Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - August 29, 2008, Winnipeg, Manitoba C m y k Page a13 Winnipeg free press Friday August 29, 2008 View from the West and beyond comment editor Gerald flood 697 7269 Gerald. Flood free press. M. Ca Winnipeg repress. Com a 13 s Tephen Harper is itching for an election and if he wants it he will get it. One of the Perks of being prime minister is the Power most of the time to recommend the dissolution of parliament and to determine the Date on which a new parliament will be elected. Occasionally when governments have been Defeated in parliament for example in november 2005 or when governments have had Long runs of unpopularity late in the statutory life of a parliament As with Pierre Trudeau in 1978 79the prime ministers options May be limited. Generally however a prime minister chooses a Date based on political indeed partisan considerations go when the governing party is High in the polls or when All the Public news is Good news or when the opposition is divided or in disarray. Such considerations guided Jean Chretien is decisions to Call two elections Long before their constitutionally mandated five year terms. It goes without saying that this Power confers very real benefits on the prime minister and the party in Power. The country May neither need nor want an election but that consideration is distinctly secondary to a prime ministers calculations As to what will Benefit his government and party. Not surprisingly opposition party leaders have frequently criticized dissolution timed essentially by partisanship. This was particularly True of Stephen Harper when he was Leader of the opposition. Indeed he found the exercise of this Power so obnoxious that one of his first acts after he became prime minister in 2006 was to introduce legislation to provide for a fixed Date for the next election. His legislation provided that unless the government was Defeated on a Confidence motion in the meantime the next Canadian general election would be held in october 2009. His reasoning at the time could hardly have been clearer. In March 2006 he said fixed election dates prevent governments from calling snap elections for Short term political advantage. They level the playing Field for All parties and the rules Are Clear for everybody. The Only Way we can have Justice is to have a fixed election Date because an election without a fixed election Date is a tremendous advantage for the party in Power. A Federal Campaign is very difficult thing to organize so this is a useful advantage that were willing to give up. In principle Harper is quite right though in fact the conservatives have been engaged in political warfare and organizing for the next election since the Day they took office. Flush with Money it is probable that no government in our history has spent As much of it and Public Money of course in trying to discredit the opposition and the Leader of the opposition in particular outside an actual election Campaign. At the same time Harper has had a remarkably easy time of it. He has now presided Over one of our longest running minority governments. This has happened because at no time were the opposition parties and especially the liberals prepared to join forces and bring him Down. Apart from a handful of measures that have been stalled in the Senate everything the conservatives have introduced has been passed. Thus if Harper wants an election now it is not because he fears that he will be unable to govern or because this parliament has become As he puts it dysfunctional. Indeed the closest the House has come to dysfunction was a result of the deliberate tactics of conservatives aimed at subverting parliamentary committees and especially those looking into the conduct of harpers ally Brian Mulroney and the conduct of conservative officials in the 2006 election. To cover himself against the charge that he is subverting his own fixed Date legislation Harper wants to blame the opposition. He has proposed meetings with the other party leaders but Only at his convenience he wants assurances that they will support his largely unspecified program and he wants this Blank Cheque by sept. 5. The tactics of the bully Are harpers Stock in Trade but in this Case bullying May mask uncertainty and unease. And therein May lie the key if Harper Calls a general election before september four Federal by elections already scheduled will be automatically cancelled. Since the conservatives seem increasingly fearful of the by election results cancelling them could spare the government bad news. Moreover however unpromising the National polls now Are for the conservatives there Are numerous indicators of serious problems including economic recession that could produce even worse results later. In Short Harper appears to be a slightly panicked politician who wants an election at the earliest possible moment to achieve the least possible political damage. In the final analysis he is playing precisely the political game his fixed Date election was supposed to prevent. He now claims that a fixed Date for elections is not feasible under conditions of minority government. Politicians May Pray that Public memories will be Short but was it not his minority government that enacted it in Wop its. Net William Neville Harper is fixing Federal election