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It'snot yet seven months since the territory's last trip to the polls but the Canberra Liberals have begun to outline their strategy for winning the 2020 ACT election.

Four years out from their next shot at the Legislative Assembly'stop floor, the party has started looking at ways to address the shortfalls that saw them once again consigned to Opposition.

A month after theirdefeat at last October's election, the Canberra Liberals asked assistant federal director Stuart Smith to undertake an external review of the party's election campaign - although presidentArthur Potter said it was a normal part of thepost-election mop-up and not a reflection on the drubbing they received.

After more than 50 face-to-face meetings, post-election polling research and analysis of financial information, Mr Smith handed down 30 recommendations, which appear to point to problems with understaffing, poor budget allocation, patchy communication between candidates and party officials, and candidates going off-message.

His recommendationsindicatean absence of grassroots engagement and poor organisation which could have cost the Libs their first shot at office since 2001.

Instead, the Liberals were hit by a 2.2 per centswing against them, despite a series of factors playing against the incumbent Labor government.

In the weeks after the election, Canberra Liberals leader Alistair Coe said the citywideresultwas close -Labor winning 92,000 votes and the Liberals 88,000 -but Labor's targeted communications with households bested the Libs' "Canberra-wide campaign" and they needed to learn from that.

To this point, Mr Smith called on the Libs to appoint a coordinator for each electorate from March 2020 onwards, to monitor candidate activity, resolve disputes and provide advice on which areas or demographics to target.

Mr Smith said the party should also analyse all of ACT Labor's failings since the 2001 election and create a dossier on both a chronological and portfolio basis of their stuff-ups.

He said all candidates needed to be armed with a complete and regularly updated set of talking points across all policy areas.

Candidates needed to make better use of social media and other "modern communication tools" and keep their corflutes simple with as little text as possible to make a maximum impact on people driving by too.

The management committee neededto come up a fundraisingcampaignfor 2017, 2018 and 2019 to bankroll pre-campaign research, staff and advertising.

Mr Smith advised that a bigger slice of the overall expenditure cap in 2020 shouldbe set aside for advertising and messaging.

He saidindividualcandidate's expenditure caps should be lowered and each candidate given acostedmodel campaign budget template upon preselectionwithsuggestionson how much they should spend.

Television ads should be syndicated on social media with a portion of the digital advertising budget set aside for sponsoring posts to reach a broader audience.

The Canberra Liberals also needed to hire more campaign staff, including those with design and publishing skills, as soon as possible after the Federal Election.

An extra bookkeeper should be brought on from August to October 2020 to help with internal accounting during the peak period and money should continue to be set aside for research during the whole election campaign.

A sub-committee should be formed next year to identify and approach candidates for the next election and a 'candidates expression of interest' period should be set up, so potential candidates can be trained up before pre-selection in February 2020.

All candidates and MLAs should meet with the campaign director once a month between March and August 2020 and after that have a daily teleconference through to election day.

The Liberals have already moved on at least one of Mr Smith's recommendation -they launched a dedicated community engagement websitelast week.

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How the Canberra Liberals plan to win the 2020 ACT election - The Canberra Times

Tuesday's provincial election in British Columbia is setting up to be the most uncertain and closest vote in over 20 years, as polls show the B.C. Liberals and B.C. New Democrats nearly tied in public support a split that could give the edge to the Liberals' Christy Clark over John Horganand the NDP.

According to the CBC's B.C. Poll Tracker, an aggregation of all public polls that will be updated throughout the day as the final polls of the campaign are published, the Liberals and NDP are tied at 39 per cent apiece.

That's a significant reversal of fortunes from a little over two weeks ago, when the gap between the two parties stood at seven points in the polls to the NDP's benefit.

Click or tap for full projection details.

The Greens follow in third at 19 per cent support, while about three per cent of British Columbians are expected to vote for other parties and independent candidates.

With these levels of support, the Liberals are narrowly favoured in the seat projection, with 44seats to 41for the NDP and two for the Greens.

While that points to the narrowest of majority governments, the B.C. Liberals have a higher seat ceiling and thus a better chance ofwinning than the NDP running 10,000 simulations with these seat ranges gives victory to the Liberals 72per cent of the time, with the NDP winning the most seats 28per cent of the time.

