In the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Georgia in 2008, Prime Minister Medvedev articulated a new Russian foreign Russian Nuclear Icebreaker policy doctrine with stunning implications. The phrase that caught international attention was Medvedev’s statement that Russia enjoyed a “Sphere of Privileged interests’, which included those states which bordered upon
Continue readingAuthor: bluegreenblogger
Not an Official Green Party Canada Site: Arseny Yatsenyuk and the Ukraine’s ‘End Game’
Foxy Yatsenyuk could be a Ukrainian Hero I have started innumerable draft posts about Ukraine over the past few weeks, but there was little room for anything but speculation. The tensions and factors underlying the ‘Crimean Crisis’ were pretty clear to see, but the interplay was too fast, and Russia’s
Continue readingNot an Official Green Party Canada Site: Possibly the dumbest things Doug Ford ever did
When I first saw this article in the Toronto Star, I thought maybe it was a spoof, or somebodies wishful thinking. Apparently Doug Ford has lost the DVD’s that contained ALL their contact databases from the 2010 Mayoralty election. Mitch Wexler had been hired to manage the data, and to
Continue readingNot an Official Green Party Canada Site: Trudeau’s Liberals going for the Conservatives throat.
I am not a big fan of the accepted wisdom that politics happens on a left/right continuum. That creaking old paradigm does not mean much to most of the electorate. Perhaps I should be a bit more nuanced with that observation? While there are many Canadians who view themselves as
Continue readingNot an Official Green Party Canada Site: Rob Ford is in a good position to win the Mayoralty in October.
If I were a betting man, I would lay pretty stiff odds in favour of Rob Ford beating his challengers in the 2014 Toronto Mayoral election. The Toronto Sun commissioned a poll by Forum, and today they released selected highlights. Like that Rob Fords approval rating has climbed from 42%
Continue readingNot an Official Green Party Canada Site: The Ford brothers are not acceptable as elected officials at any level of government.
Buffoonery is over. Things are DEADLY serious now. I have avoided the topic of the Ford brothers for the simple reason that Rob Ford was well-known as a buffoon before he was elected. Toronto voted for a buffoon, and that is what they got. ‘Let this be a lesson to
Continue readingNot an Official Green Party Canada Site: Time for the Liberals to revive the Supporter membership category.
A little over a year ago, the Liberal Party was in the midst of a bold initiative intended to bring a lot of Canadians into the Liberal Party fold. The Supporter category of membership in the Liberal Party was conceived as an easy way to sign up a really large
Continue readingNot an Official Green Party Canada Site: A veritable Conservative Armageddon
There sure is a strong stench of scandal in the air isn’t there? I am thinking about quite a number of Conservative shenanigans and ticking time bombs that are all set to go off in the months to come. The most obvious and immediate is the late breaking revelations abstracted
Continue readingNot an Official Green Party Canada Site: The relentless collapse of the Green Party of Canada’s grassroots.
Back in May I laid out the evidence to support my contention that the Green Party of Canada is suffering a sustained collapse at the grass-roots level. To summarise my arguments, the local Electoral District associations were largely formed to capitalise on the Revenue Sharing agreements between the Green Party`s
Continue readingNot an Official Green Party Canada Site: Trudeau just SKEWERED all his critics in one fell swoop!
In a desperate attempt to take Justin Trudeau down a peg or two, the NDP and Conservatives have been crafting a narrative around Trudeau’s public speaking business, and his accepting fees to speak for charities. On my part, I do not think that Trudeau did anything wrong. He put his
Continue readingNot an Official Green Party Canada Site: Green Party grass-roots haemorrhage: Liberals and Dippers be advised.
Well here we are, the Elections Canada filing deadline for Electoral District associations has come and gone, (June 1) so I thought I would update which GPC Electoral Districts are still alive and kicking. A little more than a month ago, I blogged on the slow motion collapse of the
Continue readingNot an Official Green Party Canada Site: Robocalls Case: If the CPC did not do it, then someone stole the data. Call in the RCMP please.
I am not too happy that Elections Canada is getting nowhere with their robocalls investigation. Back on the EDay in question, I too received a robocall informing me that my polling place had changed. At the time I shrugged it off as Elections Canada incompetence, because I had already voted
Continue readingNot an Official Green Party Canada Site: Campaigns really DO Matter: Robocalls, Polling and the electoral impact of Big Data
Two weeks ago, British Columbians were preparing to cast their ballots in an election that was widely expected to be the NDP’s to lose. You see, public opinion polls on voting intentions had been published showing an almost insurmountable gap between the NDP and the second place Liberals. The polls
Continue readingNot an Official Green Party Canada Site: The Green Party demostrating strategic and tactical smarts on Vancouver Island
The Greens are running a tight ship on Vancouver Island these days. In the wake of Andrew Weavers win in Oak Bay Gordon Head on behalf of the BC Green Party, I decided to have a closer look at the BC Provincial election results in the Victoria area. Knowing so
Continue readingNot an Official Green Party Canada Site: BC Liberals Advertising for the Greens in Victoria!
Vote Green! Brought to you by the BC Liberals I was tooling around on Facebook this morning, and some of my Green Party of BC FaceBook friends were talking about this full-page advertisement for Jane Sterk and the BC Greens in the Times Colony. You know, one of the most
Continue readingNot an Official Green Party Canada Site: Liberal Party open contested nominations: Awesome plan, but Pro-Life is the fly in the ointment.
At great risk to life and limb, I am going to open a can of worms that the Liberal Party is just going to HAVE to deal with soon. Over the course of the leadership contest, the bold experiment of opening up the vote for all Canadians through the supporter
Continue readingNot an Official Green Party Canada Site: Actually, jury is still out on efficacy of Attack ads against Trudeau
Hmm, this is a bit embarrassing. Yesterday I posted that the Ipsos Reid poll commissioned by postmedia and CTV demonstrated that the attack ads were not working. The word I used was emphatically not working. Well I have to climb down a little (a lot) from that statement. I argued
Continue readingNot an Official Green Party Canada Site: An Opinion poll actually worth noting: Conservative Attack ads emphatically are NOT working.
Opinion polls can be extremely significant when they are used properly. When you are quantifying what things are of interest to specific people, you can garner useful actionable data, useful for political purposes that is. But the opinion polls that new organisations typically commission are next to useless. I mean,
Continue readingNot an Official Green Party Canada Site: Whither the Green Party? Probable Strategy for 2015
I just took a gander at the Elections Canada databases to see the current state of the Green Party EDA`s. Like them or not, the Green Party remains a factor, and their 2015 campaign will play a role in determining the outcome of the 2015 election. I have a couple
Continue readingNot an Official Green Party Canada Site: Trudeau’s ‘Call to Action’ needs to focus on building the Riding Associations.
In the very few weeks since Justin Trudeau was elected leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, there have been some pretty big things going on. I guess the most obvious, and I mean IN YOUR FACE obvious is the launch millions of dollars worth of ‘attack ads’ by the
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