Quote:
Originally Posted by MattyC
How can we not get up into the 80% for voter turnout? Is it really that much of an inconvenience for people? It took me all of 20 minutes, and that included going to the wrong polling station 1st.
|
Have you ever had a to deal with the general public? Or [shudder] had to go door-to-door and get a glimpse into how the full range of people live? I'd guess 20 per cent of Canadians are completely disengaged from the rest of humanity, and simply don't give a toss. About the government, or much of anything besides their immediate solitary interests.
Then there's the 5 per cent or so of people who are incapacitated, due to age or illness.
So there's a ceiling of maybe 75 per cent of the adult population. The most promising cohort to increase voting is probably the young adults who are too cool for school. But given the very low rates of newspaper readership and news watching among that demographic (and no, Jon Stewart doesn't count), you'd have your work cut out for you.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rubecube
I think the way Harper ran his campaigns was really short-sighted and may end up hampering the Conservatives for the next little while. He did a really good job of setting them up with a high floor, but their ceiling is limited and their potential for growth has been completely stunted because they did absolutely nothing to appeal to young voters, especially those with a university degree. So any new leader is going to have an uphill climb, as you basically have a whole generation of voters who've been ignored by the Conservatives.
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by burn_this_city
One thing I don't understand, why the Conservatives feel they need to pander to the social Conservatives at all? It's not likely those people would jump ship to the Liberals or NDP.
|
They won't jump ship, but they may very well stay home at election time if they feel alienated from mainstream politics. Also, all parties need a core of very earnest and passionate supporters to keep the fires burning between elections. Those people tend to be ideologues (of all stripes). Yes, parties need the centrist swing voters to win elections. But they also need their partisan core supporters to raise funds and work the phones.
I do wonder, though, what changed in the last 25 years to drive the Red Tories out of the Conservative Party. Surely grumpy old social conservatives have always been force in Canadian politics. How did they manage to drive out the moderates?