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Iggy came to Town! This report from NNews tells of his visit, we will discuss the undercurrents.
- Iggy is on his summer tour and despite buses breaking down all he has to do is assemble the stamina needed to endure such a tour and be able to fend off boredom and to demonstrate enthusiasm for politics. He had better be a people person or stay away from open mics. Iggy needs more than a bus trip to sell himself, he needs to opt out of the coalition government he is part of. How many times have the Libs propped up the CRAP party in the last two years. How can he convince the voters that he is an alternative when he is an active part of Harper's coalition?
- It's about time that 'affordable housing' became a mainstay of public spending. Political scientists will tell you that good public policy includes public spending on public housing. We now know that "Council Estates" are a bad idea but mixed housing is good. There are ways to deliver good public housing and drive the economy as well. Iggy should be explaining how. In a comment this week the BR was asked to detail its ideas about the recovery and where public money should be spent. Housing, energy retrofits and grants to help homeowners to do the job should be a mainstay of the recovery. energy grants have been cancelled by Harper - why?
- Now for a bit of class warfare. Habitat for Humanity has quickly become an A-lister, one of the NGOs that government will readily support. Why? Is it because one of the first supporters was ex President Jimmy Carter - that definitely helped. In Northumberland HforH has grown rapidly and the BurdReport would suggest that one reason would be the kind of support it has garnered for the Board. HforH has worked hard to get the A list of Board members, ex-professionals and fully fledged Rotary members - good for them. But we would ask why do the elites add their weight to this NGO when others constantly look for members. Do I see a lineup for the Board on an equally successful and worthy NGO - Beyond the Blue Box? No, helping lower income people, or even working to support them is not fashionable.
- Kim Rudd has poked her head above the trenches! That's a story in itself. But where did she do it? At an Iggy event - braunnosing the Boss. Keeping a low profile and waiting for the Harpercrits to make a mistake and implode in an election is no way to build a profile. Flipping burgers at partisan BBQs won't gather any column inches so candidates have to get out, all candidates! We have three nominated opposition candidates in this riding and not a word from any of them so far in this, a two year election period.
4 comments:
Hi Ben,
Kim has been out knocking on doors every weekend. In the past few months I think the tally is over 3000 homes - perhaps more, I've lost count.
Just because one isn't holding massive public events in the media every week doesn't mean they're not out there. As you could attest too, any good political strategist knows the best way to get out there is good ol' door knockin'. In fact, Kim has met more people that way by going directly to people - rather than expecting people to come to events.
And to save any potential comments later in the thread (the only think I dislike about the blog is how it turns into 'attacking' each other character very quickly) - yes, I have supported Kim, yes I work on her campaign and yes I am a huge liberal/political hack.
Keep up the reporting, always enjoy a good read even though we might not always agree.
Peter
Kim Rudd has been knocking on almost 7000 doors in this riding so far. That is what she has been doing "in the trenches" so far since being nominated.
SO which is it - 3000 doors or 7000 doors? Big difference, suppose both could be true, Liberal math and all...
It's nice that the Liberal candidate is door-knocking on her weekends, and I suppose there is merit to introducing yourself one-by-one to the good people of this riding, but hasn't she been the candidate for almost a year?
During that time knocking on some doors and sending out a few open letters trashing the current government seems to be her record as a candidate.
Hopefully there is more in store going forward. We don't seem to know much about her position on local issues let alone national ones, other than that Norlock bad, Liberal good, Kim committed to NQW.
That's nice and all, but I would have thought that given a year we could have moved beyond the basics. I guess joining Rotary was her big achievement of the year. Is this sort of inaction what we can expect from her as MP as well?
If you want to talk civic engagement, great, engage people but do it in a meaningful manner. Showing up at my door on a Saturday afternoon isn't engaging me though in a meaningful way. It is like that annoying guest who never calls ahead....
Ms Rudd is supposed to be a go-getter, a big-thinker - where are the big thoughts, the vision, the focus? So far, many of us are having a lot of difficulty telling one candidate apart from the other, they both seem to be "in it to win it", but don't ask me why, I can't tell what the difference is at the local level. Both are going to tell me that the other will destroy the country, and that they have the plan to build us a great tomorrow. ask them to dig deeper and you get that deer in the headlights look.
Disappointing.
Before this thread gets totally clogged up with liberal hacks I'd like to add my voice as a detractor.
Iggy's interview with Northumberland Today confirmed my worst fear about the guy: he is just a Harper lite. He wants us to continue in Afghanistan beyond our announced leaving date, and he thinks the economic value of the Alberta tar sands outweighs the environmental devastation they create.
Do we need more of this? Or do we need a real alternative to the tories? Just being more urbane isn't enough, not by a long shot.
We need change, real change, if we are to weather the climatic and economic shocks that will befall the West in coming years. This old rich white guy ain't it.
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