Obama's 100th day in Office

Today marks Obama's 100th day in office and while it is way too early to fully judge what he will be like as a president, I think he is off to a very good start. On the domestic policy, he is taking action necessary to kick start the economy and he has some of the best advisors here. The only concern here is the big spending will lead to a larger deficit and while this is necessary to help lift the United States out of the recession, it could be harmful in the long-run if not dealt with once the economy begins to recover. Since Obama did promise to cut all wasteful spending and so far he has been good at keeping his word, I trust he will take action to curb the deficit once the economy turns around. After all, the last the the budget was balanced was under Bill Clinton. Obama has several of his advisors, so I believe he is far more in line with Bill Clinton than Jimmy Carter when it comes to his economic policies. On the environmental front he is finally starting to take action, something that was woefully lacking under the Bush administration. Despite the fact those on the right hate his policies with a passion, he is very popular with approval ratings over 60%. While I doubt his approval ratings will stay this high throughout his term, it does show that many Americans are open to ideas that stray from the right wing ideology we have been so use to over the past 20 years.

On foreign policy, we have seen a dramatic shift and so far I have been very pleased with what I have seen. He promises to close down Guantanamo bay, re-engage the Middle East including countries such as Iran, ease the embargo act against Cuba, and draw down the troops in Iraq. This is the type of foreign policy many outside the US have wanted to see from an American leader and are now seeing. He may not go as far as some want, but at least he is moving in the right direction. I am a realist and realize that if he goes too far just as the Republicans did, although in the other direction, it will backfire and he will be a one-term president.

The other big news on the eve of his 100th day in office was Arlen Specter's defection from the Republicans to the Democrats. This puts the Democrats 1 seat shy of a filibuster proof majority and assuming Al Franken wins the recount in Minnesota, they will get their filibuster proof majority. For those claiming this will pull the US too far to the left, I say nonsense. Trying to pull the US as much to the left as Canada is won't happen even with a filibuster proof majority and considering how successful we have been as a country, I fail to see how moving to the left in the case of the US would be that bad. Maybe in some countries in Europe or even Canada to a lesser extent, it might be a bad idea, but not the with the US. Also, unlike Canada, party discipline is very weak so having 60 Democrats doesn't mean an automatic filibuster proof majority as many are Blue Dog Democrats who would likely join the Republicans in a filibuster if the Democrats bring in some legislation that is too controversial. Considering how diverse the US is in its views, having a 60 seat majority is more of a sign which party is a big tent party and which one is a narrow tent.

In the case of Arlen Specter, political opportunism may have played a role, but the reality is that as the Republicans moved further and further to the right they become less electable in Pennsylvania and also further from the views he held when he joined. He didn't leave his party, his party left him. There are many other moderate Republicans such as Lincoln Chaffee, Wayne Gilchrist, and Jim Leach who supported Obama last presidential election so he is not the only moderate Republican to leave his party as they became more and more ideological. Besides most Republicans on the West Coast and Northeast were usually moderate ones as you need to be moderate to win there. The hardcore conservative ones are largely in the South which is where the Republican's strength is increasinly becoming concentrated. If the Republicans wish to start winning again, they might consider being more moderate or at least not trying to push out every moderate. Reagan was no moderate in the party, but he at least understood the party needed both Conservatives and moderates if it were to be successful. People such as Rush Limbaugh appeal to a narrow base mainly of rural, Southern, older white men. Trying to push out anyway who isn't as right wing as them is the main reason their party is losing in many traditional strongholds. In the case of Pennsylvania, over 200,000 voters switched their registeration from Republican to Democrat between 2004 and 2008 and today, the number of Americans who identify themselves as Republicans is at an all time low. In some ways, Specter's defection is not unlike Scott Brison, Belinda Stronach, and Garth Turner's defections to the Liberals as all were former PCs (who are much like the moderates in the Republicans) as opposed to the Reform/Alliance (who are more in line with the conservative elements in the Republicans). They left since they felt the party swung too far to the right. I fully support his decision to defect, but I do believe any democracy requires a healthy alternative and I also believe the Republicans need a strong moderate element in it so I hope the few moderates left fight hard within the party to pull it back to the centre-right from the hard right. This should also be a warning to any Conservatives here in Canada that think going further to the right is their ticket to victory as support for hard right conservatism is even less north of the border. After all, Pennsylvania is still more conservative than most parts of Canada.

