Bete Verte

  • John Ogilvie's rant on Green Politics

Sunday, October 05, 2008

  • Liberals demanding Green support

    At least Jack Layton had the courtesy to ASK Green supporters to vote NDP. The Liberals are DEMANDING it, by suggesting we are playing Ralph Nader in this election.

    The hubris of the Liberals continues to astound me. How dare a grassroots political movement play 'spoiler' to their inevitable return to power? Suck it up, Bob. We are here, sitting on 10% of the vote, because people don't like your party. Either party, NDP or Liberal.

    I come from a very conservative region (Eastern Ontario) and forgive me, I am not so afraid of the Conservatives that I will throw away years of party-building in order to support the weakest Liberal leader since the Second World War. The Liberals have spent the past two years p*ssing away their credibility by opposing the Harper government noisily - except when it came time to actually vote.

    The Greens have a reputation for sincerity and integrity. Which may not long survive exposure to political mechanics. But there's no need for us to throw it all away by supporting the Libs in 2008. Go find your own votes.

  • Jack Layton asking Greens to support NDP

    Not gonna happen.

    Mr. Layton said today: "I'm inviting the good people who are thinking about the Green party because they're concerned about the planet to consider joining with us because we're able to reach out to the broad spectrum of progressives in this country and you'll find a comfortable home with the New Democrats."

    No, we won't find a comfortable home. The NDP is not progressive, they're regressive. The NDP lives in a time capsule. For them it's still the mid-seventies, a "class war" between hard-working Canadian families and the scurrilous "big corporations" which prey on them. Gouging ATM fees. Abusive text message fees. Gas price fixing. Subsidies to "big oil". If Jack wants to run for Canada's consumer ombudsman, he has my vote. PM? Not so much.

    As a candidate in the provincial election last October, I heard this rant repeated verbatim at every debate by my NDP opponent - whom I beat soundly. I was tempted to ask at a debate "if the NDP protects the interests of 'Canada's hard-working families' who is standing up for the interests of Canada's slacker families?" Sorry, too many debates..

    NDP's governing council has seats reserved for union leaders, and many local NDP candidates are senior (or pensioned) union shop leaders. Two-thirds of Canadian workers are NOT unionized, and that ratio increases every year. My father fought for the NDP in the seventies, and I fight for the Greens, in this new century. History is a story of progress, to optimists..

Saturday, October 04, 2008

  • Two female parachutists missing in action

    The GPC has an unwritten policy that "All parachute candidates must be female".
    This wrong-headed policy leads to embarrasment .

    This policy is an invention of the current party leadership. It has never been been reviewed by the membership. Maybe it should be?

    Maybe we should be devoting energy to building the party in PEI, in order to recruit local candidates, regardless of gender?

    Ironically, the GPC's Director of Organizing LIVES in PEI. And, after two years of organizing effort, we have to bring in two doomed parachute candidates for the island's four ridings.

    I laugh, so that I do not cry..

  • Response to Toronto Star article

    This is the Toronto Star article today.

    I have great affection for the Toronto Star, since they covered the GPO campaign very sympathetically this time last year and even sent reporter Peter Gorrie out to cover our GPO AGM in Perth last November. A patient and intelligent reporter.

    Nevertheless, I have not spoken to the article's authors Sandro Contenta or Joanna Smith, so they are just working off my public comments on this blog. This blog was meant for GPC insiders, not the media, and I will shut it down if this kind of thing happens again.

    An easy way for Elizabeth to end this endless "Strategic Voting" story is to
    1) stop musing aloud about the need for an "Anybody But Harper" vote. That's treason.
    2) stop musing aloud about a "coalition" among the anti-Harper parties. That train has left the station. You couldn't arrange it over the past two years, so it ain't happening in the next nine days.
    3) start campaigning hard for our 40 strongest candidates, nationally, gleefully putting the boot to the Libs, BQ, NDP as well as the Conservatives.

  • An early end to the GPC 08 campaign

    Yes, it's incredible but true.

    The GPC Leader will spend the last ten days of campaign in her own riding.

    Some pundits have speculated that this is because the GPC lacks the budget for a longer leader's tour. This is completely incorrect. The GPC has publicly announced a $4 million campaign budget, a record amount.

    On the other hand, Jack Layton was interviewed on the CBC news last night stating that he will spend the next ten days campaigning "from the northern tip of the country to the southern tip, from the West coast to the East coast."