The odds of a minority government stand at aboutone-in-five significant for a province that hasn't had a minority government since the 1950s.

The seat projection model favours the Liberals in a close race largely because the party's regional support is more efficient than the NDP's. But whilethe race is otherwise a toss-up two polls published Monday morning by Mainstreet/Postmedia and Ipsos/Global News give the NDP a statistically insignificantone-point lead over the Liberals there are reasons to believe the Liberals could have the edge.

In the polls conducted partially or entirely inMay, three have given the NDP the lead by a single point while two have given the Liberals a lead of two to four points. That suggests that the Liberals have the higher upside than the NDP. The Liberals have also been trending upwards at the tail-end of the campaign, while the NDP has stagnated or dropped.

The Liberals also potentially have a turnout advantage. Mainstreet finds that the Liberals have stronger supporters and give the party a three-point lead among those voters who are most likely to vote and least likely to change their minds.

Both Mainstreet and Ipsos give the Liberals a significant lead among older British Columbians, who also vote in larger numbers.

On leadership, in six polls conducted during the campaign that have asked who voters think would be the best premier, Clark has placed ahead of Horgan in five of them.

Nevertheless, the margin is close enough in the polls that the popular vote could go in theNDP's favour. Which party will win the most seats, however, will depend on how those votes break down regionally.

In 2013, the B.C. Liberals won both the regions of Metro Vancouver and the Interior/North the former by about five points and the latter by about 13.

The Liberals still look set to win the Interior/North again, leading with 48per cent to 33per cent for the NDP. The Liberals will thus be looking to hold onto the seats they have in the Interior and potentiallypick up a few at the expense of the NDP. The trend line has been heading in the Liberals' direction in the region.

NDP Leader John Horgan gestures to indicate two days until election day while addressing supporters during a campaign stop in Vancouver on Sunday. (Darryl Dyck/Canadian Press)

Metro Vancouver, however, is trending against the Liberals. The polls now give the NDP about 42per cent to 38 per cent for the Liberals, a swing of some nine points from 2013. That has the potential to move a number of seats from the Liberals over to the NDP.

But can the New Democrats win enough new seats in Metro Vancouver to make up for a lack of gains or losses in the Interior? Horgan's election hopes lie in a strong showing in and around Vancouver.

Additionally, the New Democrats will need to minimize their losses on Vancouver Island.

After flirting with the lead earlier in the campaign, Andrew Weaver's Greens have since fallen back, dropping to about 28 per cent and into a tie with the Liberals. The NDP still leads on the island with 40per cent. But both the Liberals and NDP are trending below their 2013 levels of support on Vancouver Island, opening up some opportunities for the Greens.

Support for the Green Party, whose leader Andrew Weaver is seen above in Nanaimo, B.C., stands at 19 per cent a day before the vote. (Darryl Dyck/Canadian Press)

Attaining four seats and official party status in the B.C. legislature is within reach of the Greens, but it is looking like a bigger challenge than it was earlier in the campaign.

How the Greens do is perhaps the biggest unknown going into tomorrow's vote. Polls put the party at between 15 and 23 per cent support provincewide and between 20 and 35per cent support on Vancouver Island. Within those bands of support lie everything from a breakthrough to a disappointment for Weaver and the Greens, with significant implications on the performance of the other parties.

This all leaves the outcome of the B.C. election uncertain. The Liberals have a regional and turnout advantage that should give them the edge in a close race. They could also benefit from incumbency and so out-perform their polls, as has often been the case in other jurisdictions. That would turn a slim majority into a wider one.

The New Democrats could benefit from a breakthrough in Metro Vancouver or a decrease in Green support that, polls suggest, would boost the NDP more than the Liberals. But they could also under-perform their polls as they did in 2013.

And the Greens could prove to be efficient in getting their supporters out exactly where the party has a shot at winning seats giving them official party status and potentially the balance of power in a minority government. Or the Greens could under-shoot their polling average, as the party has often done elsewhere in Canada.

Considering the margins of error in polls and the regional dynamics at play, such a narrow gapbetween the New Democrats and the Liberals could result in any of the above outcomes without the polls seriously missing the mark.

So surprises could be in store. All will be revealed after voting closes at 8 p.m. on Tuesday night.

