State polls for the general election are beginning to appear in the swing states for the November election. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton both do well in some red states, albeit different ones. Since we all know popular vote doesn’t matter, here is a batch of polls released this past couple of weeks. (caveat: the election is months away)
Colorado (red state, 9 electoral college votes)
Obama 48 McCain 42 McCain 47 Clinton 44
Missouri (red state 11 electoral college votes)
Clinton 48 McCain 46 McCain 48 Obama 45
Iowa (red state, 7 electoral college votes)
Obama 44 McCain 42 McCain 45 Clinton 42
These three are margin of error polls, so take them with a grain of salt, with Obama pulling ahead in Colorado.
Here is one with a bigger margin.
The gimme is Arkansas, where Clinton is the former governor’s wife.
Arkansas (red state, 6 electoral college votes) Clinton 53 McCain 39 McCain 57 Obama 33
Now we get to the big swing states with more college votes
If one is going to argue Colorado is a big margin, they would need to argue this one is a big margin as well…
North Carolina (red state, 15 electoral college votes)
McCain 51 Obama 43 Clinton 49 McCain 43
The most startling gap, in my opinion is the next one, especially a sore point for some Democrats, since this state will not get any delegates to the national convention.
No blue states have shown much vulnerability in recent weeks. Obama was back up by 8 over McCain in Pennsylvania (21), which should allay the fears of some Democrats.
One that could also switch red is New Hampshire (4), which likes McCain very much.
Polls also show both Democrats winning New Mexico (5).
The Democrats have traditionally done well in West Virginia (5). There is no polling data from there as of yet.
Barack Obama telling Republicans to stop attacking his wife for making an unpatriotic comment really puzzled me for three reasons.
Firstly, does Obama actually think the Republicans will be nice this presidential campaign? Even though he was forceful, saying “lay off my spouse”, it was still whining and Presidents don’t whine. She said what she said. Live with it. The Republicans will not do you any favors.
Secondly, you can’t blame McCain for ads a state Republican Party runs…if you don’t blame Obama for comments they are making about Cindy McCain about her tax return. McCain can’t control his entire party, and if Obama really thinks McCain can exert that kind of influence, he better be prepared to defend all the spots made by Democrats until November.
Thirdly, and most startlingly, Obama does not want his wife to face criticism, yet this is the campaign that ran around South Carolina calling Bill Clinton, who many Black people called the “First Black President” while he was in office, a racist. They attacked and smeared Bill Clinton, Hillary’s spouse, when it would benefit them, but now that his wife faces criticism, it’s “lay off”.
All this leads me to believe either Obama wants a double-standard, which would not be anything new, or he is simply naïve and inexperienced, both of which are far worse than anything his wife has ever said.
I have always supported a carbon tax, because if we truly believe that carbon based emissions are causing permanent environmental damage, and personal health damage, the government is in its right to tax it, the same way it taxes cigarettes and alcohol.
This is why I supported the idea 2 years ago when someone explained to me why this would not be a simple tax grab, but just punishing those who pollute, and rewarding those who save. Since then, the youth wing in Quebec always advocated the implementation of a carbon tax.
Here is David Suzuki today on Question Period.
Poor Jack!, I think the Liberals may have their election ad…
"I'm really shocked at the NDP on this, because I had thought the NDP had a very progressive outlook on this, and that astounds me. We have the same thing in British Columbia, a government that has proposed a carbon tax, and I take my hat off to them. Economists have been telling us that this is the most effective way to get people to change their behavior, and to have the NDP in British Columbia attacking this just astounds me, because there is just no question, this is the way to go. It's revenue neutral, it's not a tax grab, governments can use the revenue to help people, tax rebates for lower income. To oppose, this because of ideology or something is just nonsense. This is something that has got to come."
An excerpt from the Leaders Dinner in Montreal tonight
“I said that we Quebecers formed a nation when Stephen Harper had goose bumps hearing talk about distinct society. I have never seen any opposition between the Quebec nation and the Canadian nation. I am a little guy from Quebec [City]; there is nothing too nice for the city of Quebec. Quebec [City] is the cradle of Quebecers, Quebec is the cradle of French Canadians and all North American francophones. But the country we know, Canada, would never have been possible without [Quebec City founder Samuel De] Champlain and without what happened in 1608. Quebec is the cradle of the whole of Canada.”
