NDs more seats, not fewer.

Budd, whether a vote is wasted depends on your goals. If your goal is to remove Stephen Harper, then every vote for a 3rd ranked opposition candidate is indeed a vote wasted. If your goal is something else, then it's not necessarily wasted. I think the million plus hits on these strategic voting sites (conspiracy theories aside) shows pretty clearly what the goal is for a very large number of people.

By the way, consider whether the Tories will keep Harper as leader if he loses an election - this one or the next one. Seven years without a majority...

Budd(2) you can take up the methogology debate with voteforenvironment.ca or any of the others who offer riding-by-riding analysis. But rest assured it is better information than what 99.9% of people would otherwise have.

You strategic voters are hurting the cause

Just stupid--There are 2 big parties in Canada Liberals/Conservatives

If you care about your party then vote for them.
The big 2 parties will always be neck and neck but by voting strategicly you will keep the third and fourth parties support artificialy down.
Suppose in this election if no-one voted strategicly and the results of that had the NDP at 25% the greens at 15%

The fact that we will probably have a minority goverment we will be back at the polls next year.
So in the next election the NDP or Greens will have the big momentum working for them.
Stategic voting which was probably invented by the Conservatives and Liberals in a bi-partisan agreement,serves but one purpose,to keep the 3rd and 4th parties permanetly down and to insure that there will always be only 2 powerful parties!

Can`t any of you see the big picture,your all falling into the trap set up by the lib/con agreement
There`s one born every minute!

What is "the cause"?

I don't think you would find agreement on what constitutes "the cause," let alone who is hurting it.

A lot of people are heading toward strategic voting right now. Probably because they don't think that any particular party increasing its seat count is a very compelling cause.

But if you read the article, you'll see that the new style of strategic voting would actually help the 3rd and 4th place parties increase their seat counts.

I don't think the Conservatives are very happy about the anti-Harper strategic voting that's developing. They would prefer to see the status quo remain, i.e. progressive voters all over the map in many ridings, dividing their votes among several parties while the Tory candidates win.

What I really can't understand is this: what is it about the status quo that some progressives think is so great?

Huh?

Pardon me Dave, are you suggesting

that progressives 'like' the status quo?

I don't think there's any evidence of that - so what are you saying?

Status quo "progressives"

I can't speak for David, G West, but there are plenty of party hacks, spin doctors and pork choppers who seem to be very happy with our electoral system and traditional campaigning as they are. I wonder if they are the same ones who oppose any kind of proportional representation?

Some may remember the attempts to build cooperation between NDP and Greens before the 2005 election in BC. Many rank and file activists and a smattering of union leaders signed their names to the Broad Coalition and the Coalition for BC. Alas, the party leaders and back room types ignored it, and we got Gordon Campbell again.

When a union like the CAW took direction from its membership and promoted strategic voting in a federal election in order to prevent Harper from winning, the Ontario Provincial NDP excommunicated its leader. (see http://www.walrusmagazine.com/articles/2006.05-politics-jack-layton-ndp-fake-left-go-right/)

(Hmm, I wonder if any of that had to do with historic animosity between Canadian unions and US-based multinational unions like Steel, which are prominent in Ontario?!)

I'm glad to see that the CAW is promoting strategic voting and sites like voteforenvironment in this election.

The voteforenvironment.ca site may not have everything figured out, but I know a lot of activists, as well as non-activist people, who are very heartened to at last have some more tools to try to prevent the Harperites from getting back in, let alone a majority. If there are ways their numbers are off, why not suggest ways to make them more accurate, instead of dismissing the project?

Thanks, David, for writing this piece, and for taking the time to patiently explain and defend the concept in this space.

The Status Quo - you betcha!

G West, yes!

Of course I think some progressives like the status quo.

Isn't it obvious?

They strongly defend it, despite how it hurts progressive causes.

There's loads of evidence.

By now it should be fairly clear that splintering among federal opposition parties hands electoral victories to the Tories.

