[Kjorteo]

I'm getting the impression that this is going to be a long time in the wilderness for Canadian Liberals. All they seem to have at this point is the disturbingly common "wait for the other party to implode and be the last guy standing by default" option, and as long as Harper runs at least a more or less reasonable government and isn't caught eating babies live on film or anything, I somehow don't see the new Liberal leaders charming their way out of this one Obama-style or anything.

[ManifestDestiny]

I thought Canada is so diverse? where are all of your minority candidates?

I only see stuffy white guys and that fool Justin Trudeau. Who I knew when I lived in Toronto in 2001 Thats one strange guy if you want my opinion! Prime example of someone who never had to worry about paying a bill in his life!

[JJ]

I've been thinking a lot lately as to why a nation like Canada, which is just as racially diverse as America, has never produced any high-ranking non-white politicians of any substance. And when I say "substance" I mean more than just some inconsequential Asian somewhere who is appointed Minister of the Food Pyramid or whatever. I mean a non-white with significant clout and influence in the upper echelons of the national government, comparable to a Colin Powell, Condi Rice, General Shinseki, Bill Richardson, Zalmay Khalilzad or now Eirc Holder.

[Streaker]

Kjorteo wrote:

I'm getting the impression that this is going to be a long time in the wilderness for Canadian Liberals. All they seem to have at this point is the disturbingly common "wait for the other party to implode and be the last guy standing by default" option, and as long as Harper runs at least a more or less reasonable government and isn't caught eating babies live on film or anything, I somehow don't see the new Liberal leaders charming their way out of this one Obama-style or anything.

Your impression is quite false. The Liberals will be back in power in less than two years.

Conservatism has become very passe as of late.

[Thanos]

Streaker wrote:

Kjorteo wrote:

I'm getting the impression that this is going to be a long time in the wilderness for Canadian Liberals. All they seem to have at this point is the disturbingly common "wait for the other party to implode and be the last guy standing by default" option, and as long as Harper runs at least a more or less reasonable government and isn't caught eating babies live on film or anything, I somehow don't see the new Liberal leaders charming their way out of this one Obama-style or anything.

Your impression is quite false. The Liberals will be back in power in less than two years.

Conservatism has become very passe as of late.

Yeah, the results of the last election were obviously faked.

[Streaker]

Thanos wrote:

Streaker wrote:

Kjorteo wrote:

I'm getting the impression that this is going to be a long time in the wilderness for Canadian Liberals. All they seem to have at this point is the disturbingly common "wait for the other party to implode and be the last guy standing by default" option, and as long as Harper runs at least a more or less reasonable government and isn't caught eating babies live on film or anything, I somehow don't see the new Liberal leaders charming their way out of this one Obama-style or anything.

Your impression is quite false. The Liberals will be back in power in less than two years.

Conservatism has become very passe as of late.

Yeah, the results of the last election were obviously faked.

Barack Obama, dude. Harper and his CONS are a complete anachronism now.

[Kjorteo]

But doesn't that sort of necessitate a Barack Obama-like figure on the Canadian side? The entire point of this cartoon is that all the candidates for Liberal party leadership are more like Canada's answer to John Kerry than anything else. And in America, it apparently took the right messing up catastrophically and a genuinely charming charismatic figure from the left offering hope and change in his alternative. Without the latter...well, do recall that Kerry somehow managed to do the impossible and lose to George W. Bush.

Meanwhile, Harper doesn't have the reputation of being a catastrophic fuck-up that Bush managed to acquire. He's just sort of there. I suppose if you really want to nitpick, you can be disappointed in him for running on a serious reform and "I'll clean up the government" platform after the Liberal party's various failings (sponsorship scandal, etc.) and then not actually doing anything new, even for things like the Senate. However, there's a difference between Harper's "I guess he's more of the same after all" and Bush's "wow, how does this man manage to tie his own shoes in the morning? Or does Rove do that for him?" Similarly, there is a difference between a Obama's inspirational "join me and I will save you from this madman's legacy" and the Canadian Liberals' "uh, well, we're here too. You guys remember us?"

They can't run on a platform of hope and change and alternatives to the evil incumbency because Harper hasn't really even done anything yet, and no one has appeared yet with enough charisma to run on anything else. The relative lack of charm or issues on either side (an incumbent who's just sort of there vs. a challenger who's also just sort of there) is why JJ depicted the last election as a meaningless Groundhog Day-esque waste of time and money and "oh, there was an election today?" vs. the US' excitement to the point of counting down the hours until election day.

[Zipperfish]

JJ wrote:

I've been thinking a lot lately as to why a nation like Canada, which is just as racially diverse as America, has never produced any high-ranking non-white politicians of any substance. And when I say "substance" I mean more than just some inconsequential Asian somewhere who is appointed Minister of the Food Pyramid or whatever. I mean a non-white with significant clout and influence in the upper echelons of the national government, comparable to a Colin Powell, Condi Rice, General Shinseki, Bill Richardson, Zalmay Khalilzad or now Eirc Holder.

I'd argue that a Prime Minister who is not from Quebec in Canada is on par with a black dude in the US.