Poor “blue collar white people” who Obama cannot connect to are “bitter” at their lives so they “cling” to things.
But yeah, apparently all the “bitter” people are supporting Clinton.
Something tells me if Obama doesn’t shape up fast and apologize to these people, the bitter vote will cling to John McCain, and it will have nothing to do with race.
Now when I *meet* someone, I like to get to know them better. I ask about their hobbies, their interests, if they cheer for the Canadiens, you know, the basic, but important stuff.
Now thankfully I have left the political realm, because if I was ever Minister of Foreign Affairs, my first dates would go alot differently...
Me: Hi
Unlucky suitor no.1: Hello there, nice to meet you. I have heard so many things...
Me: thats what I was afraid of
Unlucky suitor no. 1: haha
Me: so are you a terrorist?
Unlucky suitor no. 1: Excuse me?
Me: are you affiliated with bikers or organized crime?
Unlucky suitor no.1: Um no. Why are you asking these questions?
Me: I'm sorry it comes with my job. When the RCMP and CSIS look into your past, are they gonna find any pictures of you with shady people? Those opposition members sure are pesky.
Unlucky Suitor no.1: Check please!
See, this is the problem with the whole kerfuffle about Maxime Bernier and his ex-girlfriend.
"The state has no affairs in the bedrooms of the nation."
The nation also has no affairs in the bedrooms of the state. It works both ways.
Here is a quote spoken just seconds after Trudeau made the famous one above.
"what's done in private between adults doesn't concern the Criminal Code."
It also does not concern Stephane Dion, Michael Ignatieff, Gilles Duceppe and company.
And using national security as an excuse to violate even this basic principle is very...um...whats the word im looking for here...big brother. We try and protect civil liberties in Canada. The last thing we want is the government monitoring everything "in the interest of national security".
Growing up, I was thrust into a world that was very unfamiliar to me. I was the son of two working class parents, living from paycheque to paycheque, attending Lower Canada College…
Given that I was politically oriented from a very early age, I always found it was very interesting to live in one world during the day, and heading home to a different one at night. One way to really understand class is to experience two different ones on a daily basis like I did for 7 years.
Being (somewhat) educated, I am able to listen to politicians and find faults in their arguments pretty easily. I’ve gotten pretty good at tearing people down.
However, I know when an idea is going to be popular. My extreme distaste for populism stems from politicians taking advantage of a large group of people who simply don’t know better. I disliked John Edwards because I believed he was a person with a 400$ haircut trying to take advantage of average working class Americans. Some may call that snobbery. How do I know what is best for people? In our own way, we all judge others for political decisions they make because we feel we are more intelligent than they are. Where is the balance?
My father is a janitor at a shopping mall at the corner of Frontenac and Ontario streets in the Hochelaga district of Montreal. I spent many days there as a kid, even working there one summer as a stockboy as my classmates were in Europe or on a beach somewhere. Those who know Montreal well know the area. It is poor; filled with people who are the victims of bad decisions or have made bad decisions themselves.
The memory that stayed with me the most from that summer was on the first day of August, the manager of the store where I worked asked me to go deposit a cheque at the Caisse Populaire in the mall. As I strolled around the corner, I saw a line of at least 200 people waiting at the bank. I couldn’t believe my eyes. My dad sees me there shell-shocked and comes over to me laughing. “Tony, it is the first of the month, not everybody lives like your friends at school. Hurry up and go earn your money.”
Later that day, I was at the depanneur in the strip mall on my lunch break, buying my dad cigarettes (I was 14 lol). I had a conversation with the owner of the depanneur, who was grinning from ear to ear. He explained to me that the first of the month was like Christmas in the place. “Nothing beats being the guy selling the cigarettes next to a Caisse Pop when people get their welfare checks.” I think I am still somewhat traumatized by that lazy summer August day. I didn’t learn the value of a dollar that day; I earned the value of an earned dollar.
