NOVEMBER 2006

SEA CHANGE IN POLITICS? I DUNNO
Well, here's an article in the Toronto "red" Star about the supposed sea change in Canadian politics set to take effect in the next couple of weeks, with the byelections, the big PC leadership vote in Alberta, and the Liberal leadership race. Actually, the sea change already happened. The Conservatives united themselves and then booted the Liberals out, that was a sea change in itself. What I find most amusing are these stories about Bob Rae's chances. Now I don't call the second coming of Bob Rae a sea change. Not at all. In fact I find it downright odd that the people of Canada get stuck with the same politicians coming back from the dead all the time, people who got hurled out of power for good reason.

You can't get rid of these folks. The Ontario municipal vote is a prime example, the people in Mississauga brought back Carolyn Parrish, who left federal politics but I guess couldn't stay away from the civic scene. And of course you had Joe Clark who left and then came back, and Robert Bourassa who left and then came back, and John Turner who left and then came back. Nothing new about this.

What would be a sea change, though, would be a major shift in leadership in Alberta, especially if this Ted Morton guy gets in as Premier. He seems a little too socially conservative and reform-minded for my own tastes, even though he has a lot of good ideas and seems fiscally responsible. But I don't know if Jim Dinning, the frontrunner there, would be any improvement. The Conservatives have got to be careful there, even with their big majority, because that province might threaten to hand itself over to the Liberals. The cities there can be ripe for the taking if the right Liberal comes along, preaching a fiscally-responsible message. So we'll see what happens.And expect lots of political coverage from me next week.

LONDON NORTH CENTRE BYELECTION
Here is a story in the Toronto "Red" Star about the London North Centre byelection.

The gist of the story is that Elizabeth May is the wild card in this race because she is the Green Party leader, so she can expect to get quite a few votes. The article seems to suggest that her entry is going to bleed votes away from Conservative candidate Dianne Haskett, the former mayor of London. But I don't see how the Greens are going to bleed votes away from the Conservatives. If they are going to bleed votes away from anyone it will be from their left-leaning brethren the Liberals and the NDP. Especially the NDP. I noticed that a lot of the "undecided" people in the last election that I talked to directly were deciding between the Greens and the NDP, and London is traditionally a city where the NDP has a hope of winning. But if May is running, the NDP does not have a hope. They can forget it. The Greens are more of a problem for that party than for anyone else.

The only place where the Greens are a real problem for the Conservatives is BC, where the Conservatives used to be the Reform Party and picked up lots of protest votes. But the protest vote is disenfranchised there, ever since the merger. The Greens have had some success picking up some of the protest voters, but not enough of them to win a seat yet. The other thing is that you don't see too many "protest"-type people in London, it's a very mainstream kind of place. So I just don't see the Greens denting the Conservatives.

You might say that Dianne Haskett is a "wild card" in her own right because this is the former mayor of London running for office for the Conservatives. Her opponents say she's really controversial and all that, and a "religious nut", and so on and so forth--- all the usual smears. But I really think this religious stuff is more of an issue for the people who live in downtown Toronto than in London, Ontario. I remember when Haskett was mayor of London and while she was true to her own principles she didn't seem like any more of a "religious nut" than anyone else, really, most of the time. If it had been an issue, believe me, she would never have been re-elected mayor.People ought to just get a grip and realize: hey, you know, some people are religious. They shouldn't be banished from society for being religious! That's my rant.

The other thing the Red Star ignores in this article is that, much as they would like this to be a referendum on Stephen Harper, the fact is this is a Liberal seat to begin with. The Liberal member Joe Fontana resigned his seat to take on Anne Marie DeCicco-Best in the London mayor's race, but he was defeated. So now the Liberals have served up one of their own seats and are risking handing it over to another party thanks to this doomed effort. Way to go, Joe Fontana. We'll see what happens.
// posted by John Cairns @ 3:47 PM 0 comments

LIBERAL LEADERSHIP RACE IN LAST STAGES- BLOGGERS GOING TO MONTREAL
In only a couple more weeks the Liberals hold their big leadership convention and CAIRNSONPOLITICS and THE CAIRNS BLOG hope to once again provide the usual saturation political convention coverage. No, I will not be at the convention, I will be at home watching the TV. I've kind of had enough of attending political conventions, at least for right now.

Some bigshot bloggers will be there, though. There was a story on Global the other day about how Stephen Taylor and Jason Cherniak are heading to the convention to cover it. The difference is that Taylor is going there as an accredited Conservative blogger with full press credentials; he doesn't have to pay a cent. Meanwhile Cherniak is going there not only as a blogger, but as a die-hard Liberal Stephane Dion supporter/delegate. Which means he will have to pay the ridiculous delegate fees. It costs a thousand dollars to go be a delegate for the Liberals!

