| famousringo said: You can see the real reason the Conservatives won right here in this thread. Kasz's chart clearly shows how the entire political compass has been dragged to the right (apparently also towards authoritarianism, can't wait until the entire country is run by the PMO and we don't need these annoying MPs) over the years. People now describe centrist policies as the "extreme left." The NDP surge is a counter-reaction to this tectonic shift. Most people gravitate towards the center, which is why the Liberals have been the natural governing party for so long. Now that the NDP is the only major national party anywhere near the center, it's battle between the new moderates and the extreme right. |
Its not a 'tectonic shift' to the right.
If you bothered looking up any of PC's prior charts, you'd know that they've rated the conservatives and liberals in similar same spots since 2005. If anything, the charts show that Mr. Harper is a very centrist leader, and the NDP has gained popularity as an extreme-leftist party to a point that gave the Conservative party the majority; as the average Canadian doesn't want to gravitate to the most leftist minority party of most any election in a Western nation.
Look at the charts yourself:
(2011)
(2008)
As you can see, they've only gone right wing in economic ideologies, and not authoritarian. Most nations have done this, as they've woken up from their spending pipe dreams, into an age of more fiscal restraint which brings more free-market approaches.
Here are the leaders' positions (note where Mr. Harper is):
Back from the dead, I'm afraid.
