Comments on: Obama sets example for Canada

By: Ryan

Ryan — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 02:51:41 +0000

Losing campaign funding won't make a bit of difference. The only thing that will get the parties to take the high road will be single transferable vote.

By: Ryan

Ryan — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 19:51:41 +0000

Losing campaign funding won't make a bit of difference. The only thing that will get the parties to take the high road will be single transferable vote.

By: Johan i Kanada

Johan i Kanada — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 21:48:00 +0000

Obviously a record number turned out for Obama, as he hadn’t run before. Any number would have been a record number with Stephen’s definition (aka rationalization).

For Pete’s sake, Stephen, just admit that you erroneously believed the media hype about record turnout, and admit your mistake..

By: bill

bill — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 05:25:12 +0000

One quick thought: I'm not sure about your conclusion that private support of political parties might make Cdn politics more positive. I seem to remember several fundraising emails from the CPC during the election, exhorting us to dig deeper for more $$…the given reason was usually to stop Dion and his tax, not to re-elect PMSH.

Is perhaps fear a more effective fund-raising technique than inspiration?

By: Alex

Alex — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 20:49:02 +0000

Stephen Taylor, you are an evil genius.

By: Rob Harvie

Rob Harvie — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 15:00:15 +0000

Just a thought.. as per my own blog today, studies suggest that Conservative bloggers and in particular, “Blogging Tories” significantly outnumbers the Libs and NDP in number of blogs and postings.. one might imagine a “point and click” donation machine that could be used to facilitate individual donations to the Conservative Party, that individual bloggers could append to each of the websites, as they do with the “Blogging Tories” feed for example. Just a thought.

By: nbt

nbt — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 14:33:02 +0000

In Canada, the Reform Party under Preston Manning started a tradition of passing the hat in church basements and legion halls during rallies, speeches or simple administrative meetings. A donation of $5, $20 or $100 was passed on to bring change to Ottawa.

I agree. But part of both Obama's and Manning's fundraising efforts and strategies were buoyed by the fact that they represented something ideologically different then their opponents. In the Reform party's case, it was the elitism and mismanagement of both the Progressive Conservatives and the Liberals in Ottawa. In Obama's case, the corruption and mismanagement of the Republicans in Washington.

Once that "anything but" aura wares off, it will be much more difficult to tap into such an ethos via small donations.

By: Steve

Steve — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 02:30:00 +0000

I also need to point out, that these numbers you’re throwing around are merely the REPORTED amounts.

1) The Dems are under fire for incorrectly accepting donations from non-citizens (i.e. resident aliens, illegal aliens, visiting foreign nationals, or blatently from over seas accounts). These numbers will change a bit when everything is adjusted to be “legally reported” donations.

2) Both sides saw at LEAST as much money being “donated” through PACs (Political Action Commitees).

PACs were created back in 1948, but only took off in the past two decades. The bulk of PAC “freedom” laws were pushed through by Democrats under President Clinton until the latest ugly one in 2000, which the Dems pushed for limiting the IRS from seeing who donated to PACs (changed their requirements to file IRS taxes… now tax free, effectively giving them “church/charity” status and hence no reporting of donors/amounts).

By: Steve

Steve — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 01:47:00 +0000

Campaign “welfare” in the US comes with limits on how much you can raise. That was the POINT of such a system… to limit people from BUYING elections.

The rich are NOT supposed to have the ability to BUY elections… but they clearly do; ESPECIALLY if they have a silver-tongue and the ability to network for MASSIVE fund raising. BIG government LOVES Obama’s no-holds-barred approach to fundraising… but it’s not change… it’s regression.

I’m ashamed to see how a fellow American can be so dishonest and dupe 52% of the population into voting for him.

By: Steve

Steve — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 01:38:00 +0000

Sorry, I have to call you on this “misrepresentation”:
“A striking difference between campaigns was Obama’s refusal of public funding. The Illinois senator took $0 of public financing while his Republican counterpart from Arizona took over $84 million to make up 23% of his campaign’s spending power.”

Obama’s refusal to accept the campaign dollars was NOT because he was concerned about taking tax payer money, just the opposite, by doing so he would be limited in how much he could raise (that’s the catch with accepting the government funds… and why it was created in the first place… and why NO president since BEFORE Regan has ever turned it down: to do so would be political suicide… unless you’re an agent of “change” of course).

When Obama was running for the Democrat nomination, back in 2007 he PROMISED on a nationally televised debate that he would follow John McCain’s example and accept the funds and it’s limits on raising donations.

Once the money can rolling in to defeat Hillary, he realized he actually like the power money brought… so he lied and said he “never committed” to such a thing… even though the quote and VIDEO is all over the internet.

He SAID he was for change, and before he even locked up his own party’s nomination he was corrupted.