Now, at past leadership races that I've been to, it did not cost me a thousand bucks to go. Then again, I only went to one federal and two provincial leadership conventions, and all of them were direct-vote-by-the-membership affairs. (There were two other federal leadership races in which I cast a vote directly, but I didn't attend the convention on those occasions.) The biggest ripoff I heard of was the 2002 Ontario PC vote which cost people $195 to get into, but I didn't have to pay my way into that thing as I recall. But even so, we all thought these fees they were asking for were ridiculous and a ripoff. The other two leadership conventions were much more reasonably priced and I paid my own way into those. The federal Tory leadership convention in 2004 cost about $70 to get into, after taxes. Keep in mind these were not delegated conventions; everyone in the party was able to vote for the leader directly. So any die-hard who worked hard on a leadership campaign and who wanted to be in Toronto could go to the convention if they wanted to and even cast their vote there. I gather the Conservative policy convention in Montreal cost quite a bit more money for delegates to go to, and I didn't go to that one.

But this is ridiculous, the Liberals setting a delegate fee of a thousand dollars. Granted, it has both a policy component as well as a leadership component, so it is bound to cost more money than if it were a direct leadership vote. But still! Cherniak is trying to raise money from people so he can be able to go there and vote, and blog from the floor of the convention. I think this is a very big issue for a lot of campaigns, trying to find a way to get their people to the convention, given these ridiculous delegate fees. So I wouldn't put too much faith in the unofficial "delegate totals" that have been reported. They give a good idea what will happen on the first ballot, but not the whole story. Let's see who actually shows up in Montreal at the convention after paying the thousand dollars! Not too many, I can imagine.

KENNEDY-DION GANGUP RUMORS
Here's a story from The Hill Times on what is going down with the convention and the leadership race, and whether or not it will be an Ignatieff-Rae final runoff. The latest speculation is it may not. Apparently the big fear in the Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae camps is about the possibility of a gangup by Gerard Kennedy and Stephane Dion. The fear is that Kennedy and Dion will support one another at the convention, depending on who's ahead of who after the second ballot is finally over. Then the fourth-place finisher will move over to the other, who will then vault past Bob Rae and then face Ignatieff on the final ballot.

The other thing that we know about is that the Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae camps both absolutely hate one another. Rae keeps on bragging about his great growth potential, but it won't be so great if Kennedy and Dion do a deal at the convention. And keep in mind Rae's not too far ahead of either of them. He's got something like 20% while these two could have a combined 32-34% at the convention! If these two do a deal, Rae could be finished. What Rae really needs to do is get the lesser contenders Ken Dryden and Scott Brison onside after the first ballot, and it's really questionable whether that will happen. I wouldn't be surprised at all if these two guys go to Ignatieff or someone else. I'm sure Kennedy and Dion will want their votes, too, so they can knock each other out on the second ballot.

Anyway, I could see Rae dropping to third on the third ballot if this Kennedy-Dion alliance thing happens, and then Rae's people could move over to one of those two and make that man leader. I wouldn't be surprised. I think what we are seeing is the possibility of a big stop-Ignatieff effort starting up. There's a lot of anti-Ignatieff sentiment out there right now. There are a bunch of YouTube political videos floating around right now and they look like your typical American negative political ads. They are attacking Iggy's support of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and his various comments in the media, and are calling him a "Republican".Anyway, there's bound to be a lot of movement at the convention. The thing is that Bob Rae could win this convention or lose completely. It all comes down to this Kennedy-Dion business and I wouldn't be surprised if backroom deals between these two candidates, or even a big deal that falls apart, decides this convention. I think Ignatieff's best hope is for all the opposition to be disorganized in their attempts to stop him. He may be ahead but he can be had, no question about it.

The thing to watch out for is that the first ballot will take place on Friday night during the speeches. People are speculating there will be a whole night of negotiating and smoke-filled rooms before the second ballot begins on Saturday. I wouldn't be surprised. One convention I went to, I walked into the hall on Saturday morning and discovered that the Toronto Star had a big front-page story, reporting that my candidate's backroom people had spent all night at a nearby hotel negotiating to support someone else. I wouldn't be surprised if we saw talks going on. I don't think people will bail out of the race immediately because of those talks. But I do think you'll definitely see stuff happening quickly on the floor of the convention hall as a result of them, and people being organized. This setup frankly helps the stop-Ignatieff people a lot, because they're the ones who really need the time to organize themselves and do deals with other people.

The other thing that is happening is that the Liberals are threatening to tear themselves apart over this whole "recognizing Quebec as a nation" resolution nonsense which will be going on during the policy portion of the convention. Ignatieff was apparently supporting this resolution and getting into hot water over that, not to mention all the other things he was getting into hot water on, whether it's inserting his foot in his mouth over Israel and all the rest of it. See, this is why the Americans settle disputes in committees ahead of time; they know the whole national media and all the bloggers will show up at the convention to make their entire party look like it is in chaos. It's bad for party PR.That's why leadership conventions in Canada are on their way out, folks. There's a resolution on the table to turn Liberal leadership contests into directly-elected things in the future and it looks like it should pass. And no wonder. This convention is going to be a big PR headache for the Liberal Party of Canada.