Date a australian prime minister Kevin Rudd has a criminal ancestry his great Grandfather was a thief. So was his great grandmother and several other assorted great uncles and aunts one of whom stripped a Young girl and made off with the clothes Only to be caught and sentenced to hang. The news of the prime ministers Jailhouse lineage surfaced earlier this month and was met with a Grunt of quiet satisfaction among Many australians who suspected the Man with the Choirboy face the millionaire wife and that strange ability to speak chinese a snot quite one of us. America got the god fearing Mayflower pilgrims and new zealand was settled largely by europeans who did not have a rap Sheet. Canada apparently hosted a group of polite and Law abiding French settlers As the new world opened up while there were by All accounts quite a few noblemen among the Spanish hordes who swarmed into South America. It was Australia me lord what got the villains. Thomas Rudd Rudds paternal great great great great Grandfather was transported to Australia in 1881 to serve a seven year sentence for stealing a bag of sugar. While Here he compounded his felonious ways by marrying a fellow criminal Mary Cable who stole some cloth. Another of Rudds ancestors stole 200 pounds of glue history regrettably does not Tell us Why and a great grandmother was convicted in 1798 of forging coins. Rudd is not the first descendent of thieves to hold the highest office in the land. His immediate predecessor John Howard apparently had a maternal great great Grandfather convicted of complicity in the theft of a Tortoise Shell watch. The Good people of the mormon Church Are responsible for unearthing All these skeletons in the National closet and they ave probably done More for Rudds standing in the australian Community in a week than his carefully maintained publicity machine could do in a year. Elder Vinson who along with other Church leaders presented Rudd with his ancestral history had the nation chuckling with revelations that another Rudd ancestor Mary Wade began life As a Street Urchin begging food on the streets of London. In 1788 she and an older girl named Jane Whiting coaxed an eight year old girl into a privy where they stripped her of her dress petticoats and Linen Tippet and Cap and absconded he said. Mary was alleged to have threatened violence in the attack a charge the wilful youngster appeared to collaborate in court. I was in a Good mind to have chucked her the victim Down the necessary another term for toilet and i wish i had done so she said. In the extraordinary manner of 18th Century Justice the child was sentenced to hang but escaped the noose with a transportation order to Australia. There Are still some people strangely enough who believe they can insult an australian with an allusion to the nations birth As a Large outdoor prison. Sheikh Hilali the former Sydney based Mufti of Australia once suggested that modern Day arrivals were More entitled to be in Australia than those with a convict ancestry. The Anglo saxons arrived in Australia in shackles he said. We came As free people. We bought our own tickets. We Are entitled to Australia More than they Are. Zimbabwe eds Robert Mugabe Only last year attacked australians for having criminal blood. There Are criminals who were shipped to that place and settled there he said. Anyone suggesting criminality in a family history robs an australian family of its honour betrays a poor grasp of the National character. In View of the unchallengeable reality that the criminal code of the 18th Century was vastly removed from our present Justice system hanging an eight year old for a childish scuffle the presence of a genuine convict in the family ranks actually confers on an australian a dab of aristocratic polish the Bona fide Assurance of a pure colonial lineage. The convict stain As it was once known is a sort of raffish colonial version of having a portrait of an ancestral Mayflower Pilgrim hanging in the Library. The Irish political prisoners Many of whom took up residence in Southwest Sydney in the modern Day suburb of Bankstown after tones rebellion of 1798, might give a slightly elevated tone to the lineage. But any readings of transcripts from the English courts of 200 years ago leaves no doubt Many of the criminals who found themselves in leg Irons in the Hull of a ship headed to Australia were often merely poor British people who happened to be starving and stole a loaf of bread. In the largely classless society of modern Australia their underdog status makes them More than worthy ancestors. A convicted highwayman who helped build a stately building while in chains and copped 50 lashes without uttering a cry might be among the More sought after of forefathers. But to australians scouring the records looking for a Noble lineage any old thief will do. Michael Madigan is the Winnipeg free press correspondent in Australia. He writes about politics for the Brisbane based courier mail. Michael Madigan thieves in the family closet give stodgy pm an image boost crime pays Down under Shizuo Kambayashi / associated press archives Kevin Rudd shows australian oranges to japanese shoppers at a Tokyo supermarket while promoting his country is food last june. A s the nations attention reluctantly turns to the political parties conventions with their