Why the helll would you want to pull up every thing on Jay Hill? Am I missing something, or is Ms. Bekkering?

I wonder what the strategy is? Let see.

Runner up in the Municipal Elections;

Nominated by acclamation by 50 or so NDP members.

Run against Jay Hill who won the riding by aprox 8000 Votes in the last election, and is well known and respected through out the Peace River.

Chances of beating Jay Hill. Nil:

Probably wants to get as much publicity as possible and will then if possible run for Council again the the next election, if the Federal Election is before the Municipal Election;

"She says she would like to try and make Jay Hill (who currently holds the seat) uncomfortable. " I would like to pull up everything I can about him" she said in her acceptance speech. "

Because the only way the NDP has a chance is by making the opponent look even worse.

So, what is the alternative, then? Should we dispense with democracy and forget all about an election and just tell Hill he's got the job til Hell freezes over? Even the great and wonderful Oz has to be challenged for his support of harper no matter what!

Good luck to you Betty, Go for the throat!

Elections in the so called big league always interest me from the point of view of how fickle the electorate is. The case of Jay Hill’s riding is a good example.

We live in right wing federal territory. We must remember that both Hill and Harris did not run for the Conservatives. They are not true blue. They originally won their seats as Reform candidates.

In the past decade or so, people believed that these two characters would be the best thing that ever happened to this region, if they actually formed part of government.

So, here we are. They have their chance and they fizzled.

The NDP selects a candidate and she says she wants to dig stuff up on him. How would you run the campaign? Pretend the guy presently in the seat you want doesn’t exist? Or would you want to find out every promise he made and did not keep? Every word he says, that is an exaggeration; every statement he makes that says nothing; what he will do to turn the economy around in the southern part of the riding and why he has not done it yet.

An election is about issues, about what the others running think about those issues and how they will handle them; how credible each candidate is; who are part of the machine behind the incumbent and the other candidates; which one of those individuals are ready to jump to another party since they have not been satisfied.

If you do not know your opponent and who and what makes them tick, you are doomed.

So, the language of “digging up” might not be the best, nor even pointing that normal tactic out to the general public or the riding association when the press is there. The fact is, everyone does it. What they do with the information is another story altogether. To think that it will be used for a smear campaign is very presumptuous.

Does the NDP have a chance? At the moment no way. People will continue to elect the dunce in place right now, the same as people in the country south of us elected and then re-elected the dunce in charge there.

Which begs the question: “who is the real dunce?”

;-)

So, is Charles Jago electable in Jay Hill's riding for a federal seat against Jay Hill?

Who can unseat him and what party would they have to run under? That is the interesting discussion point for me, and I am sure for the various riding associations.

Oh, what do I think the answer is to my own question?

I think no one cares. The two reps we have here are non-entities when it comes to their own party and the other parties really do not want to spend too much effort on the central and northern part of BC. They have more important parts of the country with many more votes and many more swing ridings to concentrate on.

So, if we want to show them that we can make a difference to them with swinging two seats over to another party, then it is up to us to do it. Otherwise, the parties are right that we really do not care and we deserve what we get.

" I would like to pull up everything I can about him" she said in her acceptance speech.

Wow, sounds like someone I won't vote for! Good grief, she is using the NDP to raise her public profile enough to run for city council. I doubt we need her leadership at all, even at that low level.

If ammonra likes her, she really must be a loser.

Using owl's theory, why elect anyone? According to Owl you can't talk to the local MP, the local MP must be in the spot light all the time or else and a protest vote is the best answer.

Nonsense, run for office yourself owl, if that's what the public needs.

"According to Owl you can't talk to the local MP" ....

Aand what do you smoke early in the morning, YDPC, that causes you to read all sorts of stuff into what is actually written?

What part of politics do you not understand? Sounds like you have never been involved with running a campaign either for yourself or anyone else.

If you have the personpower in your machine then there is at least one person whose job it is to follow at least the key candidate running against your candidate so that you know what has been said by that person and how consistent the positions taken by that person are, where the weak points are and where the strenghts lie.

Name recognition does a lot, but once you get beyond that point you have to deal with what makes the opposition tick and what makes their candidate tick.

The mistake made by Bekkering is that she is innocent enough to have actually spoken about it in public. She cannot afford to make too many of those, especially against a seasoned politician, no matter how useless he actually is when representing Prince George.

So, on to Hill then. Why should I vote for him? What has he done for Prince George? This is not a swing riding so we are not getting any attention, nor assistance.

If we want to keep electing a Conservative and we want to keep a Conservative MP here, then we have to get someone who is strong cabinet material. How are we going to achieve that?

I know. I will talk to Hill about it and see what he thinks.

;-)

Protest vote?

So the candidate who is in place is not a good representative for the community. In other words, we would not have done any worse without him. He has been in place for a long time and has not come through for us. How many more years should one cross their fingers and say "maybe this time"?

What does it take to unseat such an individual? Why would one think that voting for someone else is a protest vote? Well, actually it is if you look at it one way. It is a vote which is protesting against him doing squat and giving someone else a try. At least the odds are 50/50 that the other individual is going to be a better representative.

So, if you keep going to a restaurant for some reason or another and it keeps on being not quite as good as you think it should be for your needs, would going to a new, untried restaurant be a protest move, or simply a move to try to get more satisfaction from your eating venues?

Considering the nasty Tory ads against Stephane Dion and the personal insults to those who refuse to endorse Tory foreign policies, I think that Betty Bekkering's comments are quite mild. Certainly, Hill himself has nothing to be proud of in his venom directed at his opponents.

The fact is that our political system is best served by drawing attention to what individuals and parties have said and done. There is absolutely nothing wrong in that. It is called making them run on their record. Whether Hill wins or not is not the point. Democratic free choice is the point.

Still, I am pleased at Yama's compliment. I never realised I was so important in his life that my preferences would determine whom he voted for.