See more here:
NDP, Liberals neck and neck in BC polls, but Christy Clark could have edge - CBC.ca

Is there any problem in America not the fault of liberal progressives? Has anyone actually ever met a liberal? What do these people do for fun? Sneer about cultural appropriation, burn American flags, and mock old women wearing crosses?

The idea that every political, social and financial crisis in the United States has a liberal origin is not only the propaganda of right-wing tantrums, but increasingly since the surreal election of Donald Trump, an obsession of liberals themselves. Myopically fixated on their own masochism and pathetic insecurity, they have wasted precious airtime, intellectual energy and freelance budgets of popular publications in attempts to explain how exactly they are to blame for 62 million Americans driving or walking to the polls to vote for a historically illiterate fool whose character actually appears in worse shape than his acumen.

Bernie Sanders, a leftist rather than a liberal, was one of the first to incoherently assign the presidential loss to the failure of identity politics, failing to recognize that Donald Trump is the most powerful practitioner of identity politics in the world. Mark Lilla, a Columbia University professor, acted as eloquent parrot to Sanders when he wrote that the Democrats fixation on diversity cost them the election. Recently, Bill Maher, whose derangement seems to advance with every television appearance, told Jack Tapper that the Democratic Party failed in 2016 because its leaders made white people feel like a minority.

Caitlin Flanagan, an excellent writer regardless of the inanity of her topic, blames Bill Maher for Trumps victory, or more broadly, late night comedy. When Republicans see these harsh jokes, Flanagan explained about the humor of Stephen Colbert, Trevor Noah and Samantha Bee, they see exactly what Donald Trump has taught them: that the entire media landscape loathes them, their values, their family, and their religion.

One has to wonder: With liberals like these, who needs reactionaries? Trump voters told pollsters that diversity comes at the expense of whites and that the federal government, throughout American history, has provided too much assistance to black citizens. Maher, Lilla and Sanders would not identify the problem with the white electorate as racism, but insufficient coddling and pandering from Democrats. The crucial aim of American politics, according to the increasingly widespread view of opposition to identity politics, is to make white cowards and bigots feel that they have no need for growth, and that they are the center of the universe.

No one ever quite explains how even the most idealistic of Democrats could reach out to the 61 percent of Trump primary voters who believe that Barack Obama is an illegal immigrant born in Kenya and smuggled through customs as part of a Manchurian candidate conspiracy, but liberals will maintain that a large number of racists voting for a racist is somehow their fault.

Progressives were too politically correct or self-righteous, as a former Obama official phrased it for theAtlantic, and they are incapable of seeing beyond the blue bubble, to cite a boring bromide forever playing on repeat in television studios and radio stations across America.

All but the densest of observers will notice that all the self-flagellators share one common characteristic: they are white. People of color do not seem apologetic or stupefied over Trumps victory. Expertly, and often violently, acquainted with the anti-intellectual and resentful failures of white America, many black and Latino Americans are able to clearly identify the villain in the story.

When I asked a black friend and former coworker what she thought of Trumps triumph at the polls, just a week after the results, she expressed disgust and said, I wasnt surprised. I did not interpret her comprehension of Americas comfort with bigotry as an indictment of Clinton for not campaigning in Wisconsin or as criticism of overly zealous college students, satirical stand-up comics, or anyone else offered as a shield to deflect attention away from the real problems of American culture, and the refusal of white America to advance with an increasingly multicultural and multiethnic society.

In her essay on the evils of comedy, Flanagan writes, Somewhere along the way, the hosts of late night shows decided that they had carte blanche to insult not just the people within Trumps administration, but also the ordinary citizens who support Trump.

Emmett Rensin, writing for Vox, once crowned me the most smug of liberal essayists. So, as the smug liberal elitist out of touch with the real America, I would like to advance a radical notion: In a democracy where citizens are free to vote for their preferred candidate without coercion, the people most responsible for the outcome of an election, good or bad, are the voters.

Everyone is looking for someone to blame for the weird and dangerous reality of President Donald J. Trump. Well, here is a good place to start: the 62,904,682 people who voted for him. The Trump administration and the ordinary citizens who support him are not exactly disconnected. A Trump administration would not exist if not for the ordinary citizens Flanagan would like to romanticize.