I wanted to take that story to remind people why nobody in Indiana or North Carolina is listening to economists in their ivory towers right now surrounding the gas tax holiday issue. Will giving Americans a break on the gas tax in the United States bring down the cost of oil? Of course it won’t. When we looked at policy to bring down the cost of gas, we found there was no short term solution, that 70$ for a barrel of oil would continue going up in the short term and that alternate sources of energy, including ethanol, which is causing a global food shortage, would bring down the cost of a barrel of crude oil.
Also, you can use coal to make oil at the cost of 55 dollars a barrel, at a huge detriment to the environment. If the US moved to do that immediately, the price of gasoline could fall almost a dollar a gallon by the end of the decade. Using coal to make oil would also be another short term solution, but long term, for the sake of the environment, we need to waste less energy, and produce more renewable energy. When oil was at 70$ a barrel this didn’t seem worth it. When oil is 115$ dollars a barrel, it may be time to consider it as a temporary option.
The only thing a government can directly control in the short-term is the gas tax, and in Canada’s case, the GST on the gas tax. Eliminating either is not a long-term solution. However, a holiday on the tax at the expense of the oil companies, who are taking in billions, is not impossible.
I know it sounds like Robin Hood taking from the rich and giving to the poor, but basically what Clinton is saying to the American people is: “Okay, I can give you a little break this summer and make the oil companies pay for gouging consumers. However, if we want this to stop, we have to get serious on alternate sources of fuel.” There has never been a better opportunity to get the American people onside with alternate sources of energy than now, as they are paying record prices for gas.
So to all those economists, yes it is only 30 dollars. However, those are 30 earned dollars to those people. So while economists drink a 7 dollar latte, a working family in Indiana can afford to buy that extra loaf of bread, or rent that movie to entertain the kids because they can’t afford to take them out. Never tell anybody what their dollar is worth to them.
That is the glaring mistake Obama and his Obamaniacs are making by calling this a scheme and not giving it serious thought. When people say things like “that is only 30$, pennies a day”, they sound elitist, because they are saying these people do not need the money, and that oil companies should just pocket the 8 billion dollars.
To be fair, Obama also said he would tax windfall profits and use the money to invest in renewable energy. Probably a wise thing to do in the long term. However, people are struggling now. They need relief now. The American spirit can only take these people so far. Telling them there is nothing we can do about this for the next 10-15 years is lying to their faces Barack, there is only things you do not want to do.
This is the very difficult lesson Hillary and Bill Clinton are teaching Obama as they barnstorm through small-town Indiana and North Carolina.
When Obama says these people do not need that money, he sounds like a guy who went to Lower Canada College, telling everybody that he knows better than them, that he knows what to do with their money. What working-class Americans are responding back is that after hearing Obama tell them that their earned money isn’t useful to them, his change is something they can do without…
I know my support for Hillary has caused a stir among many of my friends.
I wanted to link an ad which I believe to be the best I have seen so far. If Hillary were to somehow miraculously win the nomination, I would run this ad against John McCain all day long.
I keep telling people nothing surprises me about politics anymore.
I was proven wrong today by the Conservative Party.
If I were an ambitious opposition party, I would bother asking the Conservatives if they have any confidence in the Ontario Superior Court, who signed the warrant.
They should also ask if they have confidence in the RCMP, who carried out the “visit”.
Would Harper even ask the GG for an election if he loses a confidence vote? Can he turn his fate to a body his government has no confidence in? I am simply floored…
Bar Le Stud, a local leather bar (and before you ask, eww no) here in Montreal has settled a lawsuit brought forward by a woman who was not served by the bar because she had a vag and it was a gay bar.
Some in the gay community were incensed that a gay bar couldn’t refuse female patrons. I thought differently. The thing about equal rights people is that they have to be equal. The majority doesn’t have the right to keep out the minority, and yes, the minority doesn’t have the right to keep the majority out.
Edit: I had four different people from different parts of the Liberal Party confirm to me he was not, in fact, bilingual.
He will be speaking to the media in the upcoming days and we will be able to see for ourselves.
The point of this post was NEVER to smear anyone. I have met Doug Ferguson once, and I admit I did not speak to him in French. He is a good person. I know lots of unilingual good people.
If he is bilingual, and not bilingual in the Cory Pike way, but you know, able to speak and comprehend both languages, then I apologize, and I will be very glad to inform the four people who told me otherwise that they were indeed misinformed.
