Posted on 11/03/2004 6:57:56 PM PST by alydar
John Kerry - with the same angry ill will that he showed throughout the campaign -- delayed packing it in long after everyone else in the world knew he had lost - lost with a percent margin against him in the popular vote larger than any seen since 1988. The loss was catastrophic for the American left, leaving the Republicans in control of both houses of congress, most statehouses, winning the "social" ballot box questions, and ready to make new appointments to the Supreme Court.
A huge turnout, and a tiny vote for third parties make it perfectly clear that the American public did not want Kerry. But the waiting IS over. Bush is back. What does it mean for Canada?
It's a damn good thing for us, that's what. Our 83 cent dollar knows it; our stock market knows it, even if the media elite don't. What would a President Kerry have done to hurt us? He promised to go 'round to all old allies, looking for help in Iraq. If he knocked on Martin's door, would the PM have risked alienating another U.S. president, or would he have sent troops to Baghdad?
Kerry is an old fashioned protectionist Democrat, who would have been beholden to inefficient American unions and a worn out, high cost manufacturing sector looking for tariff and regulatory protection. As a nation deeply dependent upon trade, with our total exports and imports to the U.S.A. equal to 80 per cent of our GDP, any backing away from free trade would have been very costly.
Outsourcing? Think about our entertainment industry - all those movies that get made in Montreal and Vancouver, all those kids TV shows that get animated in Quebec and produced in Toronto, all those specialty TV channels that show on U.S. satellites, from science shows to music, would feel the hammer of Kerry's protectionist constituency - no small part of it located in Hollywood and LA.
Do we really think Kerry would have risked losing his supporters in the lumber industry, the farm sector, or the New England fisheries by allowing Canadian wood, fish, or beef to compete on a level playing field down south?
On the other hand, Bush can be more of a real free trade conservative than he was in the past, since he can't run again. He can afford to give ground in the troubled questions of mad cow, fresh fish and building materials to get our good will for energy and security. He would like our help in Iraq, but he won't feel any special need to repeat his requests for it.
The Republican Congress will grant Bush the continued powers he needs to extend NAFTA, helping us, and providing a venue where those vexing "cow questions" can be addressed without loss of face on either side. Even his continued deficits, necessary to the war and the policy of economic stimulus, will help our dollar and make it easier for us to buy American goods, and get some Florida sunshine this winter.
What's wrong with Kerry? Like Clinton, he is willing to heap shame and disgrace upon the Democratic Party in order to advance his own, personal interest. Clinton indulged his taste for what I would generously call unsophisticated women, no matter what it did to his capacity to govern. Under his self-destructive leadership, the Democrats not only lost control of the congress, the nation's statehouses, and the appointment power over America's courts, but the party slid into such severe disarray that it forgot the one practical and correct lesson that Clinton hoped to teach it - that it must move to the centre of the political spectrum if it is to return to being the party of long term government.
Instead, just four years after the nation amused itself with speculations over Clinton's addiction to quickies, his party's ideological left wing took it over to the extent that madcap Governor Dean came close to being their latest standard bearer.
Kerry's left wing record in the Senate gave no indication that he shared the theory that government from the centre is the best strategy for staying in office. So what's the parallel? Kerry's long-delayed overdue concession is symbolic of his focus on himself rather than his party, and shows his general inability to face facts, especially when they are incompatible with his stubbornly held ideologically-based personal opinions. It's a failing that would have made all his dealings with world leaders, including our PM, especially difficult, despite his claims that he prefers diplomacy to unilateral action. His opaque manner, and vacillating policy positions would have made deals with him hard to make, and harder to keep.
And then there would have been the problem of Mrs. Kerry: how would our human rights people react when Mr. Kerry required her to wear a gag during public appearances?
Mark Steyn, call your office. Tom Velk is looking to your laurels, my man.
Great post. Thanks!
We need to remember the same lesson. If we attempt to implement too many conservative positions before gaining a reasonable amount of support from more centrist elements in the nation (and the party), the Republican Party will again become a minority. In the long term, it's still necessary to set priorities and to compromise.
Very well written - I learned some things I did not know. Thought all Canadians thought ill of Bush and America!! Heard on Fox tonight that one reporter thought that the European leaders may have sighed a sigh of relief when Bush was elected, knowing that with a Kerry election, Kerry would have solicited their help in Iraq so the U.S. could take leave and go home. Face it, if the U.S. doesn't come to the rescue, who will? We certainly can't depend on the UN(necessary)!
I'm shocked the CBC would allow something like that to come out of their news dept.
I just *love* conservative Canadians.
Good read
I had to check the byline twice. Glad to know Canada still has some common-sense people up there.
For years I have tried to warn people that the Canadians suffer from the same urban/rural thing we have going on here. Cityfolk tip far left and the rest of us think normally. Trouble is, they don't have an electoral college to draw politics outside the cities, their media is state run (hence no Canadian Rush Limbaugh or Fox News), and their media controls our opinions of them. Your only hope os to actually meet Canadians not from their own coastlines. Good, decent folks. Remember Mr. Harper. He didn't win, but the Conservatives in Canada knocked their leftist gov't to coalition status.
He's saying that if Americans acted like Canadians, it would cause a lot more hardship for Canadians than for Americans. He didn't even mention that the U.S. healthcare system provides a safety valve for Canadians who can afford it.
Canada-peace-and-friendship-ping
I agree...they're just down 'the road', however, I believe we're going in different directions *almost* across the spectrum.
Bump
One of Bush's first orders of business in January should be the elimination of the tariff on Canadian softwood lumber. He lost Oregon and Washington in both 2000 and 2004, so he doesn't owe the lumber industries in those states a damn thing.
Bump
"If it were up to me, then anyone in the U.S. who buys a barrel of oil must also buy a 2x4 and a side of beef."
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