To: justin.trudeau@parl.gc.ca, thomas.mulcair@parl.gc.ca
listen...
you're going to get all kinds of shit from focus groups and polling groups and media institutions with obvious biases (that you'll approach with cognitive dissonance), and they're all going to tell you that you're sending the same policies out to the same people and it's fucking with both of you.
that's bullshit. what you're doing is creating a stew of confused voters that would like to vote for parts of the ndp platform and parts of the liberal platform. their ideal party would by x% ndp and y% liberal, and those xs and ys are going to be all over the place and have all kinds of ramifications. it's confusing the hell out of people, wavering them all over the place and preventing them from being able to make any kind of choice. and, you're splitting a large electorate up into segments. for all the shit you correctly give the right for this, you're accidentally functionally doing exactly the same thing.
it'd be great if we could set each and every issue down and put them all up for referendum. direct democracy. a dead, white guy said something about that once. you don't have the time or the money.
what you can do is try and dominate each other. that's what you're *supposed* to do.
i'm an example. i want marijuana legalization. i don't want to get rid of the senate; i want to reform it so it acts as a check on the pmo's office and performs it's stated function. i'm opposed to free trade, as it exists ("investors rights agreements"). i'm in favour of a carbon tax. i'd like to see wages tied to inflation (after we give them a fair bump). i don't want pipelines running through ontario, or anywhere, really. i want corporate tax raises to pay for stimulus spending (preferably environmentally focused), and i'm not concerned about going into deficit in the short run to pay for services.
neither of you are great. in some ways, you both suck. in some ways, you're both acceptable. but i can't vote for both of you. and you can't be everything to everyone, you need to focus on coherent visions that separate you from each other.
figure this out. please. for fuck's sake. i don't want to go through this again in four years.
j