I will reiterate again my belief that any official, in any national party ,who speaks on behalf of a national party like a President or National Director, does need to be bilingual.
Sigh. Is it so hard to find someone who can speak two languages in this country?
I know Brigitte is 28 (Happy Birthday Brig!) but at least she took the time to learn English.
Poulin was the first President of the Party since David Johnston to be bilingual. (for the record that was back in 1994)
The point is the Liberal Party would never elect a President who did not speak English.
I know the Tory Party President isn't bilingual either.
Shame on both of them if you ask me.
The Liberals are the party of bilingualism. They should be held to a higher standard. I want to see a Liberal come tell me the LPC would entertain electing a unilingual francophone as Party President.
Marie Poulin had to step down as LPC President and the LPC is looking for a replacement. Under the statutes of the party, the replacement for President must be either the VP Anglophone or VP Francophone of the party.
So the Liberal Party may be entering a federal election with one of 2 possibilities for LPC President.
Either one who cannot communicate with a quarter of Canadians, or someone who is bilingual but is celebrating her 28th birthday in a couple of days.
I think somebody will owe me a beer after this one...
It was a brilliant PR move to send Stephane Dion to the Habs-Bruins finale on Monday night. Sitting him between Ken Dryden and the Big M was certain to get the Liberal leader some free air time. The crowd will always give Ken Dryden an ovation.
Now remember Stephane, the PHILADELPHIA FLYERS. Start throwing the name Harper around with Hextall and compare Jack! Layton to Danny Briere for all his incessant whining.
Speaking of Monday night, how many of you could hear Harry Sinden screaming GHOSTS when Mike Komisarek’s shot went off a Bruin stick and by Tim Thomas? Or when Mark Streit did his best Maurice Richard impression in the 2nd period to go up 2-0?
Many former Habs have gone on to be great supporters of the Liberal Party, notably Ken Dryden and Serge Savard. They can all attest to the magic that surrounds the Montreal Canadiens and the city of Montreal during playoff time. The Liberals have a little magic of their own. How many times have the Liberals unexpectedly been saved by irrational circumstances? Maybe the ghosts of Mackenzie King, Laurier, Saint Laurent, and Trudeau are rearing their heads…much to the dismay of the Conservatives…
A few months ago (maybe weeks?), Stephane Dion was a listless leader with no grip on his own party, no support in his home province outside Montreal, and no chance in hell at becoming Prime Minister, a first for a Liberal leader in over a century. Now a Conservative scandal a day with only days left to force an election before the summer and it is looking more and more likely Dion will be moving into 24 Sussex in time for Canada Day. Some call it luck, but during playoff time in Montreal, we call it ghosts.
The biggest non-hockey ovation of the night went to none other than JEAN CHRETIEN. I have to point something out to the Quebec Liberals who like to rail on Chretien. When Jean Chretien became Liberal leader, the Forum crowd booed the English words to O Canada. Now they give Jean Chretien an ovation. How times have changed…
I had a conversation with a friend about why Elections Canada would go to a judge in Toronto to get a warrant signed when it could just have easily sought a judge in Ottawa.
Did Elections Canada go judge-shopping? The warrant seemed like it could have been signed by any judge. Elections Canada had all the evidence it needed to get a warrant. They really didn’t need to go to Toronto to find a Liberal-appointed judge anyway. Besides, I am sure Ottawa has its fair share.
Judges are politically appointed. However, they are expected to be objective. If the warrant was bad, and a judge allowed a search anyway, the judge would face expulsion and possibly criminal charges. Conservatives can scream all they want, no judge is going to jail for the Liberal Party…
So even if it was a Liberal-appointed judge, is this where the infamous “leak” came from? I doubt it, since the media arrived before the Liberal Party, and even at that, EC had already been there for hours. Like I said before, no judge would risk their job and even jail time over this. It is likely, someone in the building saw people going to CPC HQ and carrying out boxes. It really wouldn’t take long for one person to tell somebody else. CTV is across the street. It wouldn’t take long before everybody and anybody was on the scene.
Ottawa is a small town, word gets around fast.
That is when it dawned on me.
Ottawa is a small town, word gets around fast.
