Monday, September 8, 2008

Election strategy for voters

There probably has never been an election where strategic voting has been more important than this one. Let’s face facts. At this time, the only party that has even the remotest chance of forming a majority is the Conservative Party. And the only way that will happen is if the other 3 (or 4, in Quebec) parties manage to split the vote on a riding-by-riding basis, giving the Cons undeserved wins with 30% or less of the popular vote in those ridings.

To simply suggest that folks vote Liberal (or NDP, or Green, or Bloc) across the board will only increase the Cons’ chances, possibly giving them the win and leaving us all with 4 more years of Harper, this time with a possible majority. If that happens, you can say goodbye to the Canada we know and love. It will take years to repair the damage.

So if you want to help ensure that the Cons do not get a majority, then the objective of this election has to be to deny them seats wherever possible. And to do so may mean supporting the candidate in your riding who has the greatest chance to win and/or to unseat a Con incumbent regardless of your own political stripe.

Political affiliations are important, but I believe that preventing a Con majority in this election is even more important. And in reality the differences that exist between the Liberals, Greens and NDP are far, far less than between any of those parties and the Harper Cons. And if we all do this right and deny the Cons their majority, even if they get another minority, we’ll have an opportunity to do it all over again in a couple of years, most likely with Harper gone, at which time you can vote away for your party of choice.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Giving up already and conceding a Harper minority? That sure didn't take long.

"at which time you can vote away for your party of choice"

Thanks for granting my that right, how very "liberal" of you.

Vote for Jack Layton. He has already proven to be the real leader of the opposition.

Canajun said...

Anonymous:
I'm not giving up or conceding anything, just facing reality. If the non-conservative vote is split 3 or 4 ways in a riding, the Cons will win that seat through the back door with 30% of the vote.
If you're cool with that, then vote for whoever you want I know, how "liberal" of me). But if you want to do everything you can to defeat the Con candidate/incumbent, then let's get real and consider giving our support and our $$ and our vote to whoever has a real chance of defeating him/her in that riding.
And if you think about it, if some Liberals vote NDP in some ridings and some NDP vote Liberal in others, it will probably all come out pretty equal atthe end anyway, except thatteh number of Con seats will be reduced in the process.
Seems like a win-win to me.