Of shoes and ships and sealing wax...of parachutes and kings

Leaders still don't get it. The most basic idea of democracy eludes them. No matter a candidate's stellar qualities--and Michael Ignatieff seems to have many, PM/PMO/Head Office's appointing candidates who are then dropped into winnable ridings is profoundly undemocratic and shows contempt for the riding association and citizens.

Canadians don't want star candidates parachuted in after locals have worked years to build up the local association, keeping the party lamp lit, working on policies and doing the nitty-gritty of funding and keeping interest alive locally between elections, searching for and vetting prospective candidates, only to have their decisions tossed aside, as a non-local is foisted upon them and the locals' own choice tossed aside -- not having that star quality or charisma.

Michael Ignatieff sounds like an acceptable--maybe excellent--candidate but he should have gone to the riding, presented himself to and talked with the local association. He might have convinced them of his value as a candidate and his potential likely would have been appreciated; then he could have run in a fair candidate selection process. Perhaps he would have won, after locals had been exposed to his intelligence and bathed in his charisma up close . . . rather than hearing of its emanating from Harvard. Having the decision on a candidate made by (the PM / PMO / leadership ) those with the levers on power and dropped smack dab in their laps is the kind of anti-democratic activity that makes the prospect of more of the same government(s) anathema to so many of us.

Additionally:

* Ordinary people want to make their own decisions -- and not just about their own candidates.

* They want government to stop what is overstepping its bounds, taking even more of workers' money than is necessary . . . for the government's own pet projects. People want to keep enough of their own money to actually have some left to make their own decisions on discretionary spending, I might add.

* They want a level playing field, not grants, subsidies, forgiveable loans and all the apparatus of the leftist social engineering and the gerrymandering of the local economy -- designed more to buy votes and to maintain power than for the apparent good these do, we find when we dig a little deeper.

It's called democracy, not divine right of (faux) kings, fellas.

---