I, like most anyone else who was horrified at the turnout, know and love people within the Trump coalition, but personal affection should not preclude acknowledgement that something is amiss with someone in their right mind supporting a con man who boasted of committing sexual assault; proclaimed that women deserve punishment for abortion; routinely insulted African-Americans, Mexicans and Muslims; mocked a disabled journalist; and demonstrated profound ignorance of the basic tenets of American history, law and governance.

The internal ombudsman of most liberals, especially in comparison to the shameless right wing, is a healthy feature of progressive politics. It encourages contemplation and reflection, often leading to helpful self-criticism. Taken to an extreme, however, it becomes a liability it preventsmovement, cloudsjudgment and obfuscatesreality.

Maybe womens studies professors, civil rights activists and provocative comedians all of whom, with their own tactics, are attempting to civilize and humanize American life are not responsible for the behavior of people who chanted build the wall or shouted bitch when Trump mentioned the name of his opponent. Maybe some element of American culture should hold adults accountable for their own actions. Maybe the problem is not making racists feel bad, but racism itself.

An important consequence of the liberal humiliation ritual is that it not only obscures genuine understanding of American culture, but insults or ignores the Americans who, even with comics cracking jokes and the occasional leftist on Twitter making a stupid remark, managed to make the right decision.

Flanagan and many others believe that mockery of religion helped usher voters into the arms of Trump. Black women are the most faithful Christians in the country, but 94 percent of them supported Clinton.

The smug elitism of liberals did not prevent 91 percent of black women or 82 percent of black men without a college degree, or a large majority of Latinos without higher education,from voting for Clinton.

The dedication of American culture to protecting the fragile white ego in denial of widespread white mediocrity is without limit. According to this worldview, black crack addicts in the 1980s and 90s represented a grave threat to civilization, whilewhite heroin junkies are the human face of a medical crisis. Black and Latino poverty is the result of laziness and lack of discipline, but poor white people are the victims of a worldwide economic conspiracy. Donald Trump is not the problem of the tens of millions of whites who voted for him, but the liberals who opposed him.

The colorblind and racially illiterate view of Sanders, Maher and company amplifies an odd interpretation of politics and sociology. White Americans are worthy of criticism only when they commit the ultimate sin criticizing other white Americans.

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Stop blaming identity politics: With white liberals like these, who needs the right wing? An error occurred. - Salon

Following the House successfully voting to repeal Obamacare and replace it with the American Health Care Act, angry Democrats and liberals took to Twitter to mock Republicans with things Jesus never said.

In fact, on Friday and Saturday the hashtag #ThingsJesusNeverSaid was one of the highest trending topics on Twitter worldwide. At first, the hashtag was used to mock Republicans for allegedly removing the pre-existing conditions provision in Obamacare.

But the hashtag quickly devolved into broader criticisms of President Donald Trump and the Republican Party as a whole.

Users criticized the GOP for being against refugees and immigration, for wanting to replace Obamacare with a market-based solution, for advocating tax reform, for wanting to build a wall on the southern U.S.-Mexico border, among other current American political issues.

One user wrote: #ThingsJesusNeverSaid You have a pre-existing condition, I cant cure you.'

Another added: Build that wall #ThingsJesusNeverSaid.

Even a Catholic priest added to the rhetoric: Blessed are those whose mercy extends only to those who are like them. #ThingsJesusNeverSaid.

But the hashtag works both ways, liberals quickly learned.

Conservatives, Republicans and libertarians on Twitter were quick to hit back with some statements of their own, mostly focusing on the fact that Democrats and liberals alike generally advocate for abortion, which many contend is murder.

While others added other issues to the mix:

https://twitter.com/WayneDupreeShow/status/860840482485809153

It must be noted that despite the liberal outrage, the AHCA is not yet law. In fact, the Senate has not even voted on the bill yet, and its expected they will pass a different version of the law, complicating the law making process.

Go here to read the rest:
Liberals mock Obamacare repeal with '#ThingsJesusNeverSaid' then conservatives hit back hard - TheBlaze.com

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Posted: May 06, 2017 12:01 AM

Of course, most conservatives are well aware of the damage liberals do to minorities with their supposed compassion. Liberal compassion toward minorities consists of treating them like incompetents who cant do anything for themselves, fish-hooking them through the jaw with government assistance, and encouraging them to nurse grievances and feel like victims.

