I really do not like Harper

In fact I would say that I unreasonably and irrationally despise the man. I mean, he could of walked to Haiti this week, tip toeing across the surface of the water, carrying food supplies and a second D.A.R.T. on his back and I would have still found fault with this egotistical pissant. He is an arrogant, born again, right wing radical, ideologue who should not be in any position to have any power over my life, my family's life or our country, in my humble opinion.

So every time there is a new poll showing declining numbers for Harper and his evil neocon, pmo-based, cabal I immediately over react, doing a little dance in the office, forcing high fives on my associates, and reeling off a couple rants about the horrific assaults on the humanitarian and democratic institutions of our country, that I read about everyday, right here from pro-bloggers. 

My associates on the other hand, tend to have a more pragmatic view towards Harper and politics in general, focussing more on work (thank goodness), raising their families, paying their bills or just trying to get through the day. Alas, the luxury of inanimately rambling and ranting is left to the oldest person in our office who can no longer seem to get excited about the realities of the day to day rituals. I think it is something they put up with since I am old. Sorry, I digress. 

There was another poll out today and this time instead of immediately dancing, I waited to get home and read Steve Vs take and commentary. Scott Tribe sometimes puts out an interesting spin, but I like Steve's. Of course, they are both Liberals, so I often wait for the dippers take. Didn't see any today. I would really like to support the NDP, hell I would make a great dipper, it seems to fit better with my Ffib id, but in my riding, voting for the NDP would be the same as voting for the Marijuana party. A principled vote that would not help one iota in getting rid of Harper.

Steve V's take on today's numbers is that Harper and the Libs are deadlocked, with an election, if called being left to the swinging Ontarians. In Steve's words (and one of his best lines) "Canada's fate {in an election} will largely be decided by an indifferent subset, of mostly disengaged fence sitters. Isn't democracy great?"

Which got me thinking that I really need to stop looking at these polls. I'll keep reading Steve of course as he has many other interesting posts, but I'm starting to think that I am looking at these published, ever changing popularity contests completely backwards.

Assuming that the number of people polled is truly representative of the national opinion of our political parties, 70% of the population do not like Harper. Great, I'm with them. However 70% of the population also don't like the Liberals. Sort of kills the least of two evils argument that I have always followed in placing my vote. It's worse for the NDP, 84% of the population don't like them and the Greens are almost disliked as much as the BLOC.

Maybe my pragmatic coworkers are right and in the majority. It doesn't really matter right now. We have too much work to do just to stay afloat and we have to do it with less resources and for less remuneration. It sucks working through another recession and according to the polled opinion of Canadians it won't really matter who's in power, we are own here. 

Hey, maybe there is a policy platform opportunity here, possibly one focussed on surviving the current  recession, one that focussed on small Canadian businesses, instead of giving a government rebate (our money) to help Home Depot increase their numbers. Just a thought.

So I'll cut back my poll reading and my office rants and try to focus more on the day to day. I will definitely keep the dancing though, that is fun. 

And I will continue to really not like Harper.

JAWL