And yet we see some progressives (certainly not all) opposing proportional representation, mergers, anything-but-Harper campaigns, strategic voting (2.0), and the like.

Who do you think benefits most from these status quo positions?

The guy who wins the election: Stephen Harper.

For those progressives who think they should just keep doing what they've been doing until they win, I offer the well-known quote from Einstein. The definition of insanity: "doing the same thing over and over, and expecting a different result."

Dave

You say there's lots of evidence...but you don't actually provide any.

How come?

Progressives change things, it often takes time - but they're the only ones doing it.

My view.

I wait for some actual evidence - apart from the fact that Bill Tieleman likes first past the post.

I'll even forgive it in Bill - because he's very progressive in lots of other ways.

It's easy to anathemize people who don’t agree with a particular tactic at this moment…but I think it is a dangerous thing to do.

Dave Thompson: voteforenvironment.ca will NOT discuss methods

Budd, whether a vote is wasted depends on your goals. If your goal is to remove Stephen Harper, then every vote for a 3rd ranked opposition candidate is indeed a vote wasted. If your goal is something else, then it's not necessarily wasted. ...

Budd(2) you can take up the methogology debate with voteforenvironment.ca or any of the others who offer riding-by-riding analysis. But rest assured it is better information than what 99.9% of people would otherwise have.

Dave Thompson, are you the same David Thompson who authored the article? I hadn't noticed the similarity of names before.

Thanks for your first point above. It is indeed conditional on the voter's objectives, and the notion that any real voter's one and only objective is to get rid of someone is kind of absurd. It's based on a grotesque view of popular opinion that only overheated partisans would think is a real model of actual voter behaviour.

There are many who disagree with Harper and want to vote effectively in opposition to what his party has done (eg, muzzling scientists and experts, allowing disruptive "free votes" on social conservative hobby horses, pursuing the Afgan policy, and many more).

But usually people who object strongly to Party A do so because they have some contrary values in mind, and any strategic choice has to keep those values in mind. If the party in your district with the best arithmetic chance of taking that seat away from the dreaded Party A is just as objectionable on other grounds as Party A, the voter has a fundamental philosophical dilemna. What do they do? Vote out the dreaded Party A and replace them with the equally dreaded Party B, ... only to reverse the process next time?

That is exactly what some clever and manipulative cynics in the major media and interest group circles would like the game of strategic voting to become, a perpetual merry-go-round that in the end serves the single purpose of helping to maintain the basic Red/Blue duopoly at the federal level. It's very, very hard for me to believe Dave that you're not fully aware of this neat little angle, because it's been played that way so many times in recent years.

On your second point, Dave, I find your argument to be more than just a bit off-side. I did write to voteforenvironment.ca and sent them a BC 2006 election spreadsheet of my own. While I did receive a reply from them, it did not offer any explanation at all of their methodology, so for you to now claim that they will discuss it is not accurate at all. I am sure the same is true of the other websites, and it's very hard to accept that you're not fully aware of the desire these sites have to play their statistical cards close to their vest.

The bottom line is this. For anyone wanting to vote strategically, either to get rid of the Conservatives or for any other purpose, there is no source in Canada which contains any additional accurate and unbiased data beyond what is avaiable from the Elections Canada website.

Dave, if you sincerely want to do voters who read The Tyee a favour, why not direct them to the Elections Canada site instead of steering them to these temporary sites, that you know full well are sponsored by various partisans and that offer up estimates and guesstimates of unknown origin and unknown quality? Do you have something against Elections Canada?

Status quo strategies are not working

G West, have you really not heard of some progressives opposing proportional representation, mergers, anything-but-Harper campaigns, strategic voting (2.0), or the like?

That's what I'm talking about with the status quo: resisting new strategies, and clinging to old ones that clearly are not working.

How do I know they are not working? Stephen Harper is the Prime Minister of Canada.