    Folks, that's what the leader of a political party DOES.

Friday, October 03, 2008

  • GPC TV Ads are out - and they rock

    See them on Youtube

    These are very direct, intimate ads, tied together with a consistent visual theme. Very nice indeed. GPC's ad budget is probably 1/10 that of the other parties. Which is a shame, because I think these ads work very well. No fancy production, but a clever approach, using the whistlestop tour. Kudos!

  • Where is the "new way of doing politics"?

    The two latest press releases on the GPC website are

    03.10.2008 "Elizabeth May wins English debate"
    02.10.2008 "Elizabeth May wins the French debate"

    Well I'm glad THAT'S settled.

    Someone at GPC is playing catch-up, reading one chapter ahead in the "How to Run a Campaign" book s/he bought in the Chapters discount bin. "Chapter 6: Declare immediate victory in every debate". Please.

    It would have been more helpful to read the earlier chapters: "How to recruit candidates". "How to prepare campaign materials." "How to write a platform."

    That said, Elizabeth did a good job building her personal brand as a politician over the last two nights. I don't think voters heard many reasons to vote Green, however.

    It might have been more effective to let the other three leaders whale on Harper then use our 45 seconds to say, calmly, "Unlike the old-line parties who want to do X, the Greens have read the independent ABC report and would do Y."

    Having the Greens in the debate is a historic moment, but I don't think we took advantage of the opportunity to create a positive impression of the party as smart, pragmatic, and ready to contribute new ideas.

Wednesday, October 01, 2008

  • Oct. 15

    If the Green Party has adult supervision (which is always in doubt), we have to turn out thoughts to Oct. 15.

    I spent some time watching the French leaders debate tonight. It is hugely gratifying that the GPC has - in our 25th anniversary year - earned a seat at that table. Kudos to all the Greens since 1983 who worked towards this goal! I worked on numerous Lanark campaigns where we went to the debates, made our points, put out our 50 signs and counted that a victory. I ran provincially last Oct and did well enough (11%) - only because the voters were ready to hear us..

    Elizabeth will be recognized as the pioneer, the first Green at the debate table. Not the first Green elected, that honour will go to someone else. And not in 2008.

    The task at hand is to design "GPC 2.0". For our next 25 years, how will we morph/improve/mature? 2008 is the last hurrah for the "happy bunch of amateurs", to use Elizabeth's phrase. In the future, we will learn lessons from 2008 and we will be seriously smart, aggressive and skilled.

    In the next election, we will have selected a leader who doesn't tell the media that she "doesn't want to be a politician." And who will support our Green candidates, rather than urging strategic voting. As Radio Canada reporters said (translated) "Mme. May is more convincing and passionate attacking Stephen Harper than she is promoting the Green Party." Lessons learned, let's move on.

Monday, September 29, 2008

  • U.S. democracy works

    When you have something to say, pick up the phone to your representative. If you speak loud enough, they listen.

    This is WAY off topic during the Canadian election, but - since I need to keep most of my thoughts to myself on that topic - let me say something about the U.S. financial meltdown.

    I have worked in the financial services sector, providing software solutions. They are one sector in the economy, among many others I've worked with: healthcare, education, military, municipal, automotive, etc. etc.

    Why is a crisis on Wall Street a national emergency, but a crisis in healthcare is ignored?

    I was born in the U.S. and still have a passport somewhere. The best thing for that country is to call the bluff of the financial scam artists. As someone else said, "$700 billion buys a lot of direct assistance to taxpayers affected by this."

    Sounds like an NDP rant, doesn't it? Sorry, efforts to characterize me as right or left are simplistic.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

  • High-speed campaigning

    4:30 am Thursday 25 Sep A reporter travelling with Elizabeth on the excellent whistle-stop train tour posts a story about how EM wants to see strategic voting, even at the expense of Green candidates. Toronto Star article

    8:46 am I (and many other Green organizers) read this story and freak out. Emails are sent.

    12:25 pm EM issues a blanket retraction in a press release distributed to GPC candidates ("Strategic voting makes no sense") - but not distributed to the press.

    Lessons learned.
    * Do not speak "from the heart" to journalists. Journalists do not HAVE hearts.
    * It's impolite to tell voters to vote for other parties when your salary and trainfare were paid by the GPC.
    * GPC grassroots organizers are finding their voice.