Canadians: How long until your REALLY dislike Belinda Stronach?

[HEyHEY]

Here's the first thing I saw when I picked up the Calgary Sun off the driveway at work this morning.

http://www.canoe.ca/CalgaryNews/cs.cs-01-23-0006.html

I saw her speech the day she decided to run, it was the worst example of a politician saying nothing while talking I've ever seen. Plus she was arrogant towards the press in a Rumsfeldian kind of way.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

1. Already do, bud. Let me count the ways.

She wants to cut the capital gains tax. Bad move. She talks about 'baking a bigger economic pie' - what the hell does that mean? She supports the war on Iraq, but doesn't say whether she would have sent Canadian troops. She's clearly a front candidate for people including Brian Mulroney and Mike Harris. She has zero political experience, but wants to become PM, shouldn't she, oh I don't know, get some experience of being an MP first? Everyone says she's a successful businesswoman, but we all know why she's CEO of Magna, and it ain't business acumen. She seems to know very little about Canadian Political Culture. She heads up a corporation that is violently anti-union. She talks like an airhead. She's the choice of a group of desperate people desperate to stop Stephen Harper. All that said, I'd love her to become leader of the CPC, as I think she'd be their first and last leader. Bring it on!

[HEyHEY]

2. yeah - God I dislike her!

"She talks about 'baking a bigger economic pie' - what the hell does that mean?"

Exactly, that was what I was trying to remember about here speech. That was talking for the sake of talking.

I am impressed with how the Sun showed her no mercy, even in the callout qoute they used her stumbling qoute.

[TreasonousBastard]

3. Ummm...

OK. I read her resume, and she does seem a bit the overachiever, but just how DID she get the job?

Inquiring minds want to know.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

4. Well, she hasn't got the job yet, but if you mean as CEO of Magna

Daddy owns the company.

[iverglas]

19. "bigger economic pie"

She's obviously been studying at one of Dubya's schools:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,807587,00.html

This poem is composed entirely of actual quotes from
George Bush. Circulating on the internet for some
time, it was reportedly compiled by Washington Post
writer Richard Thompson. Here we reproduce it to
mark National Poetry Day.

Thursday October 10, 2002

I think we all agree, the past is over.
This is still a dangerous world.
It's a world of madmen and uncertainty
and potential mental losses.
Rarely is the question asked
Is our children learning?
Will the highways of the internet become more few?
How many hands have I shaked? They misunderestimate me.
I am a pitbull on the pantleg of opportunity.
I know that the human being and the fish can coexist.
Families is where our nation finds hope, where our
wings take dream. Put food on your family!
Knock down the tollbooth!
Vulcanize society!
Make the pie higher! Make the pie higher!


Now let's see her top the rest of them. It shouldn't take long.

.

[Bush loves Jiang]

5. She's a libertarian version of Bush...

A rich heiress with no respect for the English language, as you can witness at www.belinda.ca.

[Minstrel Boy]

6. She's awful. I love her!

Stronach would be an unqualified disaster for the Conservatives. If they're so desperate to avoid Harper that she's their choice, they'll be in spitting distance of the PC's 1993 showing of two seats. She would destroy the old Alliance core vote, which is all the Conservatives can count on this election.

[Bush loves Jiang]

8. Her election would represent a bizarre internal contradiction...

Centrists, libertarians, and progressives in the PCs have virtually abandonned the new Conservative party.

They're fucked.

[Tommy_Douglas]

9. PNAC dollars must be funding conservatives here now...

They speak and act the same. Playing both sides of the fence in the hopes that people can't think for themselves and will vote them in, and by then it'll be too late.

I hope she is the leader. Doesn't have a chance in hell of winning.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

10. Well, Brian Mulroney thinks she can replicate his 1984 landslide

and we all know what a great track record he's had at picking leaders for the Tories.

http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20040123/CONSERVATIVE23/TPNational/Canada

[Minstrel Boy]

12. I'll agree with this from Mulroney:

Martin in 2004 is reminding me of Turner in 1984. But the Conservatives will decidedly not be the beneficiaries of Liberal hubris this time. It's the NDP's turn.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

13. I think the Turner comparison holds water

I wasn't in Canada when Turner led the Liberals, but what I've seen of him is strangely reminscent of Martin, a man who lacks the necessary killer punch, who lacks the fire (apart from the surprising exception of the 1988 leaders' debate). Nothing in politics is a sure thing. It looks like Martin will win a landslide, but that's sure as hell not set in stone.

[TrogL]

7. I absolutely love her

She'd make the perfect candidate. I hope she runs and wins and loses the party its Official Status. People have NOT forgotten Brian Mulroney.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

11. It's between her or Harper. Dull Ideologue or ditzy ingenue.

We can't lose!

[terrya]

14. This American DU'er has read a little about her (from the Globe and Mail)

She sounds like, um, less than statesman like, shall we say (my Canadian boyfriend referred to her as "Ann Coulter without the brains")

Apparently, she supports gay marriage.

How would that play in the new Conservative party?

Terry, curious about Canadian politics.

[Minstrel Boy]

16. She's not a social conservative, and that won't sit well with

the Canadian Alliance faction of the new Conservative Party. She seems to be the last, best(?) hope of the rump of the former PC party to keep the party out of the hands of Stephen Harper. And that this is the best they can do, underscores how many of them have already abandoned the party for the Liberals.

[SeveneightyWhoa]

22. .

.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

15. kick

[Grey]

17. about 6 more minutes, n/t

[newyawker99]

20. Hi Grey!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[iverglas]

18. hated her before I knew she existed

I've hated her daddy since about 1969.

.

[HEyHEY]

21. Good, then we can hate her together

[SeveneightyWhoa]

23. She scares me, quite frankly.

Well not her, necessarily, but what she represents and the people and ideas behind her.

Mel Hurtig (Canadian nationalist and author of "The Vanishing Country") has taught me to fear the concepts of "integration" with the US and the "selling out" of our country (Canada).

When her initial policies start out with integration of our economy and borders with the United States, lower taxes (Bush-style), and closer relations to the Bushies, I smell nothing but anti-Canadianism. I want this country to remain as Canada and not a colony of the US, and Mulroney and Stronach are the types of people that don't succumb to such a belief. They want Canada as a 51st state because of the economic benefits it'd provide to the elite Canadian corporatists.

[MrPrax]

24. Can't Stand Her Already...

There doesn't appear to be any conservatives left in Canada.

I was surprised that there wasn't a bigger feeding frenzy over a newly merged 'party'...Frank Stronach's kid is the best they can do...

I hate Martin...