But it's not all progressives that cling to the status quo. Large numbers of progressives are in fact turning to more hopeful ideas. And I expect many more will in the next election.

Strategic voting 1.0 vs. 2.0 again

Budd, I'm surprised by your view that no "real voter's one and only objective is to get rid of someone." I think that in the current election there are a whole lot of real voters who could tell you that you're wrong.

You mention the way strategic voting has been played "in recent years." So I suspect you still think I'm defending strategic voting 1.0 (i.e. "vote Liberal if you don't like the Tories"). I'm not. It's not really stategic.

On Elections Canada, as I said before, you can take up the methodological debate with those who provide riding-by-riding analysis - whether they are at one of the websites, a polling company, Elections Canada or somewhere else.

I am not associated with any of these websites or sources, and don't plan to defend them. I will only offer my observation that the easy availability of riding-by-riding analysis makes truly strategic voting possible.

Dave

Sure I've heard a lot of anecdotal evidence and I've seen a few websites that indicate some folks are feverishly chasing their tails in circles in hopes that they can prevent Harper from getting a majority.

I've seen no evidence that real progressives, people like Bill Tieleman who (as I pointed out) still believe in first past the post, are setting their hair on fire about it.

Furthermore, why would anyone trust someone they don't know halfway across the country, or province, to do anything like vote a specific way.

Just like here at Tyee, I have no idea who is behind these labels.

In face, in several cases I'm pretty well convinced a few posters here are paid media monitors (that’s the label Campbell gives them by the way).

So no, I don't think that progressives are very likely to go for these cockamamie schemes.

A lot of Canadians don't like Harper much - nor do I. But I think you'd have a far better chance to get rid of him if you put your efforts into getting people out to vote on Tuesday and stopped wasting your time on internet 'organizing'.

G West

I have thinking about your assertion against polling.
The more I think about it the more it makes sense.
Perhaps all polling should be banned once the writ has been dropped,then people would not know who was leading across and or in and individual ridings,then people would vote for the party they truly support!
AlL though it would lead to a large number of unemployed pollsters running amok in the streets breaking street lights and stealing hubcaps!

Dave: Elections Canada and Counterpart Prov sites already do it

I am not associated with any of these websites or sources, and don't plan to defend them. I will only offer my observation that the easy availability of riding-by-riding analysis makes truly strategic voting possible.

Dave, not to belabour the point unduly, but these site which are sponsored by partisans of one kind or another add no real value whatsoever to the data a voter can already obtain online from the official Elections Canada website and counterpart provincial elections sites.

Their use of polling data to produce supposed current estimates remains unexplained, and therefore suspect. They are not going to release their methodology. Period.

And I repeat, for no real voter is there any single criteria of "getting rid of someone". They may indeed desire to see the last of some particular party, especially one in power at the time, but they don't want just any replacement. Implicit in their rejection of that party are some contrary values or priorities, and a genuine strategic alternative, or a non-strategic one, needs to embody a qualitative improvement as well as some arithmetic odds.

If there's an editorial meme doing the rounds this year that getting rid of Harper is all there is, then I can only say that this reminds me of any one of a number of overly negative BC provincial elections that people have learned to dislike.

And it also reminds me of the 1993 federal election, when getting rid of the Tories and defeating the debt/deficit problem was editorially deemed to be the only considerations. The replacement party, the Liberals, and their chief opposition Reform, used that single minded and uncritical "beat the deficits" mantra to cut health, education and social insurance. Are we going to see the same trick this time with climate change as the overarching priority that no one can discuss respectfully without being labelled a climate change denier? There are apparently a lot of academics who have signed open letters and written op-ed pieces who would be happy to channel the debate in that way.

It's already happening

G West, it doesn't really matter whether you or I think progressives will or won't adopt strategic voting. The media is reporting it, people are figuring it out at the dinner table, one site alone has had more than a million hits.

I think the question is really whether they're doing it wisely.

