True to form his column What the GOP Can Learn From Canada's Conservatives Real Clear Politics May 9 2011 is shot through with serious but convenient errors of fact.
The Bloc Quebecois was reduced from 50 seats to only four. Formerly it represented most of Canada's second largest province. Now it represents a tiny rump…it looks like separatism is as dead as de Gaulle. The vast majority of Quebec's ridings (the Canadian word for districts) elected New Democrats, some of whom didn't campaign and don't speak much French.
As Kevin Michael Grace pointed out in his recent VDARE.com essay, the winner in Quebec, the NDP, paid the gatekeeper by indicating a willingness to reopen the Secession question. Furthermore the separatist Parti Quebecois seems likely to win the next provincial election. And Quebec has a long tradition of massive representational change at the federal level — which surely political scientist Barone knows.
Apparently Barone dislikes the idea of Quebec nationhood as much as American.
Even worse is his misrepresentation
…a center-right party can win immigrant votes. Conservatives won 35 of 54 seats in metro Toronto, many heavy with immigrants. One tactic that seems to have worked was to circulate videos of Indian- and Chinese-Canadian Conservative candidates appealing for votes in their native tongues.The simple message is that this is a party that likes and respects you. Republicans could do something similar, with Sen. Marco Rubio, Govs. Susana Martinez and Brian Sandoval, and Reps. Allen West, Tim Scott and Quico Canseco, all elected in 2010.
In reality, as Kevin Grace noted and others predicted Harper’s Conservatives won by consolidating the Anglophone Canadian vote — the Canadian equivalent of VDARE.com’s Sailer Strategy. True, there was some contemptible ethnic pandering, but the results of this were not decisive — except possibly in soothing the Canadian political establishment.
Come political rain or shine, Michael Barone is there to advocate the dissolution of the historic American Nation.
Why?
