December 1st, 2018 | J. Hodgson

Leftists claimed the pain was due to the choices of “hard right-wing, fiscally conservative” governments during that time, but the facts don’t bear that out. Saskatchewan’s NDP government, led by Roy Romanow, was the first and arguably the worst when it came to deficit slaying tactics. He had no choice… the bond holders were in charge. Fiscal conservatives blamed the largesse of the proceeding two decades for the situation. If big spending governments had more discipline with the bottom line, then we wouldn’t have been in that situation to begin with. This is true, but when does fiscal discipline ever sell in a democracy? You can be a fiscal conservative and warm the opposition benches with your principles or you can promise to give people what they want and win power. Democracy has functioned like this since forever, much to the chagrin of fiscal conservatives.

December 1st, 2018 | T. Carter

The first major controversy to put Broward County in the news was the 2000 presidential race, which saw George W. Bush beat Al Gore by just a few votes more than 500 in the whole state of Florida. In Broward County, Gore beat Bush by the usual margins of 67-31 percent, or 209,821 votes. Those results were nothing out of the ordinary in the deep blue county, but it was the controversies and hanging chads that would eventually cast doubt and suspicions on Broward County that year. As in 2018's Florida Senate and Gubernatorial races, Broward County was one the slowest, least transparent and suspicious counties involved in the Florida recount of 2000. Going into the recount, Al Gore was behind Bush by nearly 1,000 votes. This was after Miami-Dade had finished their own recount, concluding that Gore would not make up enough votes in their county to significantly change the outcome. 

December 1st, 2018 | T. Carter

Dan Crenshaw is quickly becoming a household name and hero among Republican voters. We should not expect the same media fanfare that was heaped upon Texas senate-hopeful, Beto O'Rourke, but that's not what Republican voters look for in their candidates anyway. Republican voters look for strength, experience and bravery—something offered by Dan Crenshaw in healthy doses. His sense of humor and willingness to face critics, outrage culture and SNL comedians head-on has earned him the street credit needed to take him straight into the White House in 2024. When the Trump era comes to an end in either 2024 or 2020, Republicans will be looking for a replacement. If Trump faces defeat in 2020, Republicans will more than definitely be seeking someone who can strike the right balance between Trump's tough, brash tactics and the calm, cool-headed experience and grace of a war veteran and former Navy SEAL. At the moment, no one fits the bill better than Dan Crenshaw. 

December 1st, 2018 | J. Hodgson

If you’re just a normal political junkie (like me) there really isn’t much in this book to get excited about. There aren’t a lot of great stories or revelations. Maybe that will come out when Harper decides to write a memoir, but somehow, I doubt it. Harper is a statesman and a gentleman. He’s truly a centrist in his actions and record and despite how vanilla his ten years in power were, we as Canadians were lucky to avoid the Paul Martin/Stephane Dion/Michael Ignatieff possibilities that were presented to us as alternatives from 2006-15. Harper’s new book is simply the next chapter for him trying to carve out a new job. The guy is only 59 and doesn’t seem like the fishing type. If giving speeches to jet-setters about how to be nicer to the little guy is the arena he wants to play in then so be it, but there’s likely no reason for an average Joe like yourself to bother reading a book like this.