Budd, are there still climate change deniers out there? Once GWB and Harper both acknowledged climate change is happening, and is serious, and needs to be stopped (not to mention thousands of actual climate scientists saying the same things for a decade), and all major parties in Canada adopted emission targets and strategies, the whole denial position kind of fell apart.

There may be a few blogs where this kind of thing still gets discussed, but you don't really see it much in the mainstream anymore. The debate seems to have moved on to how best to stop it.

A million hits!

Big deal.

As I wrote earlier about this subject, a picture of Paris Hilton's ass will get a million hits many times over.

Anyone who does offer up their vote for the false promise of someone else voting their intention in another riding is, in my view, so utterly naive that they may need help walking across the street.

Sorry, it's a nothing event and the fact some media mavens have decided it is worth a mention in the papers or on the nightly news says more about the degradation of the fourth estate than it does about trends in voting.

If Harper doesn't get a majority it's more a question of a dismal campaign, a penchant for control that has turned even his supporters off and abysmal timing.

I happened to hear a short item on the radio today - a former Conservative MP from Alberta was being interviewed along with former NDP MP Lorne Nystrom...they were jointed by Kady O'Malley from Macleans.

The interviewer brought up the Harper cuts to arts and culture.

In defence the Conservative explained that the budget had actually increased and that the only 'artists' who'd had their grants pulled were into pornography.

Kady O'Malley spoke up and discussed why the budget went up (because it included items like the Olympics) and mentioned actual figures and confirmed that pee wee HAD cut funding for the arts and culture significantly.

The Conservative laughed and said:
"Well, if you're going to cloud this discussion with the facts!!"

I want to see some facts about strategic voting...that's all.

David Thompson

Dave, Global Warming is a meme, and like all memes, it has taken on a life of its own and no longer requires supportive evidence to be believed.

So far, GW remains an unproven theory only, and proponents have yet to produce the hard evidence any scientific theory usually requires to become virtually unchallengeable.

Dion is cooked

Dion put his foot in his mouth today,its all over.

Dion stated today that because of economic reason he may have to delay some of his flatform promises until the 3rd AND 4TH YEAR OF HIS TERM --The items he said the he would delay--National day care--Training of nurses and doctors--Catastropic drug relief

The reason--Because he would have to fast track major infrastructure projects to create employment.

First off,you just can`t start building build a bridge tommorrow,assessments,bids,contractors take time!
Second,national daycare would probably take three to four years to set up if you started tommorrow,you need spaces,caregivers,and funding,todays small kids and toddlers CAN`T WAIT FOR DAYCARE

Third,if you start training dr.s and nurses tommorrow they wouldn`t be ready for years,if you start in 4 years well your looking at a decade.

4th--Catastrophic drug care 4 years down the road doesn`t do todays sick people any good.
Yet he can do the greenshift right away!

The three biggest parts to his platform can be tossed away in a blink!

Just wait until that runs its course

DION IS DONE--Its not easy to have priorities?

Time will tell egmont

I found pee wee's gloss about the Cadman thing more than a little interesting.

I think they deserve each other...these two parties have gotten the country into this mess - voting for either of them seems ill-advised to me.

Dave Thompson: What debate?

The debate seems to have moved on to how best to stop it.

What debate?

The intellectual authorities, including 200 university economists, have all said it must be a carbon tax, and cannot be a cap and trade system alone, even to start with.

They have gone on to say that this carbon tax must be revenue neutral, with all the proceeds handed back as cuts in individual and corporate income taxes. They are not interested in any debate on these priorities, and some of their leaders from both SFU and UBC have described the NDP's cap and trade position as dishonest in various CanWest pieces.

That's not engaging in a constructive debate. That's an attempt to use one's established intellectual authority as a tenured professor to forestall and foreclose debate.

Again, I find the parallel to the early 1990s debt/deficit crusades highly instructive. The idea is to make it an urgent crisis, present one position as the only alternative in a totalizing presentation, and then use that to push through other changes that are the real object of the game.