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Younghusband
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Younghusband

Date

November 15th, 2006

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It’s gonna be a scream!

Howard DeanHoward Dean has been announced as the keynote speaker of at the upcoming Liberal Leadership Convention. Eight candidates will battle it out to see who will face Stephen Harper in the next Federal Election in Canada. My god… HOWARD DEAN!

Interesting thing about the Dean invite is that the Liberals accuse the Conservatives of being too close to the Americans. Here we have an American being invited to instill inspiration into the next leaders of the Liberal Party. It is either hypocrisy, or spite. If the Conservatives are too close to the Republicans, maybe we should cozy up to the Democrats? Either way I don’t think it is a very good idea to associate one’s party with any particular party in another country, and that goes for both the Liberals and Conservatives. Talk about risky branding.

Comments to this entry

elambend
November 15, 2006
2:29 pm
Absolutely right. This is a campaign commercial that makes itself for the Conservatives.
MikeS
November 15, 2006
2:35 pm
I believe it is pretty common for ideologically similar political parties to invite members from other countries to their conventions. I know the GOP convention usually has members from Australia's Liberal and Canada's Conservatives attend.
Younghusband
November 15, 2006
3:10 pm
But as the keynote speaker?
MikeS
November 15, 2006
4:02 pm
Yeah, I guess that is sending a pretty powerful message. So Americans are alright as long as they are lefties?

I feel badly for Canadians who aren't very liberal simply because I can imagine how difficult it is to live in Canada and still hold conservative viewpoints. I hope Howard Dean scares the bejesus out of most normal Canadians.
von Kaufman-Turkestansky
November 15, 2006
6:56 pm
Mike, you should understand something (becuase your first comment was closer to being on target): for most Canadians, Americans are all right, period. A huge number of Canadians have American friends, relatives, etc. Proportionally speaking, the opposite is not the case - there are a larger percentage of Americans with no connection to Canada. So in a way, you might say, Canada is more "foreign" to the US than the US is to Canada.

Canadian conservatives (the voters who elected the current government) have often expressed a desire for Canada to be governed more like the US. And when the conservatives were in power they made no bones about being close to conservatives in the US. A famous example was the "Shamrock Summit" when Mulroney hosted Reagan - a love-in like that is a rare event in international relations (speaking of love-ins, how about the rumours in the press around Peter MacKay and Condie Rice recently?)

When the Liberals were bad-mouthing the US, they were mainly targeting the Bush administration. Shrilly, stupidly, I would say, but that's politics - Liberal politicians were playing for their core constituency which is... liberal! It did not impress conservative Canucks at all. You never heard them calling Clinton a "moron". They tend to like Dems. You're absolutely right! Time will tell if the current crop of conservatives in government will make a slip and call a Democrat senator or perhaps one day a Dem president a stupid name. I guess it's a matter of time before a conservative backbencher slips up. In general, it's right to say that Canadians lean more to the left than Americans. You might say that New Englanders lean more left than US Mid-Westerners too. So this should not be really shocking.

So, now to comment on the last two points you made:
1) Yes, Canadian lefties like American lefties, generally. I also note that American lefties like American lefties.

2) Don't feel badly for Canadian conservatives. They are in power!

3) Howard Dean does not scare normal Canadians. Why would he? Is he planning to invade Canada? Show me!

If you said he was, I might be inclined to believe you. My theory is that it's actually to the Democrats advantage to annex Canada. I'd say Canada is worth around 50 electoral college delegates. If you made each province a state, you might get a couple of votes going republican in any given election.

Republicans, by contrast, are a safer bet for not annexing Canada.

By running large deficeits and driving up oil prices due to geopolitical instability, they seem to be good for the Canadian dollar too.

So thus far, Republicans appear to be good for Canada, and seem to be underappreciated.
subadei
November 16, 2006
12:31 am
On the flip side, Deans treading some rather thin ice here. It wouldn't take much for a Kerry like lapse of form and the subsequent fallout would be replayed for weeks. Given that Americans are leaning toward the central aisle (have a look at the Dems they elected last week) Dean could do more damage to his own party than good for the Canadian libs.
TDL
November 16, 2006
4:46 pm
Isn't Dean a fairly conservative Dem who happened to be anti-war and pro gay marriage? After all he was a budget balancing governor who was endorsed by the NRA. I think the real irony here is that Dean is constantly portrayed as a raging liberal (which might be to his advantage politically,) while in practice here is fairly "moderate".

Regards,
TDL
Michael
November 17, 2006
12:31 am
Speaking for myself, I don't mind his politics so much as his personality. I seem to recall he himself confessed to having diarrhea of the mouth late in his primary, and that's NOT an attractive quality in a President. Not a great thing in the leader of an entire political party either.
subadei
November 17, 2006
1:04 am
Dean the governor and Dean the DNC chairman are two rather different people.