Omnibus: Conservative Leadership Race

Ron in Regina

"Voice of the West" Party
Apr 9, 2008
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“Pierre Poilievre is an acolyte of authoritarian populism. This is never healthy. You are on notice. Going to make sure you are never going to lead my country. I don’t make idle threats,” Graves wrote on Twitter last week.


Frank Graves, President and founder of EKOS Research Associates, went on the attack against Pierre Poilievre’s populist-tinged bid to become leader of the Conservative party. Unquestionably, Graves has the right to express his opinions, but his online onslaught, as head of a prominent political polling firm, only dumped fuel on the populist fire he loathes.

Whoopsie….unbiased polling firm here…more at the LINK above.

This was just one of many similar statements made by Graves, most of which have since been deleted. Speaking over phone and email on Wednesday, Graves struck a far more moderate and reflective tone.

“These are my personal opinions which do not affect the data I collect,” says Graves. “I should express them more temperately, or keep them to myself.” Graves denies his personal bias seeps into EKOS’s polling data. “You wouldn’t be in business for the amount of time I’ve been, and been as successful as I am, if you torqued your data,” he says.

Uhm….sure…ok…

One Poilievre supporter, Melissa Mbarki, tussled with Graves on Twitter. “It’s really difficult to trust an information source when the face of the organization becomes biased,” she said in an interview this week.

Mbarki, a member of Saskatchewan’s Muskowekwan First Nation who works with the Macdonald Laurier Institute, is unconvinced by the suggestion that Poilievre is unleashing a dangerous wave of populism upon the country, and believes Poilievre will help tackle longtime problems within Canada’s Indigenous communities.

“He’s the only candidate who is talking about economic development on FN reserves. The high rate of poverty is an issue that we need to address,” says Mbarki. “This ties into the cost of living and life being more unaffordable for northern Indigenous communities.”

Graves and Mbarki engaged in a fierce back-and-forth Twitter exchange over Grave’s criticisms of Poilievre, with Mbarki questioning Graves’ handling of polling data that collides with his beliefs. Graves retorted that suggestions he manipulated EKOS’s data was defamatory. To be clear, no evidence has been presented of corrupted EKOS data for partisan purposes.

Even if there is no reason to doubt the quality of EKOS polls, and there does not appear to be, promising a party leadership candidate he will never get elected is crossing a line, especially considering Graves’ considerable resources, and the fact he explicitly labelled his attacks on Poilievre as a “threat.”

Honestly, I expected to hear something like this from owners of media outlets first….in a pompous kingmaker statement….as they also feel threatened by Poilievre.
 
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pgs

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Listened to Charest in a softball interview on the radio yesterday , expect the legacy media to be pushing him . His description of Polievre and supporters was American style divicive politics at its worst . But where he really lost me was when he condemned PP for meeting with the illegal truck convoy in Ottawant . Yikes all we need is another squish to vote for .
 

taxme

Time Out
Feb 11, 2020
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Well, the accusations are out there as they’re throwing shit to see what will stick what will fall to the floor…Trump-like in the attempt.


While large turnouts don’t necessarily translate into votes, his large following is evidently unsettling the liberal media establishment. Some have reached for absurd comparisons, likening the leadership hopeful to former U.S. president Donald Trump and French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen. Trump campaigned, as we all remember, on an anti-immigration message, and Le Pen’s antipathy towards immigration and the rule-based European Union are a far cry from the mainstream issues that Poilievre has focused on.

Perhaps recognizing that the accusation of extremism won’t stick, some critics have grasped for an old chestnut, which is to point out that Poilievre’s rallies largely draw white folk and not so many people of colour. As journalist Stephen Maher tweeted: “It is a whole lot of white people. If I was Poilievre, I would be wondering why I am only attracting white people.”

This is reminiscent of commentary on the Freedom Convoy, which similarly observed that many of those showing up to join the protest were white, implying a lack of diversity in the supporters of the convoy. The implied guilt-by-association is a classic tactic of the left. The objective is clearly to imply, if not state explicitly, that a gathering of mostly white folks is somehow racist or even white supremacist.