BC Election, Ontario PC race, and Liberal convention

BC Election

On May 12, 2009, British Columbians will go to the polls to decide whether to re-elect Campbell for a third term or put the NDP back into power. As someone who joined the BC Liberals back in 2001 and has never waivered on my support, I fully support the re-election of the BC Liberals. Being in the midst of the worse recession since World War II, putting a party in power whose economic credentials are quite poor would be disastrous. If the economy was doing well, we might be able to get away with electing an NDP government although it would still be a bad choice. Campbell is far from perfect and has made his mistakes, but clearly BC is far better off than in 2001 and he is taking the province in the right direction. In 2001, he promised to balance the budget and cut taxes and turn BC's economy around and he never waivered even when his poll numbers fell and there were massive protests. After being re-elected he offered signing bonuses for unions who signed contracts ahead of schedule, which helped bring about labour peace in a province where labour strife was quite common. And this was done after the fact many of those unions spent millions of dollars trying to get him defeated. Unlike Harper, he didn't try to punish those who opposed him. On the environmental front, he showed leadership with his carbon tax. Campbell is truly a leader as when he says he is going to achieve something, nothing will stop him from following through and this is the kind of leadership BC needs. By contrast Carole James may be a nice person, but her policies are completely out to lunch. She wants to scrap the carbon tax and replacing it with a cap and trade system which works but not as well. Has no plan to balance the budget when the economy starts to turn around. She wants to put a moratorium on independent power producers despite the fact these create jobs and help meet BC's energy needs and tries to put the whole fear of private power when the BC Liberals have not privatized BC Hydro and will not. Besides the NDP had no problem with IPPs in the 90s, so this smacks of pure populism and opportunism, not sound policy. She plans to tax the exports of all raw logs when in reality this is being dishonest as only logs harvested on provincial crown land can they control. Those harvested on private land fall under federal jurisdiction. While I am no fan of raw log exports, I do think we should be allowed to export our surplus (otherwise what can be produced locally should be, but what cannot can be exported). I will have more on the BC election as we got closer to voting day. The BC Liberals have a solid lead in the polls, but it would be very foolish to automatically assume they will win. They have a definite advantage, but an NDP win is still possible. For starters, the NDP base is far more motivated to show up and they are far better at bring their supporters to the polls, so it is important the BC Liberals get every supporter they can out. As for the BC Conservatives, they could be a bit of a problem in the Interior, although in the ridings they ran in last time around, the Liberals performed worse than the surrounding ridings, but so did the NDP so I suspect a good chunk of their vote will come from those who wouldn't vote otherwise. For example in Okanagan-Vernon, the BC Liberals got 43%, BC Conservatives 10% and BC NDP 33%, so yes the BC Liberals did worse, but the combined right vote was 53% which was higher than either Kelowna riding and both Kelowna ridings are more conservative than the Northern Okanagan Valley. Likewise in the two Cariboo ridings which went NDP in 2005, the Combined Liberal + Reform vote in 1996 was in the high 50s, as opposed to the BC Liberal support of high 40s suggesting not all Reform voters from 1996 went to the BC Liberals.

As for BC STV, I will have more on it later, but I voted No in 2005 and I would emphatically vote No again if I still lived in BC. If it is too confusing for a political junkie like me to understand, it is probably too confusing to your average voter. When I cast my ballot, I don't want to second guess how it was counted, which is exactly what happens under STV. Under FTFP, there is no ambiguity as to how one's vote is counted.