scripted suspense and stage managed sentiment it is important to keep in mind that these Are phony representations of american political life. But the Slick video profiles the teary appearance of a beloved party elder these Are not what is phonies about the conventions. This gathering of americans civic tribes in separate cities for Days of synchronized cheering and jeering is the embodiment of a great american myth that the nation is divided into two americas polarized Between red and Blue Camps that have fundamentally different values and moral outlooks. Each of the nominees will Tell our allegedly divided country that he and he alone can manage to unite America for the next four years. The idea that there is vast War Over the moral and spiritual Compass of the nation is dramatic and it has dominated popular political analysis for nearly two decades. It makes for inflammatory political commercials. It just does not have the added virtue of being True. In 1991, a scholar at the University of Virginia named James Davison Hunter coined a term that has haunted us Ever since in his provocative Book culture wars the struggle to define America. His argument was that americans history of religious pluralism had devolved into two antagonistic movements one progressive and the other orthodox or fundamental. But Hunter also noted in truth most americans occupy a vast Middle ground Between the polarizing impulses of american culture. That was and remains the Case. But at the 1992 Republican National convention in Houston Pat Buchanan fired the phony wars first shot in anger. There is a religious War going on in our country for the soul of America declared Buchanan in prime time. It is a cultural War. The Media corps loved it. Red and Blue bruises have distorted the body politic Ever since. Poll after poll focus group after focus group show that the vast majority of americans Are pragmatic Independent and in partisan in their Basic views. They Are Eclectic Liberal on some matters conservative on others. They Are not slaves to that Hobgoblin of Small minds consistency. On fundamental matters such As belief in Equality for women and minorities the consensus is Broad. Unlike other times in u. S. History there Are no issues such As slavery prohibition or Vietnam that inspire violent protest. In his 2005 Book culture War the myth of a polarized americ Stanford University political scientist Morris p. Fiorina showed that when you examine the actual views of americans voters Are not deeply or bitterly divided. This held True even on the issues that Are supposedly the most contentious abortion immigration and gun control. To Analyse the most polarized recent presidential election that of 2000, Fiorina divided the nation into democratic voting Blue states and Republican backing red ones and found that voters in these supposedly warring Camps had much in common. On immigration for example he found 41 percent of Blu estate voters wanted it reduced As did 43 per cent of red state voters 43 per cent of Blue state voters believed protecting the environment should Trump protecting jobs As did 42 per cent of red state voters. And 62 per cent of voters in red and Blue states believed that americans should tolerate each others moral views. Fiorina has found these patterns held through the 2004 election. In fact its because we agree on so much that our elections Are so close. I Orinas sorting theory of voter behaviour explains it with a certain simple elegance voters dislike both parties equally. And since the widespread disenchantment of watergate they Trust neither party with great Power. So in election after election in which most voters face Only two choices both unpopular their votes understandably get sorted into two roughly equal halves. Extremists however rare Are becoming More common and importantly More Rabid. Analysing Survey data from the National opinion research Center political scientist Arthur Brooks discovered that the percentage of people who described themselves As either extreme liberals or extreme conservatives grew a stunning 35 per cent from 1972 to 2004. Still As a percentage of the total population the extremist factions right and left combined remain a Small slice 6.6 per cent. These civic slivers obsess disproportionately on whatever issues Are most divisive at the moment while the majority of voters stick with Basic economic and National Security concerns. The political elite and the politically engaged Are of course much More Likely to be on the extreme wings than the majority. These also happen to be the people who not Only go to conventions but whom the Cable news bookers Corral to argue about politics on air. Increasingly they Are also the people who Host to and radio talk shows who publish blogs and who make civic noise. But they Are not us. Despite the stories we will read hear and see this week and next americans Are a much More pragmatic moderate and Independent crowd. But we do need to be careful not to pick up the intolerance and bad manners of those who seek our votes. Dick Meyer is the editorial director of digital Media for National Public radio and the author of Why we hate us american discontent in the new millennium. Los Angeles times conventions create phoney image of a divided America by Dick Meyers a 13_ aug 29 08. Ind a13 8/ 28/ 08 7 34 29 pm ;