The lack of “sufficient” diversity is then used to delegitimize the cause. I recall that when I pointed out that there were indeed people of colour at the Freedom Convoy protests, the rejoinder often was that there wasn’t a “sea” of non-white people, implying that only this would have made the protests acceptable in their eyes.

This line of argumentation is both pernicious and insidious. It assumes that unless there’s a statistically representative sample of the entire Canadian population — or, better yet, an over-representation of minorities — an event or a cause only represents the interests of white Canadians and therefore somehow should be discredited.

The absurdity of this argument is easy to spot. The rest at the above link.

The idea that the rightness of a cause is to be judged by the demographic makeup of those who appear to support it, a common assumption on the left, is itself racist. Imagine playing back this line of reasoning as follows: if a gathering in support of immigrant rights attracts mostly people of colour, and someone on the right were to argue that this makes it racist because it’s non-representative, that person would be laughed at. Yet that is exactly the type of argument people on the left routinely make, without being challenged.

Poilievre’s critics who resort to such arguments have clearly lost the plot. Rather than engaging with and critiquing his policy platform, they are busy trying to tar him because of the presumed colour profile of his supporters. Nothing speaks louder of defeatism than when you can’t counter an argument and try to discredit the person making it instead.

The fact is that people living in rural Canada have been disproportionately hurt by many of the Liberal government’s policies, such as its climate agenda, and Poilievre’s campaign resonates with them. The fact that most of these folks happen to be white shouldn’t be used to demean and discredit their cause. The left’s attempt to fit everything into a procrustean bed of enforced diversity is actually the most divisive tactic of all.
When all of the leftist lying liberals have nothing left to back up their claims of lies and bullshit then they will resort to lies and bullshit about their conservative opponents. They will try to put their opponents into the house of Hitler and Trump. When they try bullshit like that they know that they have already lost the battle. All they can hope for now is to get the dummy lemming zombies out there to try and believe their lies and bullshit. The leftist liberals have nothing to offer we the peasants except for more and bigger government, more taxes on top of taxes,, and fight to take away rights and freedoms. If anyone cannot see that Canada has a tyrannical fascist globalist dictator running this sad and pathetic country today, well then, they must be awfully gawd dam stupid.

The leftist lying liberals are terrified of Pierre. They cannot allow Pierre to become leader. The lefties will try anything to try and stop Pierre from becoming the leader of the conservative party. I don't doubt that the liberal party will probably give money to Charest leftist liberal campaign. Whenever Pierre has a venue he gets hundreds if not thousands of people going to one of his conservative venues. The Turd, Singh, and Charade only get a few, if any, and they probably pay those few to show up to support them. All the turd and his side kick comrade Singh want to talk about his climate change and try and keep covid up and running and alive. A disgusting and deplorable gang of losers and Fascists indeed. (n)
 

taxme

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When people stand in line to meet Pierre Poilievre, you know his message about ‘normal life’ has hit home​



PP is the Trump of Canada that we freedom lovers have been waiting for. Go, Pierre, go. (y)
 
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Ron in Regina

"Voice of the West" Party
Apr 9, 2008
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This is about the crowds showing up at Pierre Poilievre’s rallies, and it is not about the crowds showing up at his rallies. Of their size and enthusiasm both I and others have written. The crowds, in the numbers, showing up for his events in all parts of the country — even in the heart of downtown Toronto, at an apologetic venue mere yards from the headquarters of the CBC, the Canadian temple of current wokeness and identity/race fascination — have to be alarming for the bunch who have signed up to run against him.

Poilievre’s reception seems not to accord with the Ottawa press gallery’s professional assessment of him. And I must note as a needed caution, that whenever there is a rupture between established press opinion and the public, it is always the public that is astray. The gallery itself will confirm this view.

An aspect I’d like to touch on however is not what the crowds and enthusiasm mean for Poilievre’s leadership bid, but a curious — curious to me, anyway — and somewhat too frequent response to those crowds. There has been frequent comment on their “whiteness.”