Anyway, fun stuff for Canadian political junkheads in a couple of weeks--- and don't forget, there's a byelection in London North Centre and a leadership race with the Alberta PCs going on, too.
// posted by John Cairns @ 12:06 PM 0 comments

FLUNKING THE BAR: NO FUN
Quite often I go over to Above the Law to find out some of the salacious stuff happening in North America's major law firms.

Anyway, noticed a blurb about Emily Pataki, who is the daughter of the governor of New York, George Pataki. Anyway, she was working at this big law firm, but now she's flunked the New York State Bar and wrote an e-mail to her entire firm letting them know. It seems like an odd thing to do, let everyone know you flunked. Most people would crawl under a rock, but I guess she figured she'd face up to this setback and let people know about it and so maybe she won't get fired. Flunking the bar is bad enough for anyone but it has to be worse if you're already famous or a son or daughter of someone famous. It's embarrassing and your name gets printed up in all the tabloids. We all know that John F. Kennedy Jr. flunked the bar exams in New York State twice, and the whole media reported on it, and JFK Jr. told the press he was clearly not a legal genius, and on and on.

Finally he passed on the third try. But he eventually left the legal field to start a magazine. I'm wondering if Emily Pataki is going to eventually quit, too. I wouldn't be surprised. She also has a journalism background, she worked at Bloomberg TV once.The New York bar exam is a real monster. It's several hours worth of questions, plus you have a huge failure rate to begin with, something like 40% or so. This is one of those state exams that Canadian law school graduates can write directly after law school; there's New York State and there is Massachussetts, which is apparently a lot easier. The problem is that in order to pass New York State you have to take these privately-run bar courses from people like BarBri. BarBri runs the most popular course, but the reason why people take that course is because they know everyone else is taking it, so they figure they have to do what everyone else is doing. Many people also take another private bar course at the same time just to make sure! Those cost a ton of money, thousands upon thousands of dollars in fact! It's a ripoff, and a real burden for people to take the bar exam in these states, especially if they have no law job offers to begin with and need to pass the Bar in order to improve their chances. Lots of people have to take out bar loans that they have to pay off, just to write the exams. It's a real burden.

Here in Canada, they do things a lot differently; the various provincial law societies run their own bar courses and the exams, in addition to a ridiculous articling requirement that the Americans don't have. But you still have to pay for the bar exam and all the material. In New York it doesn't cost too much to actually sign up and write the bar exam; less than in Canada as I understand it. What really kills you are the ridiculous additional fees to take BarBri and these private bar courses, some of which don't help you one bit in passing the bar exams. In fact I heard these private bar courses have been hauled into court to face lawsuits from disgusted bar flunkers who claim they were ripped off and ill-prepared by these folks.

That's the other thing, once you flunk you have to pay to sit the bar again--- all for a career with unbelievably long hours and lots of stress. The whole thing is a ripoff. By all accounts the worst bar exam is in California; I read somewhere that the pass rate was something like 38%! That's ridiculous. I read that the dean of the law school at Stanford recently wrote the California bar exam and flunked it. This is a true story. The current mayor of Los Angeles wrote the California bar four times and failed every time, so he finally gave up. I actually know someone who actually graduated from the University of Saskatchewan law school and practised law in Canada, but she moved with her husband to California and she passed the bar there, and worked there as a lawyer. I wonder how she was able to do it given all the reports I hear about how bad it is there with the bar exam. The problem isn't so much that the exam is too long or too onerous; it's probably no worse than what you go through in New York. The real problem is that the grading there is ridiculous.What people really need to do is go find a state that will take you, where passing the bar exam is really easy. I hear that the pass rate in South Dakota is something like 90%. I think Emily Pataki's true problem is that she lives in New York City. If she really wants to pass the bar exam, she should move to South Dakota. Hey, life isn't too bad there, they have casinos and the like.
// posted by John Cairns @ 10:45 AM 0 comments

SOME FINAL ONTARIO ELECTION STUFF
Well, I am a real political junkhead to be posting this stuff.

Larry O'Brien won the mayor's race in Ottawa very easily as it turned out. Incumbent mayor Bob Chiarelli got buried in third place with 15% of the vote.

In Vaughan Linda Jackson won that nasty mayor's race by a hair.

In Toronto - Danforth, the final tally in the city council race in ward 29 has incumbent Case Ootes winning by only 20 votes. I guess the right-leaning voters were so discouraged by the blowout mayor's race that they gave up and stayed home, and almost cost Ootes his job.Pretty left-leaning TO City Council. All the usual people got in and just one incumbent councillor was defeated.I missed not being with my political friends this election night--- we could have ranted and raved about these bad election results and how the people of Toronto are such fools, and on and on.

