Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Best Premier Update


After the predictable wild ride in the Douglas/Lougheed shoot-out, I thought this would be a good time to give an update on the Best Premier contest. First, the clash of prairie titans.

Lougheed and Douglas were locked in a tight battle, with Tommy holding a slight lead up until mid-afternoon today when legions of Peter Lougheed fans descended upon this site, sent here by Small Dead Animals. No doubt energized by this article on the Globe and Mail site where Lougheed slams Harper for not holding first ministers meetings and trashes Ed Stelmach and Ralph Klein for neglecting the Heritage Fund, Tories from coast to coast cast a moral vote in support of Lougheed's criticism.

Then, around dinner time, the Douglas vote started to climb. Hitting refresh on my computer, I literally saw it jump by about 20 votes a second. While it is possible that NDP members saw the latest SES poll and concluded this might be their only chance at electoral victory in a long time and voted en masse, some snooping around has led me to conclude that this was computerized vote rigging. I was all set to DQ Douglas on this one, but a late surge has pushed Lougheed back in front and on to the next round, where he will meet yet another NDP Premier in Ed Schreyer.

Here's how the other quarter-final battles have turned out so far:



Rene Levesque (16) over Angus MacDonald (1): 51% to 49%

WAC Bennett (14) over Alex Campbell (3): 55% to 45%

Oliver Mowat (12) over John Robarts (5): 59% to 41%

Ed Schreyer (7) over Dave Barrett (10): 74% to 26%

Louis Robichaud (4) over Joey Smallwood (13): 66% to 34%

Peter Lougheed (2) over Tommy Douglas (15): 54% to 46%


The final two quarter-finals matchups will be posted tomorrow, with the semis getting underway this weekend.

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posted by calgarygrit at 1:49 a.m.

4 Comments:

  • Interesting Lougheed article CG - can't find fault with anything he has to say really....but Douglas still should have won :/

    By Blogger Ian, at 2:08 a.m.  

  • Strongly disagree.

    Douglas allowed Saskatchewan to keep eugenics laws on the books law after they became unfashionable and "the father of medicare" was so focussed on that innovation that he introduced it on his 16th year in office and it wasn't implemented until after he'd left federal politics to Ottawa.

    Saskatchewan was so fond of him when his memory was fresh that he lost his seat in SK and had to represent BC for most of his federal career.

    His only lasting legacy - that he can legitimately claim as his own - is the obscene number of paved roads in Saskatchewan whose maintance costs are a never ending budget burden for Saskatchewan taxpayers.

    Notwithstanding George Strombolopolous' puff piece that didn't let fact get in the way of a good story on the Greatest Canadian, Douglas got what he deserved. Lougheed was 1000x the premier that Douglas was.

    And no, I'm not a right wing nut. I voted for Lougheed over Douglas but I also voted for Barrett over Bennett.

    By Blogger nbpolitico, at 8:15 a.m.  

  • Personally, I like Douglas. I think the guy was Saskatchewan's best Premier and he'd definitely make my top 5 or top 10 from coast to coast. But Lougheed was no slouch either. And after the ridiculousness of Douglas winning Greatest Canadian, I think a little karma in the form of stacked voting isn't the worst thing in the world. When you compare Douglas to some of the other men (since, it was almost all men) who could have won Greatest Canadian, his win was ridiculous.

    By Blogger calgarygrit, at 11:07 a.m.  

  • Sorry to join this late, but the false statements about Tommy Douglas can't be allowed to go uncorrected.

    NBPolitico said: "Douglas allowed Saskatchewan to keep eugenics laws on the books law after they became unfashionable . . ."

    Just plain wrong. Read this account by historian Walter Stewart:

    "When he became premier of Saskatchewan, and minister of health, he was presented with two official reviews of the provincial mental health care system, both of which recommended a program of eugenics, including some sterilization of the mentally handicapped. Douglas rejected them out of hand and opted for an approach that emphasised vocational training for the mentally handicapped and therapy of the mentally ill . . .." (The Life and Political Times of Tommy Douglas, 2003, p. 80-81)

    However, it was only a few years ago that compensation was finally awarded to some of more than 2,000 Albertans who were sterilized between 1928 and 1972 under the Alberta Sterilization Act which was intended to prevent the mentally disabled from reproducing.

    Douglas is due the credit he continues to receive from Canadians and others. Those who try to discredit him simply aren't repeating fact.

    By Blogger Blogging Horse, at 3:21 p.m.  

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