My question, and it is a serious one, is why should anyone — opponents, critics, journalists, or even people who just dislike Poilievre on instinct — find it useful, appropriate, necessary or informative to note the skin colours of the huge numbers attending his rallies?

 
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Tecumsehsbones

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My question, and it is a serious one, is why should anyone — opponents, critics, journalists, or even people who just dislike Poilievre on instinct — find it useful, appropriate, necessary or informative to note the skin colours of the huge numbers attending his rallies?
It's an indicator that, at least so far, he don't play real well with non-Whites.

Know who else was criticized for not being real popular with non-Whites? Pete Buttigieg.

The pendulum never swings to center and stops. It swings to the other side. It swung way, waaaay to the right back in the days when non-Whites and women had, by law, an inferior set of rights in the U.S. and Canada. Slowly, painfully, it swung to the happy middle where non-Whites and women had full legal equality, and we were working on social equality. So OF COURSE it didn't stop there. That would be too easy. The non-White and female hotheads, who were invested emotionally, financially, or both in being hard-done-by, went waaaaaay overboard. Abetted, of course, by the press, which is in the game to sell newspapers. "If it bleeds, it leads. If it thinks, it stinks."

The good news is that, in the presence of friction, each swing of the pendulum is less extreme than the one before it. The bad news is that we'll be long past caring when it settles to the stable middle.
 

B00Mer

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taxslave

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Listened to Charest in a softball interview on the radio yesterday , expect the legacy media to be pushing him . His description of Polievre and supporters was American style divicive politics at its worst . But where he really lost me was when he condemned PP for meeting with the illegal truck convoy in Ottawant . Yikes all we need is another squish to vote for .
Of course they would. Charest is the easiest for liberals to beat. Might even be able to do it without stuffing ballot boxes.
 

taxslave

Hall of Fame Member
Nov 25, 2008
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This is about the crowds showing up at Pierre Poilievre’s rallies, and it is not about the crowds showing up at his rallies. Of their size and enthusiasm both I and others have written. The crowds, in the numbers, showing up for his events in all parts of the country — even in the heart of downtown Toronto, at an apologetic venue mere yards from the headquarters of the CBC, the Canadian temple of current wokeness and identity/race fascination — have to be alarming for the bunch who have signed up to run against him.

Poilievre’s reception seems not to accord with the Ottawa press gallery’s professional assessment of him. And I must note as a needed caution, that whenever there is a rupture between established press opinion and the public, it is always the public that is astray. The gallery itself will confirm this view.

An aspect I’d like to touch on however is not what the crowds and enthusiasm mean for Poilievre’s leadership bid, but a curious — curious to me, anyway — and somewhat too frequent response to those crowds. There has been frequent comment on their “whiteness.”

My question, and it is a serious one, is why should anyone — opponents, critics, journalists, or even people who just dislike Poilievre on instinct — find it useful, appropriate, necessary or informative to note the skin colours of the huge numbers attending his rallies?

Division and currying favour from various minority groups is the only thing the left has to work with. The whole multiculti thing is going to destroy the country.
 

Ron in Regina

"Voice of the West" Party
Apr 9, 2008
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And jumped ship to live with the enemy.
Poilievre's biological mother was 16 years old when she gave birth to him and is of Irish descent. Poilievre's biological maternal grandfather, whom he first met as an adult, was Irish Canadian. Poilievre was adopted at birth by schoolteachers Marlene and Donald Poilievre. Poilievre was raised in Calgary and attended Janet Johnstone School, Robert Warren School, Henry Wise Wood High School, and the University of Calgary.

 

Tecumsehsbones

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Poilievre's biological mother was 16 years old when she gave birth to him and is of Irish descent. Poilievre's biological maternal grandfather, whom he first met as an adult, was Irish Canadian. Poilievre was adopted at birth by schoolteachers Marlene and Donald Poilievre. Poilievre was raised in Calgary and attended Janet Johnstone School, Robert Warren School, Henry Wise Wood High School, and the University of Calgary.

Great. A Paddy Frog.
 
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