Ontario PC leadership Race

Below is a summary of the four candidates running for the Ontario PCs and my view on each

Christine Elliot:

She is best known as Jim Flaherty's wife and undoubtedly this will be a liability towards her chances. I am myself quite skeptical of having someone related to Jim Flaherty in power at another level, that being said being married to someone doesn't mean they have the same views. Marriage is about love, not about one's political preferences and in fact even in my family, not all members vote the same way and nor do they all have identical views so it is possible she has different views. In fact she strikes me as more centrist than her husband Flaherty. After all she is pro-choice and for same-sex marriage and she has argued the Common Sense Revolution is a thing of the past which Ontario should not go back to unlike her husband who still reminisces for those days.

Randy Hiller:

If you want to talk about a nutbar, this would be him. Its questionable whether the guy is even fit to be MPP, but certainly not premier. Being premier is a big job that requires a lot of responsibility and is not meant for your average Joe. It would be like having your average Joe be a CEO, doctor, or lawyer. He also would unnecessary pit rural vs. Urban Ontario. While I agree the government needs to do more to reach out to Rural Ontario, we don't need someone who is openly hostile to urban Ontario, where the majority of people live. I doubt he will win the leadership race though and certainly not in a general election as in both cases, the PCs need to do well in the 905 belt and he is exactly the type of person who would ensure it goes solidly Liberal. He may pick up a few seats in Rural Ontario, but this won't be enough. The federal Conservatives in 2006 won almost all rural ridings in Ontario yet still won fewer seats than the Liberals in Ontario. They only pulled ahead when the started winning in mid sized cities like Kitchener and London as well as some of the 905 suburbs.

Tim Hudak:

He is without question the front-runner and probably has the most experience of the four contenders. The problem with him is he strikes me as too much of a yesterday politician. Whether one agreed or disagreed with the Common Sense Revolution, it is clearly not the type of solutions Ontario needs now. While he could conceivably win in 2011, I suspect the Liberals will have plenty of ammo against him. Also a lot may depend on what happens federally as I suspect his chances of winning will improve if the Liberals win the next federal election as it seems Ontario likes to go one way federally and another provincially.

Frank Klees:

Definitely a dark horse candidate and don't really know a lot about him. Although the fact he started his campaign on TV with Charles McVety says a lot about the types he appeals to. As someone who finds Charles McVety a right wing lunatic (He is your Pat Robertson/Jerry Falwell of the North), I cannot say he is someone whom I am very impressed with.

However, regardless of who they choose, it will result in the party moving to the right, which I think is the wrong direction. The party should be a centre-right party not overly ideological as the right wing base may want to see the party go further to the right but their hatred of the Liberals is enough to get them to vote Tory and even if they do stay home, elections are won and lost amongst the swing Liberal-Tory voters, not the right wing base. Every vote the PCs take from the Liberals has twice the impact as every right winger who didn't show up in 2007, but did in 2011.

Liberal Convention

The Liberal convention is coming up very soon in Vancouver in which Michael Ignatieff will be crowned Liberal leader. Undoubtedly, many Liberals are buoyed by the recent poll numbers. Some Tories point out Dion had similiar numbers after winning the leadership race, although any Tory who assumes Ignatieff will face the same fate as Dion is being delusional. After watching the mistakes Dion made, I think Ignatieff will take greater caution to make sure they aren't repeated. By the same token, Liberals should not get too overconfident. Polls come and go in cycles so the Liberals should not assume they will automatically win the next election. Its still way too early to predict the outcome of the next election. We don't know what point in the recession we will be at when this happens, what type of platform the Liberals will propose as well as Ignatieff is still not well known to most Canadians so a lot can happen between now and then. The only likelihood is that it will probably be another minority government. I think a majority government for either party is extremely unlikely. With Harper being extremely unpopular in Quebec and having limited room for growth in English Canada, that puts a majority out of reach for him. Likewise for Ignatieff, a breakthrough in the West is highly unlikely. He should continue to woo the West, but this is to build a base there for three or four elections down the road, not the next one. That doesn't mean the Liberals cannot gain seats in the West, but not the amount they need to get a majority. And likewise sweeping either Ontario (as Chretien did) or Quebec (as Trudeau did) is unrealistic now with the existence of the Bloc Quebecois and the right being united.