Most spectacular collapse you've ever seen of a political party...

[Sephirstein]

The British Columbia Social Credit party won just about every election from the Great Depression to 1991:

They currently do not have a single seat in the legislature and have misspelled the word "divinely" in their "Principles of Society."

http://www.bcsocialcredit.bc.ca/

[Sliverofhope]

1. I was hoping you were going to speak

of the Republicans. Ah, wishful thinking.

[jiacinto]

2. I was hoping you would be speaking of the Greens

But maybe that wish will come true in a few years.

[Kenneth ken]

14. coulnd't be

The Green party has yet to achieve anything of significance, so by definition, even their total collapse at this point would not be "spectacuar."


( not a green flame, just a comment on their lack of national stature and influence at this point. )

[TacticalPeek]

3. Its all allegory.

:)

[AndyTiedye]

6. They Could be Talking About the Democrats after 2004...

...If we don't do something about the voting machinez

[Sephirstein]

4. lol...

I don't see why people hate them so much now: They're far less reactionary than the B.C. CRAPaTORY-Masquerading-as-Liberals and far less corrupt than the B.C. NDP. (Still like the NDP feds though. I even am willing to tolerate Layton's more concillatory attitude towards separatists, if only because there are 2 or 3 bonafide progressive in the PQ and a few in the BQ, whether I like it or not.)

[whirlygigspin]

5. well , I'll be

VanDer Zammed!

lol

[arikara]

10. I'm pretty nostalgic for the NDP though

after what the so-called liberal party is doing to us. I don't think that the NDP was as bad as they were made out to be, certainly no worse than many others including the Zalm, the Bennetts, and Campbell himself.

Maybe Campbell and Klein will go on a mean spirited little bender and get thrown in the brig together when the cabinet takes their jaunt to Alberta. And isn't that another fine use of tax dollars?

[carpetbagger]

7. Better than the implosion of Perot's Reform Party?

[Sephirstein]

8. That party was fucked up...

Didn't have a Marxist faction (Hagelin? Dunno...), a paleoconservative faction (Pat Buchanan), and paleolibertarian fcation (Perot), and a left-libertarian faction (Ventura)?

[Minstrel Boy]

9. Let's talk about the 1993 Canadian federal election:

The Progressive Conservatives had won 169 seats in 1988 and formed a second consecutive majority government.

In 1993, they won two seats.

Oh my, that felt sweet.

[whirlygigspin]

11. You can thank--

Byron Muldooney for that Titanic of a disaster!

(my favorite story from that time--a restaurant
in Montreal had to remove a pic of ole moose jaw Mulroo
from their front window after several incidents of pedestrians throwing dog shit at it~! lol)

--gotta love CND politics

woof! woof!

[Sephirstein]

12. What's really ironic...

Is that the only decent leader they ever had was PM for only 6 months because his counting skills were only marginally better than Bush's speaking skills.

1979 shall be known as the only year when both major parties ran candidates who didn't suck.

I can't wait for 2004 though....

Martin vs. Layton vs. Harris should be a real treat and the first competitive election I'm old enough to see. :)

Too bad the best man is the only one who certainly won't win. :( (Well, Duceppe...But the only party I'd vote for those guys over is the Ontario Family Coalition Party.)

[Minstrel Boy]

13. I'm quite excited about Cdn election 2004

The Martin bubble will, I think, burst a la John Turner in '84. Layton is an exciting campaigner, fluently bilingual, and he knows how to hold the media's interest. Martin is going to steer the Liberals right, and the NDP will have the left to itself. There's a real possibility I think for a best-ever showing, 45+ seats, and perhaps holding Martin to a minority.

[ironflange]

16. I'm afraid you're dreaming

Martin is no Turner, he hasn't been out of politics for 10 years etc etc etc. I agree that Martin will prolly steer the Grits to the right, but with the Tories ready to implode again and the CA staying in the lunatic fringe there's lots of elbow room for Paul. The NDP will pick up seats, no doubt, but 45 seems overly optimistic.

[Minstrel Boy]

19. "overly optimistic"? Hey, I'm a lifelong NDPer!

