Political Staples

This election is going to be so cool if the numbers hold up. Who is going to be able to say with a straight face that they are legitimate with the support of less than one in three voters?

Greg, With the exception of Mulroney, no PM in recent history has ever got near the 50% mark. Does that make Trudeau or Chretien “illegitimate” ?

“Who is going to be able to say with a straight face that they are legitimate with the support of less than one in three voters? “

First of all, the CPC will clock in around 34-35, maybe 36, depending on the Friday jobs figures.

Second, how would they be any more legitimate if PR apportioned the seats according to vote percentage? In effect, such an arrangement would permanently disenfranchise anyone with conservative leanings. That would be it. No more chance, ever. A defacto underclass paying the bills for the despotic socialist majority. At least this way the CPC (such as they are) has a puncher’s chance of winning every time, as do the hiveminded Liberals/NDP. Your way makes a vote for any conservative candidate (or one claiming to be conservative) a truly wasted vote. It’s a result I’m sure makes you salivate, but I don’t know if a third of the population is too keen on it.

See, this is the problem with PR. It’s a failure of empathy. A failure to connect with the hearts and minds of conservatives who would be royally screwed by PR, permanently removed from all hope of influence. You need to reach out to us. Tell us how we would ever, ever be anything but cash cows for the Dominion-Hive under your system. And please don’t tell me the Liberals and NDP would work with a conservative faction on a case by case basis, etc. etc., blah blah blah. They wouldn’t. There would be rampant socialist nanny state triumphalism with no looking back. You have to at least try to understand why that is such a disturbing notion to fiscal conservatives, libertarians, classical liberals and other non-collectivists.