in which I smoke some heavy Granola
Oct. 7th, 2008 11:48 pmSo, we watched most of the English leader's debate on CBC on October 2 and felt very virtuous, what with the much higher draw of Sarah Palin going on at the exact same time. A few things struck me:
Apparently, I wasn't the only one who thought so. Her approval shot way up after the debates, and overall support for the Greens now stands at about around 9.3%.
http://greenparty.ca/en/node/8156#comment-8291
Yeah, I know this can change dramatically before the election. But still, I find it encouraging.
And it does seem to fit with something we heard at a Green meeting. The woman we were talking to, one of the folks running our local candidate's campaign, mentioned at one point that she used to be Conservative.
"Wow. That's... a bit of a major switch, isn't it?" I asked, and she laughed.
"You'd think so, but no, it's not. Did you know 43% of Greens used to be Tories?"
?!
"Yeah. Fiscally responsible and socially concerned, that's us. Green makes sense, from a conservative point of view."
Don't ask me where she got those numbers, 'cause I don't know, and I don't know if they're true. But it did make a certain amount of sense.
For us it's not really about the economy, though. For us it's a moral thing. It's a "we don't inherit the world from our parents - we borrow it from our children" kind of thing. ( musings-cut )
- Although the kids were irked at Stephen Harper's persistent smarmy smile, I could really imagine a lot of people thinking he looked... Prime Ministerial. The other four were ganging up on him, often falling over themselves to agree with each other while tearing him down, and often their responses to his assertions re. his government's actions could be summarized as "Liar Liar Pants on Fire." And he didn't get rattled, didn't start attacking them, just smiled his little smile and reassured his fellow Canadians that Everything was Fine.
- Dion and Duceppe (Liberal and Bloc Quebecois) probably sounded a lot better during the French debate. ::sigh::
- Layton (NDP)? I agreed with a lot of what he said. And he seemed forceful and persuasive. And a bit of a bully.
- Elizabeth May? I wanted to kiss her. Not just for talking Green, but for talking economics. Notsomuch with the owl-hugging and tree-saving, much more pointing out how climate change and environmental degradation hurts the economy now, and will hurt it more in the future. And that although many people ask "Won't it hurt the economy to protect the environment?" the real question we should ask is, "Should we spend some money now, to make things better/prevent them from getting worse, or spend a lot of money now to deal with environmental damage, and spend even more tomorrow, as the damage gets worse?"
Apparently, I wasn't the only one who thought so. Her approval shot way up after the debates, and overall support for the Greens now stands at about around 9.3%.
http://greenparty.ca/en/node/8156#comment-8291
Yeah, I know this can change dramatically before the election. But still, I find it encouraging.
And it does seem to fit with something we heard at a Green meeting. The woman we were talking to, one of the folks running our local candidate's campaign, mentioned at one point that she used to be Conservative.
"Wow. That's... a bit of a major switch, isn't it?" I asked, and she laughed.
"You'd think so, but no, it's not. Did you know 43% of Greens used to be Tories?"
?!
"Yeah. Fiscally responsible and socially concerned, that's us. Green makes sense, from a conservative point of view."
Don't ask me where she got those numbers, 'cause I don't know, and I don't know if they're true. But it did make a certain amount of sense.
For us it's not really about the economy, though. For us it's a moral thing. It's a "we don't inherit the world from our parents - we borrow it from our children" kind of thing. ( musings-cut )