Annals of Bozosity: Secret Merger Edition

From World Wide Words: Humongous: This American word has established itself so well in the language that William Safire reported a couple of years ago it had been put into the mouth of Thomas Jefferson in a television programme. If so, that was a sad anachronism, since humongous first darted on to the linguistic stage only about 1968, apparently as a bit of college slang, but hit the big time almost immediately and has been with us ever since. That’s despite grumpy comments like those of William Hartston in the British newspaper The Independent, who said it was “surely one of the ugliest words ever to slither its way into our dictionaries” and “a silly and affected synonym for huge or enormous”, adding that “it serves no purpose not covered by those words and is thus redundant”.

Unlikely, as the Bloc would probably remain the largest block. Regionalism in any electoral system will benefit them. Any measure of proportionality and suddenly there's a realistic chance of Quebec electing bloquistes on a level that's closer to their actual support in the province. This would in turn mean that some of their voters would switch to other parties that they prefer given that there's an actual chance of having their votes count. For example, if you're in an area that could easily go Conservative or Bloc, and you're not separatist and also centre-left to left you might consider voting Bloc in order to prevent the Conservative from being elected because voting anybody else in the riding would accomplish nothing.

PR did succeed the first time in BC except that there was an artificial 60% majority in 2/3rds of the ridings in order for it to pass rather than a 50% majority. It got 57% or so in almost all ridings. People who preferred a different system to STV like MMP tended to vote against it also.

Ontario changed the wording of their referendum to suggest that staying with the status quo was the better choice for people, and it worked.

The second time around BC followed the same model. This happened just as the recession was hitting and people didn't want to change things drastically because of it. It failed to achieve over 50% in most ridings this time.

PR has support from all parties. Check out Fair Vote Canada. I wouldn't qualify Hugh Segal or Andrew Coyne as radical left myself.

thanks Jenn. and you are right, it was a matter of confidence. and not long before that you had Flannagan writing how the Liberals might go broke depending on the timing of elections. It is what i think is one of the most frustrating part of coalition recollection in the media today: the idea that the move was just a bald power grab (ie it was unprovoked). it may have been an attempt to grab power, but it was in response to a set of decision that did not have the support of the House.

Jenn…….thanks. While I have no use for the Liberal as constructed today i.e. weak leadership and lack of policies it has been a strong force in the country for many years. However, getting into bed with the Dippers will be its death as we have known it.

Thanks, Wallace, Harvey, and Sourstud. Of course one knew that Bozo was a clown. One was hoping that the reference was for something more subtle.

Given enough time, the Liberals will turn themselves around and the Conservatives will drive themselves into a ditch. It's the nature of politics. The Liberals' big problem has been that they've constantly believed a return to power was just around the corner. An outright Conservative majority would probably have helped to speed Liberal revitalization along.

Unless it was a radically different Liberal party, NDP voters would look askance at such a merger. The current configuration of Liberal is far right enough to be indistinguishable from the Harper Cons on too many issues from the progressive view.

This wouldn't unite the left, it would swallow it.

To expand on my dismissal of Gritlock theory, Liberal dominance during the era of divided conservatism basically relied on absolute dominance in Ontario. But dominance in Ontario only really came about because the NDP had gotten such a bad reputation because of Rae's government. The NDP dropped from 20.1% in Ontario in 1988 to 6% in 1993, 10.7% in 1997, and 8.3% in 2000. By contrast, the Liberals increased from 38.9% in 1988 to 52.9%, 49.5%, and 51.5%. Meanwhile, the combined PC/Reform/Alliance vote stayed at about 38% throughout the whole period, meaning that the massive increase in Liberal support came almost exclusively from the NDP. As voters slowly forgot about or forgave Rae's government, NDP support was sure to eventually rebound, which it did in 2004, when the NDP won 18.1% of the vote and 7 seats in Ontario.