If EC went to the Superior Court in Ottawa to get this warrant, word may get out, and word may get out to Conservative officials, giving them ample time to gear up the shredders. I am not accusing the Tories of hiding evidence. However, I hardly blame EC for taking any chances. Their job was to get what they were after, and word getting out to the Conservative Party would probably jeopardize the entire investigation.
In the end Elections Canada got what they wanted, and the Conservatives didn’t get a heads up, meaning that we will now be able to get to the bottom of this. But before the Conservatives go about smearing the reputation of the Canadian Justice system, they should probably realize that Elections Canada went to Toronto to make sure the Canadian Justice system would be able to function properly, and in turn, do what it is mandated to do to the Canadian people. Some people may not like that. The law doesn’t care…
Well, after accidentally becoming leader of the Liberal Party, Stephane Dion has a very good chance of accidentally becoming Prime Minister. While Quebec newspaper editors are trying to prevent their heads from exploding, Stephane Dion has about a 50% chance of overtaking the Tories in seats in the House of Commons, potentially taking a minority government with as little as 120 seats.
Stephane Dion may be headed into a perfect storm in the coming months. The Conservatives, who managed some popular populist measures in their 2 years in office, have not managed to convince more than 40% of Canadians that a right wing party is the right choice for Canada.
The last election was fought on ethics, and while Paul Martin and his band of merry men look flustered when it came to the conduct of their party, after footage of an RCMP raid hits the airwaves in Liberal ads, Gomery will only look like a thing of the past. There won’t be any news of an RCMP investigation into the government to hurt the Liberals, but there may be one haunting Stephen Harper. Not to mention Cadscam, which may not be enough to charge the Tories with fraud, but it will certainly be enough to warrant an investigation, especially with the Prime Minister on tape talking about offers.
Then there are expectations. The expectations for Stephane Dion are so painfully low, that all he has to do to surpass them is not screw up. Nobody understands Dion when he speaks English you say? Well if voters understand what Dion has to say during the campaign, it will already be a plus!
What about Jack! Layton? Well, maybe Canadians thought Jack! had a point when he asked Canadians to “park their vote with the NDP, just this once”. If I were an ambitious Young Liberal, I would get a copy of that quote, because it is time for Jack! to pay the piper. Canadians have surely learned their lesson. Parking your vote with the NDP will get your vote towed.
What is Stephane Dion supposed to do about the rising green Party movement in Canada? He needs to offer a real green plan that he will implement. He can even challenge the other parties to throw his government out if he fails to come through on his promise. He needs something substantive, especially a Carbon “Call-Me-Tax-If-You-Have-To” Investment Account. If May sees that the only way this will happen will be for her voters in swing ridings to throw out their Tory MPs, the message will go out. It won’t send thousands of votes to the Liberals, but in many ridings a few hundred will be enough.
Dion has shown leadership a couple of times while he served as a minister, most importantly when he negotiated the tricky Clarity Act through Parliament, after days of filibustering by the Bloc. “Just like I promised the Separatists would not steal this country, I promise the Conservatives will not pollute it.” Was that so hard?
Speaking of Quebec, it may the province that puts Stephane Dion into office. Cue the irony! Harper and Dion are competing for exactly ZERO of the same Quebec seats. In the ridings the Tories are after, the Liberals poll in single digits and vice versa, where the Tory vote in Liberal ridings peaks in the teens. Gilles Duceppe has made it clear he will focus mostly on saving his hide by attacking Harper. (it makes sense since attacking Dion will increase Harper’s votes in the close ridings outside Montreal.)
There are 5 or 6 ridings in the Montreal area which the BQ’s new turn to the right may alienate and are potential pickups for the Liberals, including the NDP riding of Outremont, where Tom Mulcair will have to expect the separatist voters who helped elect him may not be so supportive in a general election, especially when all the students have moved out of their residences…
As for me, I’ll be moving out April 28th (sorry Massimo) and I’ll be moving to Outremont in the McGill ghetto, and from what the students down there are telling me, by the time I get there, most of the NDP machine at McGill which worked tirelessly for Tom Mulcair, will be safely home in Toronto…
So as the pundits prepare to assail Stephane Dion for calling an election now, after months of backing down, they should really note that many small things are in Dion’s favor, and with a bit of momentum, we may see Prime Minister Stephane Dion back in the fall…
