Colorblind

I was contemplating whether or not I wanted to make any commentary on the Brad Cabana switching parties fiasco, because well everyone seems to have an opinion on it and those aren't usually the things I blog about, however I did it once before and well the political science degree in my peripheral is kind of making me want to weigh in.

There are so many things that just do not add up in this scenario. Part of the reasoning given for this switch to the Liberal party after running for the LEADER of the Conservative party was due to the Auditor General's report which outlined various "questionable" spending tactics by the Conservative government which made Mr. Cabana look at them in a different light. So are we to believe that if he had won his appeal and was eligible to run for the leadership that he would have suddenly pulled out of the race when this report came out? I find that HIGHLY unlikely. At the end of this blog there will be a link to a CBC story and audio clip of an interview with Mr. Cabana conducted by David Cochrane, who makes reference to various Auditor General's reports in which the LIBERAL governments of the past have been caught doing much worse things with their money than the current PC government has been caught doing, and the answer Mr. Cabana gives seems generic and rehearsed and it doesn't really add up.



Don't Fret Steve, Brad
Still Loves Ya!



If Mr. Cabana wanted to "make a difference" in Newfoundland politics (despite the fact that we've done better than we ever have in the last ten years - so I'm not sure how he was going to bring improvements), and he doesn't really agree with the PC philosophy anymore, then why not run as an independent rather than a Liberal? Cabana is a supposed Conservative for life and even claims to support the Federal Conservatives still, yet due to the convenience of it all he is now suddenly a Newfoundland Liberal, which as David Cochrane points out in the interview, has very different beliefs than the Federal Conservative Party.

In my opinion this also makes the Liberal Party look weak by "accepting him with open arms". I'm glad to hear that they are not just going to hand him the reigns in his territory and he has to win the right to the seat, but I would be VERY shocked if the party doesn't select him to run for his riding just based on his popularity alone. However letting someone run for your party who's mandate last week was to ensure that you didn't get many, if any seats in the House of Assembly reeks of desperation!

So while Mr. Cabana may be Red/Blue colorblind I guess it could have been worse. He could have attempted to pull a Joey Smallwood from the early 70's and tried to split the PC party in two. For those who are not familiar, Mr. Smallwood lost a leadership race to lead the Liberals in that election and rather than just bowing out he decided to start his own "Liberal Reform Party" and ended up splitting the Liberal party voters in the election allowing the PC's to waltz into power. Of course Mr. Cabana doesn't quite have the same influence that Joey did, but it would have been fun to see history repeat itself, and let's face it, it would have made much more since ideologically than switching to a completely different party!

It really makes you consider what Mr. Cabana's end game is. Based on all the media attention he has been given and putting his face in the limelight for the past month, I don't think he is going to be content with being elected and being a backbencher in the Liberal party. If elected he will become a critic of one of the PC Ministers, but not out of choice, out of necessity because the Liberals will have no more than 10 people in the House after this election and well they'll need people to review the PC mandates. However I don't think this is what he is after. I think it would be too brash for him to try to take the leadership from an unhealthy Yvonne Jones but I predict that in 4 years Mr. Cabana decides to either try to run for a position in Ottawa with the Conservatives (another party jump), or that he attempts to go after the leadership of the Liberal party...and if both of those fail he might even try the provincial NDP under the reasoning that he likes the color orange better than blue or red.

This jump to the Liberal Party can go one of two ways. It will either lead to a landslide victory for him in the election or a complete and utter failure/landslide defeat. I have no doubt in my mind that he will win the right to represent the Liberals in his constituency, but my gut tells me that he will lose badly, especially since his riding (Trinity North) is currently held by Ross Wiseman. His only hope is that they switch him to a weakly held riding and he wins there, which they may do because they really need seats wherever they can get them. Either way, you know what they say, there is no such thing as bad publicity, and if nothing else I'm sure his blog hits have increased!

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2011/01/31/nl-cabana-court-131.html

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