The Dog Barfed Up My Policy

A few days ago I posted this about Ed Stelmach policy statements. I finally found the document I read before. It was a speech given to the Goldbar PC Riding Association not long ago. You have to read the whole thing. It is so convoluted and mental it will make you cry. It made me cry and I'm pretty shallow. I felt like e.e. cummings looking for the cap-locks key. Sorry, I've just been dying to use that line.

Anyway, the part that caught my eye was a few comments on proportional representation. I'll let Ed talk now:

But I will be perfectly clear that if some want to make changing our system of elections to a "proportional representation" system, put me on the record opposing it.

As the Leader of the Progressive Conservative Party, I will not make it my legacy to get more NDP or Liberal members elected. If they can win on the ground, or in the hearts of Albertans, then fine.

But let's not fool ourselves by getting caught up this red hearing(sic) debate that it would be better to have less community representation and more ideological representation.

Here is my reasoning for advocating change in our party and not in our system.

Proportional representation will give legitimized voice to the extremes in politics, and if politics existed without the media, there is a possibility that within the confines of the legislature, a balanced approach would be the result.

But in today's world, the natural competitive media would give disproportionate attention to extreme positions giving rise to wedge politics

Oy. Whoever barfed this up should'nt be sleeping well at night. This is traditional conservative rhetoric. The voters can't be trusted because they might vote "extreme". The media can't be trusted because they might "legitimize" what people actually voted for. Ed, like the entire ruling parting sweats bullets at the idea of losing control over the peasants.

The other thing deeply disturbing - or Funny, depending on your mood, is the fact that Ed can't tell the difference between the party and the government. Do you think that's from being in power too long.

Its time to update my Alberta Dictionary:

Community Representation: Conservative Representation.
Ideological Representation: Non-Conservative representation.
Wedge Politics: An idea that is not approved by the ruling party.

Read the whole speech here.

Updated July 24, 2006: Added a link to the speech in the first paragraph. Fixed a couple of HTML problems. Please recommend this post