Quote:
Originally Posted by Knoots
Yes, absolutely buy a membership and vote. I bought one last week (never thought I would be a PC member - it may come back and haunt me like Nycole Turmel with the NDP!).
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I supported Dinning in the last race. I'm not a regular PC, but as I said before, I don't mind buying a membership to add my vote to their leadership race. I wouldn't buy one any other time.
I'm not a fan of the ranked ballot voting system. It often allows for screwy results. For those that are unfamiliar with this system, when you vote you are required to rank your preferred candidates as 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. Often, the vote is split between a few popular candidates (20-30% each), and people don't give a lot of thought to their second and third choice vote. Unless one candidate has a clear majority on the first round of voting, the next round of voting then is based on people's second choice. Statistically its rare that it goes to the third choice ballot, if there is one. The first ballot will be polarized such that several of the most popular candidates will not receive enough support to continue on to the second ballot. Often, the result is that many people agree on their second choice but not on the their first choice. This is precisely what happened with the last Alberta PC leadership vote in which Ed Stelmach was elected, and a similar result happened with the Liberal Party of Canada leadership race in which Stephane Dion was elected, though I'm not 100% sure if they used the ranked system or just a regular run-off voting system. In both cases, the winner is almost nobody's first choice, but many people's second choice. So, nobody is happy with the result.
I prefer a first-past-the-post selection system in which a clear winner is chosen, then the rest of the party can unite around them.
I'm disappointed that Stelmach was forced out. He's governed in a hostile political environment and almost exclusively during a recession. Oh, did I mention he isn't a drunk and can speak intelligently about some of the major issues at hand? He surrounded himself with people less capable than himself, (Liepert, Duckett, Evans, Morton) and never developed much of a realtionship with the media to allow him to develop the charisma necessary to appeal to "joe idiot voter."