– The COALITION,The three-headed political monster that nearly swallowed Stephen Harper’s minority government has been chosen as the top Canadian news story of 2008 by the country’s newspapers editors and broadcasters. The stunning opposition bid to cobble together an unwieldy coalition government to replace the Conservatives was the No. 1 choice in the annual year-end survey of newspaper and broadcast newsrooms conducted by The Canadian Press. Not even the stock market meltdown, which ran a close second, could beat the coalition gambit for sheer drama or for provoking a stronger – and mostly irate – response from average Canadians, survey respondents concluded.    

– Amazing Canada’s news editors selected Bad Conservative Stephen Harper as the news maker of the year.. including his failure to make a majority government again. “Stephen Harper.  What a difference a few weeks make in the political world. Remember when Prime Minister Stephen Harper badly miscalculated Parliament, and plunged the country into a political crisis of his making.  Even the Globe and Mail was calling for his resignation as Conservative leader, such was the over-reach and arrogance of the Sweatered One late in 2008. Steve’s Grinch-like uber-partisan heart was laid bare with his ham-fisted attempt to bankrupt democracy by cutting federal subsidies to political parties. And Harper’s ugly ideological core was exposed with his stimulus-less economic update. We must also mention Harper’s blatant demagogic misrepresentation of the functioning of Canada’s parliamentary democracy. This was beyond naughty. It was inexcusable ” and“The Governor General (and, by extension, Queen Elizabeth). Prorogation was her prerogative, and we don’t even get to know her rationale for giving the Harper government a stay-of-execution in face of a coalition ready to pull the plug. The GG may have set a disastrous precedent where any embattled minority PM can merely padlock Parliament to cling to power..” 

The Harper seven-day war. Just 44 days after pledging peace and parliamentary order, Prime Minister Stephen Harper inserted a paragraph into the fiscal update to cancel $30-million worth of public funding for political parties. It was allegedly a cost-savings gesture, but clearly intended to whack less-solvent opposition parties the hardest. Not surprisingly, it unleashed the political firestorm of this century. In less than a week, a coalition of all three opposition parties formed and forced the government to retreat on the party financing cut. When that failed to pacify the trio, Harper delayed a confidence vote and ultimately prorogued Parliament after just 13 sitting days to avoid the government-toppling coronation of Prime Minister Stephane Dion. After Parliament was unplugged and the coalition lost momentum, Liberals shunted aside Dion for new leader Michael Ignatieff and all sides now brace for the return of the re-poisoned Commons atmosphere in late January. Another election lurks on the horizon. The buying opportunity: With the market in meltdown mode and seniors nervously eyeing their cracking nest-eggs, a campaigning Harper declared it a stock-buying opportunity. Never mind that it was a slap to anyone losing their shirts without the financial means to buy back in, it was lousy advice. Anyone who’d followed his suggestion would’ve lost roughly 20 per cent of their investment. Fiscal update: Whatever could’ve possessed Finance Minister Jim Flaherty to add the trickery of cancelled party financing to the rows of imaginary surplus projections in an economic stimulus package and still expect the opposition parties to roll over and endorse his scheme remains the headscratcher of the year. He almost toppled his own government with that recklessly irresponsible, bogus document. No deficit, no recession, no bailouts: So said Stephen Harper repeatedly and defiantly during the fall election campaign. We are now a month away from unveiling a huge deficit to fight a possible depression topped by aid packages for auto, forestry and mining sectors. Oops. The quickie prorogation: After one of the shortest sessions in history, Harper sent MPs home early to avoid his government’s defeat.  http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/story.html?id=cb23ac69-e4a7-43e9-b833-d7f7e5f79ac9 
     

– The senate. Senate choices are revolting,  Harper handing Liberals more ammunition by his patronage appointment of senators. There are those like me who think the Upper House is nothing more than a high-priced retirement home for political hacks. it will cost hard-pressed Canadian taxpayers a fortune. Each senator makes $134,000 a year, or far, far more than the average person who toils at a real job. But wait that is just the begining, add on their paid overseas  trips, expense accounts, etc. This was more about saving his government supporters than anything else.  Harper would have had a lot more credibility if he’d left the positions open and kept pushing for reform.  