And finally in Markham Joe Li lost yet again. The poor guy should really give up already.Uh, that's pretty much it.
// posted by John Cairns @ 1:12 AM 0 comments

Monday, November 13, 2006
THE CITY ABOVE TORONTO
Race of the night is in Vaughan where the mayor's race currently has the two frontrunners separated by 11 votes.

UPDATE: Rundown of Toronto results here: notice City Hall veteran Case Ootes is trailing. Not good news from my standpoint.
// posted by John Cairns @ 6:17 PM 0 comments

MORE RESULTS IN TORONTO
Citytv reporter Adam Vaughan is projected victorious-- City Council is officially in the toilet. And I notice councillor Case Ootes in Toronto-Danforth is really in trouble- he was leading but it's really close, too close for their liking I am sure. At least one incumbent councillor has been defeated. But as for everyone else, well, it's exactly what I thought it would be, the same fools as last time who screwed things up. At least John Sewell got beat.

Another guy I know, Jim Conlon in ward 33, isn't going to be too happy with running fourth in his race. These conservative types are getting killed.And Carolyn Parrish is leading in Mississauga, trying to get on council. Yecch.

LIVE RESULTS HERE: www.ctv.ca/mar/static/elections/tor2006/TO_results.html
// posted by John Cairns @ 5:36 PM 0 comments

DAVID MILLER RE-ELECTED MAYOR IN TORONTO
Citytv declared Miller the winner as soon as they signed on the air! That was quick.

Hazel McCallion was declared the winner in Mississauga again but heck, you might as well declared her re-elected weeks ago.
// posted by John Cairns @ 5:10 PM 0 comments

POLLS CLOSE IN LESS THAN AN HOUR
I'll be here reporting in from time to time on the Ontario returns. The Ottawa mayor's race is supposed to be very close, and the Vaughan race is really dirty between incumbent Michael Di Biase and Linda Jackson. There was also a guy running in the GTA who impersonated a police officer, and there were threats of intimidation in some races. Talk about wild stuff.

Municipal politics can be dirty, but it's also fun. This is grassroots politics, folks. If you want to get a lot of hands-on political experience, municipal politics is the best place to get it in my book. Particularly in Toronto. These folks really get into it in Toronto and in the GTA, it's a lively scene there and many of the people involved municipally also have provincial or federal experience. I notice John Parker, who sat at Queen's Park, is running for council in Jane Pitfield's old seat. I noticed in York Region that the area's ex-MP, Jim Jones, is running there for re-election to regional council. A guy I've met during the Tony Clement leadership race in 2002, Joe Li, is also running for regional council in the Markham area. He ran for Parliament in Markham before and got hammered. He's lost so many races now that it has become a running joke; he really needs a win, badly.

My own political involvement in the Toronto area in recent years included a lot of contact with people close to the municipal political scene there. I know city councillors and school trustees there, and a number of local political aides who work at City Hall and are actively involved. On these provincial and federal races I ran into plenty of municipal people; I met councillor Rob Ford during the federal votes. Of course I volunteered heavily on the mayor's race three years ago for John Tory, a great experience and good exposure to politics, so I'm up on all the local issues like garbage, transit, the Island Airport and all that from all the emails and correspondence I had to deal with during that vote. Those are the same issues this time! Believe me when I say nothing's changed. What a waste of the last three years at Toronto City Hall, nothing's gotten done.

I'll be watching what happens to people like councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong and Catholic School Board trustee Angela Kennedy quite closely, and of course the mayor's race.

It's odd being a spectator this time around, in fact it's odd to not be in Toronto for this election. But don't worry; I voted in the advance poll and cast my vote disgustedly for Jane Pitfield. Call it my parting shot at Toronto politics. Anyway, election results are coming soon, at 8PM EST. And because the results come in electronically the results will be known, fast. See my post below for links!
// posted by John Cairns @ 4:20 PM 0 comments

Sunday, November 12, 2006
HOT RACES IN THE ONTARIO MUNICIPAL VOTE
Here's a National Post look at the hot races in the municipal vote in and just outside Toronto tomorrow. What to watch out for: whether ex-mayor John Sewell or ex-councillor John Adams can beat incumbent Joe Mihevc in St. Paul's; whether ex-Citytv reporter Adam Vaughan can beat the NDP; the vicious mayor's race in Vaughan, and whether Carolyn Parrish can get a seat on city council in Mississauga. I really see that woman trying to set herself up for a run for mayor later on, her and her big mouth and anti-Americanism. Needless to say, lots of people in Mississauga are hoping Hazel lives a long time, just to keep Parrish out.

