Your comments are rational and logical… until you uderstand the scope of the issue with a Harper Government. This isn’t a conservative / liberal issue… we are fighting a Neocon take over of our country if something isn’t done soon… and in this context the plan makes perfect sense!

Please review this link to “The Powel Memo” written by Lewis Powel just weeks before being appointed to the Supreme Court by Nixon. It is the blueprint for the corporate takeover of America and as you read you will soon understand the events of the last 40 years were not a natural evolution, but a planned takeover by the corporations and the few at the top that control them. Harper and his gang of neocons are following the plan to the letter (Sun News… or Faux News North is a very visible example, as are private prisons and laws that help fill them) and must be stopped.

http://www.thwink.org/sustain/articles/017_PowellMemo/index.htm

Agreed. I think that there is something in voting FOR a new spirit of cooperation. However, I do not find Cullen’s plan to be attractive in that sense. All the progressive parties have policies or proposals to reform our electoral system. So, take what you want from that. Secondly, the two examples of non-partisan “cooperation” are lead by the Liberal party. They didn’t run a candidate against Stephen Harper in the Calgary Southwest by-election when he took the leadership of the CA after Preston Manning stepped down in 2002. The second was when they didn’t run a candidate in the 2008 election in Central Nova when Ms. May ran. In both examples, the NDP ran candidates. The first is an example of parliamentary courtesy; the second is an example of supporting a broadening of the voices in parliament. (It is a shame Mr. Iganteiff did not follow Dion’s example in Saanich Gulf-Islands during ’11 — but happily we have Mz. May in the house nevertheless.)

I would prefer that kind of riding-swapping between the parties. In some races, it wouldn’t make a difference: such as Elmwood-Transcona in Winnipeg which is a two-horse race between the NDP and CPC and the LPC vote is basically token. Would NOT having an LPC or Green candidate there help it go back to the NDP, probably. Maybe. Same with Winnipeg South Centre. Two ridings with two bad CPC MPs both cases it would have helped, in theory, to only have 1 progressive candidate. There are many ways to skin a cat. And, IMO, joint-nominations is one of the bloodiest way to go about it.

And maybe it’s time to get over Chretien’s campaigning. After all, most Libs have to move on from the $4B Paul Martin dedicated in the 2005 budget to the NDP only to have Jack pull the rug from out under the government with Stephen Harper 8 months later. So. Yeah.

Caramel, you’ll look like an idiot if you declare the LPC dead and they begin to poll better and the continually out-fundraise the Official Opposition. The May 2011 election proved that 1 speech, 1 gaffe, 1 hiccup can turn tides. You’d think Dippers wouldn’t be so arrogant after a surprise wave that hardly ANYONE could have predicted in March when the government fell. Moreover the Rae NDP government in Ontario didn’t kill the Ontario Liberals for good.

Thanks for your comments. I was thinking about how the “FOR and not AGAINST something” close to this piece would necessarily have me talking to someone in the comments, because I understand how electoral cooperation meaning voting FOR something could seem counter-intuitive.

The something that the post-partisan activists I talk to are hoping to vote FOR, is a new spirit of cooperation and compromise that will allow the opposition parties to share power and promote the policies that are supported by the majority of Canadians.

It is different than how politics have operated in the past where you vote on adherence to a singular ideology, that devalues all others and is based on ‘war room’ ‘us vs them’ mentality.

Because I’m a NDPer, personally I’m pretty pissed off with the Liberal trend of campaigning from the left and governing from the right over the past decade. Nevertheless, Im not going to let my bitterness over this get in the way of us moving forwards.

What we could vote FOR is to rise above all this partisanship and do something truly historic.

Your conclusions complicate and contradict the very question and findings posed by Lead Now, namely, that Lead Now members support whatever cooperation “left” parties need to take in order to defeat a Harper government. And this in itself is some great triumph of post-partisan principle. Truly, what principles are being championed other than those that are perceived as being NOT “conservative”?

All that I read from the Lead Now poll is that Lead Now members are principally engaged in politics to vote AGAINST Harper, and therefore are willing to vote “for” anything BUT (be it a Liberal, Green or NDP on in a two-horse ballot against a CPC incumbent).

MOREOVER, this “cooperation” comes with a condition, or hope, that a progressive minority government presses with a referendum on electoral reform which will only, if anything, solidify MORE partisanship in the Canadian governance and our political economy.

Lastly, I’d like to see a more complete picture of who are voting in Lead Now polls (asking what their primary, secondary, third and fourth ballot choices are); if they carry a party membership; and of many options which is the best to defeat Harper (pre-election EDA joint party nominations, LPC-NDP/NDP-GPC/LPC-GPC or LPC-GPC-NDP merger, NDP-LPC-GPC party brass selectively running candidates in CPC incumbencies (riding-swapping), vote-swapping, etc); ages; genders; where they live.