Tuesday, November 06, 2007

What Can I Say About This Sask Election?

The writing's on the wall, so to speak. This time tomorrow will probably be the beginning of the short and miserable life of the Saskatchewan Party government. Watching clips of the CBC Leader's Debate, it was hard not remark how much Brad Wall looks like Grant Devine these days, or maybe even a creepy cross between Devine and Lorne Calvert. Which, I imagine, is how he'll govern as premier. The Sask Party has been forced into what they imagine to be centrist territory by their desire to debunk the NDP's sole campaign tactic for the last few elections. Namely, that the Sask Party are little more than the old Conservative Party. Nevermind that the Sask Party pretty much is the old Conservative Party (or at the very least, aspires to be what was popular about the Tories in the 80s), what Calvert et al have failed repeatedly and miserably to do is give voters a reason to vote for the NDP, rather than merely against the Sask Party. You can only pull that shit off for ten, eleven years max.

Neither of the Sask Party nor the NDP (and why the Saskatchewan Liberals are even invited to the big kids' table anymore is beyond me) have really done anything, either in Legislature or in the public arena, to demonstrate that either party is anything other than a bunch of careerists fighting for their jobs.

It's sad that the NDP wasn't up to putting up a fight, and sadder still that the best thing (in voters' minds) the Sask Party has going for it is that it's not the NDP. A page, you'll note, they stole from the NDP's playbook.

This is where I'd tell you, my sweet Saskatchewani readers who continue to follow me in my exile, to vote your conscience, but I think instead I'll pass the mic to Murray Mandryk to drop some stone cold science.



MP3: "Elected" by Alice Cooper

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Great post. I'm scared. Totally agree with that line about the Liberals at the big kids table. What a pathetic, poorly led party. Oh, and that post with Aquaman? Awesome. i think the thing that makes those covers so great is a) the art and b) the process used for printing in those days. Big dots, cutting rubylinth for blocks of color. Kind of glory days in terms of printing. You just can't fake that kind of thing. Now that comics all run at high line screens on coated paper, they've kind of lost a lot of the allure.