I notice that Citytv is bragging that it will have the only live election coverage on regular TV in Toronto. CTV Toronto, in what I consider a major copout, is shifting most of its election coverage to the Internet this year. They figure the regular viewing audience is only interested in watching situation comedies on TV. CTV are planning to serve up a 2-hour streaming block over the Internet, but are only going to serve up a crummy half-hour special on TV. I know all the political junkies have fled to the Internet to get their political coverage anyway, but that's only because TV is doing such a lousy job covering politics. Besides, a fat lot of use Internet coverage is going to be if you're an election worker, watching a bunch of TV screens at your local victory/defeat party. They are all going to have to tune every TV have in to CityNews. I give CityNews credit, at least they are making an effort, even though this election is going to be boring. Rogers Television also has coverage planned, but that's on cable TV, not rabbit ears.

More links to come.
// posted by John Cairns @ 11:47 AM 0 comments

TORONTO SUN SAYS: VOTE FOR JANE PITFIELD
ONTARIO MUNICIPAL VOTE TOMORROW
The editorial endorsements are out in the press now and the Toronto Sun has come out today with an endorsement of Jane Pitfield for mayor of Toronto. Read it here.

In the endorsement editorial the Sun lambastes the Toronto Star and its tepid editorial endorsement of mediocre Mayor David Miller. The Star says vote for Miller because there's no alternative. Not so, says the Sun, who points to Pitfield's record at City Hall. It's interesting the Sun is calling the Star's endorsement a lukewarm one, because the Sun made a point of saying that Pitfield has run a disappointing campaign.

No surprise there, in fact the whole Toronto campaign has been disappointing. The same group of bums who have run Toronto into the ground are going to get back in tomorrow, that's my wild and crazy prediction. Municipal elections in this country are a lot like US elections. Races aren't run on party lines, in fact the only party really actively involved is the NDP. They actually nominate candidates for Council, but none of these other parties do. It's a case where you don't vote for the party, you vote for the man. Or the woman. So these incumbents have so much name recognition that you can't get these bums out of there. In the last municipal vote in Toronto, hardly any incumbents on Council got booted out. There was one incumbent in Eglinton who got the boot because of an unpopular development she had given her backing to, and I know someone else got beat, too, but that was about it.

Worse yet, so many of these incumbents are so organized that the opposition has no shot. In Mississauga, Hazel McCallion basically has no opposition in every election she has run. She has opponents, but that's the same thing as Muhammad Ali having chump "opponents" to knock out. I know a lot of city councillors in a lot of wards have races that are, let's face it, a joke. The problem isn't that their opponents are no good, it's because these candidates are disorganized and have no viable campaign. They're running against an entrenched "name", so unless they are a big name already or sat on Council or the School Board before, they have no shot. Not all the races are like this. Some incumbent councillors like Case Ootes actually have to run an actual campaign against organized, tough opposition, but they seem to win all the time, too.

The problem for Pitfield is that even though she's been on Council a long time, she's run a lousy, uninspired campaign. She's come off looking like a negative individual in the media; running against panhandlers, against this and that, and that's no way to go. It's not enough to run a campaign completely against an individual; you have to state what you are for. But all you are getting from the Pitfield campaign is that she's not David Miller. Well, that only works if you think, as I do, that anyone other than David Miller would be an improvement, but you can't hope to win an election with such a campaign--- because there's a lot of people in Toronto likely to vote for Miller because they don't think they have a choice. Well, they do have a choice, and a good one, but this campaign has been a flop. You know, if you are really desperate to waste your vote on an alternative you can cast it for Stephen LeDrew, but if you really want a change for the better in Toronto your best bet is Jane Pitfield. That's my official CAIRNS BLOG endorsement, if you can call it that.

Of course, the most effective alternative of all is to decide to vote with your feet. I hear there are plenty of jobs in Calgary. Montreal's a pretty cool city. In Montreal they have a comedy festival and all these auto races. Even Edmonton has a ChampCar race these days, and their NHL team actually played in the Cup finals and has won Stanley Cups within the past 40 years (unlike Toronto). In Vancouver they have a domed stadium, and you can drive to Seattle to see baseball and film festivals and go up a cool tower! Of course, if you really need to stay in Ontario you can simply move to York Region like everyone else, or move to Mississauga and live under Hazel's rule! At least she tries to actually balance the books! There are other cities, you know. Anyway, election day is tomorrow and there should be plenty of coverage of the Ontario races tomorrow over the Internet. I'll post a few coverage links tomorrow. Not today; too much important football on TV.
// posted by John Cairns @ 10:35 AM 0 comments

MORE POLITICAL JUNK MONDAY
A reminder to those of you out there that Monday is Municipal Election Night in Ontario. Not that it looks to be such a close race. The polls have David Miller leading Jane Pitfield by a 2-1 margin in the Toronto mayor's race and that is what I expect the result will be on election night.