   
let us call the Senate what it is: a reward for the party faithful; an occasional arbiter of legislative common sense; and a supreme seat of patronage that looks like a violation of democratic principle to most Canadians, and like its epitome to those who rest their backsides in its cushy red chairs.   ( jmeek@herald.ca)  http://thechronicleherald.ca/Columnists/1097828.html   

In 2004, when Scott Brison left the Tories to join the Liberals, Mr. Harper said: “Leaving a party and defecting to the other side for 30 pieces of silver is part of corruption.” Then, on the day after Mr. Harper won an election campaign on ethics, he was the one handing out the silver. There is a striking hypocrisy in this, and in many of Mr. Harper’s subsequent actions — where he behaves the same as the cynical Liberals he once compared to Judas Iscariot. It continued this week, when Mr. Harper appointed 18 senators, something he had promised not to do, all the while denouncing the Liberals for blocking his efforts at Senate reform. Mr. Harper, an old Reformer, swore he would be different from his Liberal and Progressive Conservative predecessors. But when faced with the same temptation, he behaved in exactly the same way as prime ministers always have — he appointed old bagmen and political organizers who had been helpful to him in leadership races and election campaigns, along with a few high-profile Canadians as a fig leaf.

 PS:   ESR’s Person of the Year for 2008

Governor Sarah Palin did more to revitalize the Republican Party this election year than any other person, including the Party’s presidential nominee. If it had not been for Palin, this election would have been an even bigger disaster. – A voter

To say that Gov. Palin wasn’t a figure on the national scene prior to her selection as Sen. John McCain’s running mate would be fair. While there were those in the conservative movement who had been talking her up for some time, the majority of Americans outside of Alaska likely had little idea who the hockey mom turned vice presidential candidate was. Thanks to the mainstream media, they probably still don’t.

Gov. Palin was ridiculed by the press but we have a feeling that laughter masked a very deep fear. Few people have exploded onto the national scene as she did to the rapturous joy of a political party. With one stroke Sen. McCain revitalized his campaign, albeit temporarily, and re-earned the support of his base. Gov. Palin became an instant media star, drawing crowds just as large as Barack Obama’s. And unlike Obama and his running mate, Sen. Joseph Biden, she could claim administrative and legislative experience. In fact, a lot more than either of them.

No single political figure in recent history has galvanized the conservative movement in America the way Governor Palin has. She is a plain speaking fresh face, with a track record of living by her word. – A voter

And that’s probably what the media and the Democrats were so afraid of. After a team of lawyers and investigators sent to Juneau and Wasilla could turn up no scandals, the left resorted to their classic tactic to smear Republicans: intelligence. With the exception of Richard Nixon and George H.W. Bush, virtually every presidential and vice presidential candidate in recent memory has been described as ignorant or moronic. With Gov. Palin, they took it to new heights. Even comments made by comedians like Tina Fey were attributed to her. By the time November 4 rolled around, the average American likely thought Gov. Palin couldn’t tie her own shoe laces.

And yet they’re still in fear of her. They continue to attack her despite the fact that she’s returned back to her job as a popular governor of a state most people don’t take notice of. They continue to smear her every chance possible because they know that two things haven’t changed since she was nominated: The Republican Party remains in love with her and the American people still think she has something to offer. They feel it on an instinctual level because they know that Gov. Sarah Palin is one of them. Not a New York media hound, Washington, D.C. elite or Georgetown dinner party regular, but someone who goes to work every day, is family centered and has faith in both God and her country.

Anyone who can make the political left’s head explode as she did, is doing something right. – A voter

John McCain lost the presidential election last year but we can say with certainty that Sarah Palin won the soul of the conservative movement and the Republican Party. We don’t know what her plans for 2012 or 2016 are but we do hope that Alaska’s bet asset doesn’t decide to stay in Juneau for good. Conservatives, and the United States, need her too much.“