Strategic Voting

It's taken a little while but the parties are finally taking time out from the personal attacks and name calling, and getting to the issues. The issue that they seem to feel most strongly about is strategic voting. Strategic voting means anyone but Harper, and 'marginal parties' are terrified that this will deflect voters from supporting them. Maybe that's why candidates speak on the subject with a sincerity that we are unaccustomed to. For instance one argument that keeps coming up is that if you vote based on what you don't want then you are guaranteed of not getting what you do want. Unless what you want is to get ride of Harper. Politicians are never less persuasive then when they are most sincere.

There is one convincing argument against strategic. That arguments is not to be found in the impassioned pleas of professional politicians, but in the fine print of Elections Canada's web site. Cutting past the minutiae, and getting straight to the point, registered political parties receive 1.75 per year per every vote they received in the last general election. That means that fringe parties, such as the Green's, receive funds to pursue their agenda's, even if they don't form the official opposition. Strategic voting merely polarizes voters. It makes a minority government less likely, and it takes important federal funds away from struggling fringe parties.

Naturally the Liberals are pro strategic voting. That's because if they're even to stand a ghost of a chance of forming a government, they need every vote that they can get. So they strategy seems to be trying to unify the left by scaring them with the specter of a Harper government. They're betting very hard on Harper's unpopularity. It's either that or get Stephane Dion a dye job, and try to give his image a Stephen Colbert spin.

Daily Bushido:

“Politics is show business for ugly people.”
- Liberal Scott Brison