Meanwhile the Stephen LeDrew campaign has totally tanked with the public. LeDrew is supposed to be a serious candidate and has been treated as such by the media, and has been included in all the debates, but beyond that he hasn't run much of a campaign. One poll has him at 2%. 2%?! That's pretty awful. But what do you expect, he started late and has no campaign organization as far as anyone can tell. You can't expect to win a race for mayor of Toronto if you don't go full-bore from very early on. And he hasn't done that.

Anyway, coming up later on in a matter of weeks is the Liberal leadership convention in Montreal, plus the PC leadership race in Alberta to replace Ralph Klein. Here's what I just found out today: apparently the PCs in Alberta are scheduled to announce their second ballot at the same time that the Liberals crown their leader. Reminds me of what happened in Ontario in 2002. The Canadian Alliance crowned Stephen Harper the leader over Stockwell Day; that same week the Ontario PCs held their big leadership convention and elected Ernie Eves on the second ballot to become Premier of Ontario. But Harper's win came on a Wednesday night while the PC convention in Ontario actually started on Thursday and crowned the leader on Saturday. Which leads me to this question: will the Liberal leadership contest be decided on a Saturday night, as these things usually are? I think it is; I read the Liberal convention program and it says that the voting for the first ballot will begin on Friday night. Then they start with the second ballot on Saturday and will try and finish all the balloting by afternoon. Smart move to try and avoid all-night leadership conventions. I think they're attempting to get it all over with by the time Hockey Night in Canada comes on, because they know there will be a riot if that show gets interrupted with political convention coverage. In the past they were always pretty successful because the Liberal leadership contests were always blowouts, but this race looks like it will probably go four ballots! Well, there better not be any counting delays or voting problems like the ones that have plagued other political conventions (ie. 2004 Ontario PCs--- we weren't out of there until way past 11PM, and that race only took two ballots!). Otherwise, you'll see lots of squirming CBC people wondering how to appease all the hockey fans and political junkies at the same time!

See, this is why most Canadian political parties try and hold their conventions during the summer, when hockey season is over. You avoid this whole problem. Also, there's an article in the Globe about how this is likely to be the end of an era and the last of the old-style delegated conventions. The Liberals have pretty much decided to scrap these delegated conventions, too, and go to the membership with direct elections for leader. So this really is the end of an era in politics.

Anyway, I'll be enjoying (?) (!) watching more political stuff on Monday and throughout this month.
// posted by John Cairns @ 6:42 PM 1 comments

ABC WINS ELECTION NIGHT; PLANK-WALKING AT DATELINE NBC
Read on TVNewser that this is a bad day at NBC, they've given some 17 staffers at Dateline NBC the boot. Dateline NBC has been cutting back bigtime and seems to be reduced these days to doing "true crime" and other stuff. I notice 48 Hours over on CBS has been reduced to this sort of thing, too. Newsmagazines on TV seem to be in deep decline.

In other bad news for NBC News, I noticed their great election night coverage got beat rather convincingly in the ratings by Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos. The reason ABC did so well was because of the lead-in, Dancing With the Stars. So plenty of people didn't bother to switch the channel.

Yes, that's right--- seems plenty of Americans are more interested in a silly dance contest than an important election that gave the boots to the GOP. But that show has intrigue going for it, you know. It's had scandals and interesting personalities. I'm sure lots of people were tuning in just to see how Jerry Springer was doing.

Anyway he got the book two weeks ago, and now it's down to Mario vs. Emmitt. Not that I care much. But I appreciate why people watch Dancing, it's like--- following professional sports! You have controversy and people quitting and debates about who should be booted--- just like in baseball or football.

Anyway, Charlie Gibson ought to thank the Dancing people, they gave him victory on election night. And it's sad times for NBC, and everyone else for that matter (CBS mourning the death of Ed Bradley, FOX News mourning the defeat of the Republicans, etc. etc.).

UPDATE: Heard they booted two Dateline correspondents. Edie Magnus and Robb Stafford got the boot. Yikes.
Wednesday, November 08, 2006

DEMOCRATS WIN THE SENATE
I'm watching MSNBC tonight and they are all talking about the AP wire story that the Democrats have taken the Virginia senate race with Jim Webb beating George Allen by about 7,000 votes. Word is that Allen will just throw in the towel rather than have a big recount, because this margin is just too big.This means the Democrats take control of the Senate. I've been going over to the conservative blogs, and over to Rush Limbaugh, to get the reactions. A lot of these conservatives seem to share Limbaugh's reaction; they feel "liberated" and freed from having to defend Republican bonehead policies all the time. Limbaugh seems weary of fighting their fights for them. Others are looking forward to bashing the Democrats for the next two years, then blame them for all the problems facing the country in the 2008 presidential election.