It comes with the party membership. :)

You make a good point about PC/CA. Unless they get their respective acts together (I doubt they'll unite for the next election), Martin won't face a serious challenge on the right, and he needs one if the NDP are to make inroads on the Liberal centre-left. And the stronger the parties on the right and centre-right - though not too strong - the better will be the breaks for the left in close ridings.

[Sephirstein]

21. I'm glad a chose to subscribe to a right-wing newspaper...

Tons of coverage of the Unite the Right. There have been some major barriers that have come-up in the past few days. I consider this a bad thing, as a divided right will lead to tons of voter apathy and the most boring federal election in Canadian history.

[Iverson]

18. yeah, I was thinking about that too

If I understand correctly, the Social Credit party was a regional (Western province) party that never formed a national government.

Also, one of those two survivors of the Conservative implosion, Jean Charet, is now a Quebec Liberal.

No wonder Chretien has been PM for so long!

[Sephirstein]

20. It's not that simple...

The Liberal Party of Quebec is not the Liberal Party of Canada: They're a coalition of mainstream federalist interests, of which Jean Charest is a part. (Charest is used to strange coalitions: Mulroney's PCs were a coalition of crypto-Americans, big business, red Tories (people who would be on the right-wing fringes of the NDP but for a number of reasons, choose to be Tories), centre-left Quebec sovereigntists, and Christian fundamentalists.)

The Parti Québécois, in contrast, is a coalition of mainstream separatist interests, while the Action Démocratique du Québec is an ideologically libertarian party with both separatists and federalists.

Charest is probably the most right-wing Premier Quebec has had since before the Quiet Revolution when it comes to economic issues, but, like every Premier after Duplessis, with the possible exception of Daniel Johnson Sr. of the Union Nazionale (I don't know if they were still fallangists by that point...lol), is very progressive on social issues. (Social conservatism doesn't sell in Quebec. The only prominent right-wing party is a Libertarian party.

If you think this is strange, in British Columbia, the provincial Liberal party currently in power is right of the Canadian Alliance (!) on most economic issues, but hasn't really taken a position on social issues (B.C. tends to be socially liberal, but right-wingers have done very well on economic issues and on corruption -- both real and perceived -- in the B.C. left and Canadian centre.). Picture Gordon Campbell as a mix of Paul Martin, Brian Mulroney, and Stephen Harper.

[Iverson]

24. thank you

Just when I think I know a little about Canadian politics, something new makes my head spin. However, I am grateful to learn new things, so thank you for your amplifying comments.

Rex Murphy be with you.

;-)

[Sephirstein]

26. Your welcome...

I would have likely voted Tory in '97 actually...I liked Charest a lot more than Chrétien, and I didn't take the NDP or Reform party very seriously back then. God...I was only 13 in that election: I know my step-dad voted Tory...Charest's easily is favourite politician in Canada...My mom might have...But Martin was on the ascent back then and I think she likes him too...My dad and grandparents nearly did, but they're Red through and through (but my dad was NDP provincially back when Samis was the local MPP), even if my dad makes enough money to benefit from right-wing governments and my grandfather's a social conservative.

[Yupster]

15. Communist Parties

of Western and Eastern Europe -- heck the US party collapsed pretty thoroughly in the 40's too.

[Piperay]

17. I was afraid you were referring

to the Democratic Party. I'm in a very pessimistic mood after seeing the latest poll results on the recall. :cry:

[ShaneGR]

22. Brit Torries

They fell apart after Majors, just a thought. They're a LONG way from the days of Margaret Thatcher.

[Sephirstein]

25. lol...

The way things are going in the U.K. right now, the LibDems will be the only ones left standing.

[DerekG]

23. Democratic Party--1968

In 1964, LBJ was elected president in the biggest landslide in American history; likewise, the Democrats won the majority in both houses of Congress. Goldwater was humiliated and the right-wing was in retreat. Pundits predicted that conservatism had died and that the liberal Democrats, empowered by the Great Society, would retain power for at least a generation.

Then Lyndon Johnson escalated the war, and by 1968, the Democratic Party was utterly fractured between hawks and doves. The assassination of Robert Kennedy, perhaps the only man who could have stopped the ascent of the right-wing, paved the way for the chaos that would occur in the latter part of the year.

LBJ squandered our one god-damned chance to change the spiritual landscape of this country.