Kiss my Grits

This will be short. (maybe not)

Talking about the next election, I am gobsmacked that there are Union members who want to vote for Harper because they 'don't like' McGuinty's policies, or they don't like how Ignatieff spent some of his time in the states. They seem willing to throw the dice on a Conservative majority.

This is playing with fire with the right's unstated aims of negating collective bargaining, rolling back Union rights, and capping memberships, just as happened in Wisconsin, New Hampshire, and elsewhere in the states.

In fact, it's not just within Unionists. There's all sorts of confusion about the choices, and it has left voters unable to recount even the simplest of campaign platforms. Still others want to lodge a 'protest vote' to throw their vote into the abyss of the Rhino party, or the Marijuana party, rather than stand up for the parties that will actually advance their interests. Yet they complain they hate the Conservatives. To that end, without strategic voting they will be governed by the Conservatives ad nauseum.

It's pretty simple.

Every vote for anything other than the Liberals, is a vote for the Conservative government.

How does that work? The Conservatives, riding at 42% in the polls, can't get a majority unless they woo another 9% from the other parties. The other parties, Liberals, NDP, and Greens, hold roughly 55% of the vote. The percent isn't really important at this point for the argument.

What's important here is that, ruling out a coalition, to defeat the Conservatives one other party has to have 43% of the vote. No matter how passionately we cast our ballots, if the left-center can't woo Conservatives into the fold, which is unlikely, and can't form a coalition, we will always be the bridesmaids.

Me, I don't even really care which left party it is. Let's just get it together!

Since when did the left become so fragmented? We have three parties representing our interests making up over 50% of the vote, and no chance of running the country!

What is funny is that when the Reform party split the right, there was no hope of them ever getting in, and it also dragged the Conservatives down with them. Stephen Harper himself in his 'unite the right' campaign toyed with a coalition of the right to defeat the then-unstoppable Liberals. It's no wonder he has to demonize the word 'Coalition'. It's about the only way he'll be defeated.

To this end, we have two options. Unite the left. (hopefully Liberals with a newly woo-ed Jack Layton), or fragment the right. In uniting the left, we have to stop thinking of political parties as choices, and start looking at them as venues for bringing up our own ideas. Do we get more done with the Liberals in power, and the ability to influence the process by our rightful freedom of expression, or the Conservatives? Because lets face it, unless there is a HUGE groundswell change, the NDP are never going to get in. They are tied to the Liberals in some kind of bizarre three legged race while the lean, mean, and united Conservatives keep lapping them, stopping every once in a while to throw a banana peel.

Me, I'm going to start talking people on the right into forming another Reform party. That way we can again trust the 60-40 left right split to maintain our social justice system, our health care system, while at the same time making progress on climate change and education, and funding for families.

If nothing changes, then that 40 is just going to keep telling the other 60 what's good for them, while cutting corporate taxes, and screwing the middle class.

I know where my vote is going.