What is clear is the Republicans have a lot of renewing of themselves to do. They've ticked off lots of people with their "big-government conservatism", what with forcing Americans to get identity cards and take their passports with them all over the world and so on. And people are fed up with the House scandals, and with the GOP legislating morality with all these FCC fines for TV, and of course the mess in Iraq. No wonder the Republicans got beat. Frankly, if the Democrats hadn't won with all they had going for them I'd say they'd never win again.
// posted by John Cairns @ 8:19 PM 0 comments

RAJ: NOT HIRED
This was a bad election for most Republicans and one of the people mowed down was Raj Bhatka, the womanizing former Apprentice contestant who was fired by Donald Trump.

He was running for Congress in a Philadelphia-area seat and was actually beaten pretty handily. It was actually a solid Democratic House seat to begin with, so Raj's only hope was for a big Republican sweep. His big problem was that he was running in a year when people were telling the GOP "you're fired".
// posted by John Cairns @ 4:07 PM 0 comments

RUMSFELD OUT
Well, this reminds me of what happens in baseball when the manager gets fired the day after a losing season is over. George W. Bush once owned the Texas Rangers. Coincidence? I think not.Anyway Donald Rumsfeld has resigned as Secretary of Defense the day after the Republicans lost the election in the House. Robert Gates is the replacement.
// posted by John Cairns @ 10:16 AM 0 comments

Tuesday, November 07, 2006
NOT ALL BAD NEWS FOR THE GOP
Ahem. AHHHHNOLD has won.

Now the real bad news: the GOP is now trailing in the three remaining races they needed to keep control of the US Senate. They now trail in Missouri, and have been trailing all night in Montana. They are also losing in Virginia, where the lawyers are being called in to haul that Senate election into court.

Get ready for control of the Senate to be decided in court. Shades of 2000 all over again. This is getting ridiculous: elections decided by lawyers and judges.
// posted by John Cairns @ 10:39 PM 0 comments

NEAR SWEEP
The US Senate is right now the big question mark as the Democrats lead in Montana and now Virginia. Jim Webb leads George Allen in a race that appears likely to go to a recount. Republicans still lead in Missouri and Tennessee but it's too close to call in all four. CBS, though, is calling the Tennessee race for Bob Corker of the GOP. If the Democrats win 3 of these 4 they will control both houses of Congress. They were showing Nancy Pelosi, the incoming Speaker of the House, and all the Democrats locking hands and waving their arms in the air in victory. Will be interesting to see George W. Bush's reaction tomorrow.
// posted by John Cairns @ 9:36 PM 0 comments

VIRGINIA RACE RECOUNT LIKELY
It's been a really bad night already for the Republicans. The House is already gone and now the Senate looks in jeopardy. The Democrats had picked up three and for a while it looked as if they wouldn't get any more, but now it looks like they may take Montana, and now they have a chance of taking the lead in Virginia. Incumbent Republican George Allen's lead over Democrat Jim Webb has been shrinking as of late. 98% of the vote is in and Allen's lead is down to 6,700, and a lot of Webb's vote is still outstanding. All in all it's a lousy night to be a Republican.
// posted by John Cairns @ 8:41 PM 0 comments

NBC NEWS PROJECTS DEMOCRATS WIN CONTROL OF THE HOUSE
The Republican Newt Gingrich revolution is over. The Democrats have kicked out the Republicans in the House; currently numbers have something like a 29 seat gain for the Democrats and they only needed 15 for control. 231 to 204 is the current projection for the House numbers. 12 years after the Contract of America sweep, we get the anti-Iraq, anti-Bush backlash tonight. CNN has now made the same projection of a Democrat victory. The Democrats have picked up 3 in the Senate but do not appear likely to take over the Senate at this moment. Heard that Virginia might be going to recount.

Bad night for Republican names like Rick Santorum, defeated; Katherine Harris, defeated; and on and on.
// posted by John Cairns @ 8:14 PM 0 comments

TV NETS COVER ELECTION NIGHT
I'm watching the TV networks cover this election and right now Charlie Gibson is on ABC anchoring the Vote 2006 coverage. It's kind of odd seeing ABC election coverage without Peter Jennings.I'm watching Katie Couric on CBS and it's also really odd. It's like watching NBC, except you're waiting for Tom Brokaw to show up. Brokaw is of course over at NBC tonight helping out Brian Williams. All I will say about CBS' election night so far is that it sucks. Couric is just terrible. Terribly, terribly dull and boring. I miss Dan Rather and his Ratherisms already.

I love watching Tim Russert on NBC doing his whiteboard thing. He has really broken this race down to the bare essentials and all I will say right now is that if I'm a Republican I'd be very worried about the way this is going. OOoh, and Campbell Brown is on NBC tonight, too. Right now NBC is killing everyone. CNN's on a roll too.