That is not compassionate and, as I note in my new book, 101 Things All Young Adults Should Know, it doesnt make anyones life better over the long haul.

Oh, but what about the government? Do you really want its help? Do you want to feel all those eyes burning into your back when you whip out those food stamps? Do you want to live in crummy government housing?

Do you want to jump through whatever hoops some dead-eyed bureaucrat comes up with so you can get just enough help to stay poor and miserable? Is that the sort of person you admire? Is that the one you grew up wanting to be? You should want more out of life than what the government is willing to give to you in return for your pride.

Whats more compassionate? Encouraging and helping people to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, or trapping them in poverty, anger and misery long-term?

However, there is a much more insidious way liberals use compassion to hurt others that slips past many people.

If you pay attention, what youll notice is that the liberals who assure you that they are endlessly compassionate, sensitive, and tolerant only feel those emotions toward certain groups. In other words, their supposed compassion is incredibly selective.

So, the death of Harambe the Gorilla? Its a terrible tragedy. A baby whose continued existence would cut into Planned Parenthoods profit margins? They feel nothing.

A black thug who attacks a cop and gets shot to death? No justice, no peace! A police officer who gets murdered in the line of duty? They feel nothing.

Rioting students who disrupt a speaker and smash windows? Poor dears! They were triggered and their response was understandable. The conservative who was invited to campus to speak and the audience that was stopped from hearing him? They feel nothing.

Attacking the children of a Democrat? Scandalous! Outrageous! Whatever happened to decency in politics? Attacking the children of a Republican? Hahaha! Those late night comedians are so funny!

This is the ultimate liberal lie: weaponized compassion.

Once you choose which groups matter and which groups dont, then you control the conversation, the culture, and politics. Woe be unto you if youre in a group that liberals have no compassion for, because your problems will be treated as absolutely irrelevant by the school system, mainstream media, and Hollywood.

This is why liberals get so upset when someone says All lives matter instead of Black lives matter. Its because they desperately need to control whom we have compassion for and whom we dont. Since black Americans vote monolithically for the Democrat Party and falsely convincing them that theyre in grave danger of being shot by a cop at any moment might spur them to vote, liberals feel compassion over the issue. Do they care about police officers getting killed? Black on black violence? The victims of violent crime? No, because that doesnt benefit them.

Is compassion really compassion if its based almost entirely on political gain and virtue signaling? Apparently liberals think so.

Dont underestimate the impact of this tactic. Deciding which people in society we are supposed to all empathize with and which we are indifferent to is a powerful tool.

Take Jimmy Kimmels recent speech about his baby nearly dying shortly after he was born. Its certainly a sad situation, and no one wants to see someones child become seriously ill. However, here we have a man worth 35 million dollars who wants other people to pay for his childs health care. Thats obnoxious. Worse yet, Kimmel falsely indicated that babies like his son that were born ill werent covered before Obamacare. Thats simply not true. Sure, anybody can understand Kimmels emotional reaction to his sons illness, but that doesnt mean its okay for him to lie or exploit his childs illness to push his grubby political agenda.

Furthermore, the coverage of Kimmels comments were fawning because were all supposed to feel infinite compassion for his situation and thus must do whatever liberals want us to do -- which in this case is to continue to support Obamacare despite the fact that its falling apart and hurting a lot of people.

As my friend Mary Katharine Ham noted (edited slightly), "To many, it only matters when people are potentially hurt by changes to Obamacare, not actually hurt by Obamacare."

Why does a celebrity like Jimmy Kimmel deserve our compassion for his admittedly difficult situation while tens of millions of ordinary Americans who have lost plans, lost doctors and have seen their deductibles and premiums skyrocket into the stratosphere arent given the same courtesy? The number of people hurt by Obamacare vastly outnumber the people who have been helped, so why dont they deserve some compassion? Why dont their struggles matter too?

Its because liberals only feel compassion when they think it benefits them and in their minds; no one else deserves an ounce of sympathy, compassion or even human decency. Thats not real compassion. Thats a sickness masquerading as compassion.

Michigan Targets Parents in Genital Mutilation Investigation

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How Liberals Use Compassion to Hurt People - Townhall