So far it's a net pickup of 3 for the Democrats in the House and the Senate, but the night is still young. Joe Lieberman has won in Connecticut as an independent.
// posted by John Cairns @ 7:07 PM 0 comments

TSUNAMI
Well, I'm watching the election results and Chris Matthews was on MSNBC calling this a "tsunami". But I don't see a tsunami yet. It is shaping up to be a lousy night to be a Republican, though.So far it's Democratic gains but the Republicans are in front in Tennessee, Bob Corker in front of Harold Ford by 40,000 votes. But it's 39% of the vote counted. Virginia is too close to call and so is Missouri. It's Republicans 45-43 in the Senate right now and Republicans are bleeding in House races and in the statehouses. MSNBC is saying we should know more and have a clearer idea about the state of who has control of the House and Senate within 30-45 minutes. But the trend to the Democrats is clear: the only question is will it be enough to take over the House and Senate. Talk is that it might. Charlie Cook is on TV predicting a pickup for the Democrats of at least 20 in the House, which would be enough to take control.
// posted by John Cairns @ 6:54 PM 0 comments

8PM EST POLLS CLOSE
Lots of results coming in:FL- Democrat Bill Nelson beats Katherine Harris of 2000 recount fame. MA- TED KENNEDY!!!! Maryland, Tennessee, Ohio, New Jersey too close. No result in Connecticut where Independent Joe Lieberman is trying to beat Ned Lamont, the guy who beat him in the primary. Jim Webb leading in Virginia over George Allen 50-49. More to come.
// posted by John Cairns @ 5:05 PM 0 comments

EXIT POLL NUMBERS
Here are the US Senate exit poll numbers floating around right now and they look pretty good for the Democrats. To which I go: big deal. We'll see the real numbers.DEM leading:VA 52-47RI 53-46PA 57-42OH 57-43NJ 52-45MT 53-46MO 50-48MD 53-46. GOP leading:TN 51-48AZ 50-46. For more good stuff check out http://www.wonkette.com/ and also www.drudgereport.com. Also plenty of election coverage at http://www.cspamn.org/.
// posted by John Cairns @ 4:34 PM 0 comments

2006 US ELECTION RESULTS COMING IN
Here's the link to CNN for election results. Already results have Richard Lugar-R reelected to the United States Senate from the state of Indiana, and Bernie Sanders, Independent/Socialist, elected to the Senate from Vermont.Current senate results are 41 Republicans and 27 Democrats, with the rest of the seats all at stake tonight. North Carolina, Ohio, West Virginia polls close in 11 minutes.

Now CNN has one of the blogger babes on, covering the blogs. Wish my blog got some coverage. They're talking about reports of voter fraud and problems with the voting.More soon.
// posted by John Cairns @ 4:23 PM 0 comments

Monday, November 06, 2006
BIG US ELECTION TOMORROW
Been away from the computer for a few days. I am still on the road today, but expect to be able to post on election night tomorrow. It's the big US midterm election with the House and Senate in play and state races going on all across the United States.

I have had access to plenty of American TV from Michigan in the last few days and boy oh boy, all I will say about this election is that the attack ads are VICIOUS. Especially in Michigan. Watch all the TV newscasts on WDIV, WXYZ and these other stations, and it's all ads for Jennifer Granholm and Dick DeVos. And it seems like it's all negative ads there. There was one attack ad against one woman, claiming she missed over 400 votes. Then she ran an attack ad claiming she missed all those votes to care for her dying mother, and then claimed her opponent was a "hypocrite" who missed over a hundred votes himself! All I gotta say is I feel sorry for the people watching television in the state of Michigan. These ads are all over the airwaves and made the junk we got during our federal election look tame.

The ads from western New York are almost as vicious. The Tom Reynolds-Jack Davis house race has been particularly nasty. Reynolds ads have constantly referred to Davis as "millionaire Jack Davis", while Davis ads have made Reynolds look like a greedy bum who voted himself pay raises. Reynolds was also caught up in that whole Mark Foley scandal mess and accused of not doing enough about it. He took out ads on TV apologizing for not catching his lies earlier. Usually apologizing on TV is a good way to lose, but I think Reynolds was desperate. There was one poll that had him 15 points behind, but it has become too close to call in recent weeks.That is a race to watch, certainly the most interesting race from New York State, and could turn the entire House to Democrat control.

And in other news Saddam Hussein was convicted and sentenced to death, but he's appealing that ruling.

More later.
// posted by John Cairns @ 8:02 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, November 01, 2006
US MIDTERM ELECTION COMING UP
Well the US election is coming up and hopefully I will be there to cover it again. I dunno about you but I think the Republicans have to be sweating this one out.

If I am near a computer on election day I expect to post quite a bit, but I'll be away from the computer for a few days so I'm not too sure. At the least, I'll post after the election is over. Anyway, expect a big month of political coverage, this November, on THE CAIRNS BLOG and CAIRNSONPOLITICS--- in addition to the usual rants and mumblings that you are accustomed to reading.
// posted by John Cairns @ 11:08 PM 0 comments