HOW IS PRIME MINISTER HARPER'S POPULARITY HOLDING UP THESE DAYS?

The Huffington Post reports on a CBC exclusive survey on Canadians change of attitude about Prime Minister Stephen Harper, done by Nik Nanos, one of the most reliable pollsters in the biz these days.

Canadians when asked how satisfied they were about our Prime Minister's explanation of the $90,000+ cheque his Chief of Staff wrote to then Conservative Senator Mike Duffy to cover his unwarranted expenses 72% of us said we were "dissatisfied or somewhat dissatisfied."  Only 27% were OK with Prime Minister Harper's explanation about what he really knows about the circumstances around the cheque.  

The Government of Canada continue to say it cannot produce the cheque in question because it is a personal cheque and that is not within their power to produce.  Strange though they have not seen it reasonable to asked the formed Chief of Staff of our Prime Minister to volunteer a copy to clear the air.  

Might be helpful to co-operate publicly now and find a way to disclose the cheque before the recently announced criminal investigation by the RCMP does it for them. 

It is not as if the Duffy-Wright scandal is off the public's radar screen.  Nanos survey says 95% of Canadians are aware of this scandal and one in three of us hold our Prime Minister mostly to blame.

It is a long way to the next election in 2015.  Lots can change between then and now...it is politics after all.  One thing that will change is Alberta will have six more federal seats by then. What will happen to voting patterns in those new ridings?  How will the changing nature of the urban Albertan respond to our political options?  Next blog post will be on the changing population of Alberta.

Conversation With Author of Mistakes Were Made (but Not By Me!)

This is a book worth reading and understanding deeply.  It has great application to our view of politics, the way we see our role in the environment and how we conduct business, society and even ourselves.

You will get a practical insight into cognitive dissonance and how we fool ourselves again and again. This is a video of the conversation between author Carol Tavris and Ken Low the animator behind Leadership Edmonton and Leadership Calgary...you really need to Google these organizations too.

Tim Goos was kind enough to put the link in hi Paper.li "The EnviroAb Daily"  - It is at the bottom of the page.

It's an hour long conversation but worth it.

So What's Happening in Edmonton For Picking Our Next Mayor?

So I have received information on a poll done on preferred candidates for the Edmonton Mayoralty race this October.

This data is interesting as a provocation to conversation - not at all indicative or predicative of the outcome.  I offer these results not to enhance the superficial horse-race analysis that is the media fodder of most of these polls.  Note also that the predicative nature of "opinion" polls usually make astrology look good.

This poll is random in the province with a very small number of folks from Edmonton.  So this is not "grain of salt" stuff, it is an invitation to engage in a citizen's conversation about what character, capacity and caring do we want in the nest Mayor of Edmonton?

Get to know the candidates beyond the media report. Come to forums, read bloggers (with a grain of salt) consider what is important to you about leadership.  What is the stuff of being  citizen of Edmonton that is important to you?  Which candidate comes closest to your sense of the city...and can you say clearly why you will vote for the candidate you "best" support.  Don't expect any one candidate to b perfect.  They aren't, but neither are we in how we made decisions on who we will grant our consent to govern us.

So as at between April 20 to May 4, when only one candidate has actually declared intentions to run, here are the results:

1. Kerry Diotte: 19.4%
2. Don Iveson 17.6%
3. Karen Liebovici 15.1%
4. Tony Catarina 12.9%
5. Amarjeet Sohi 6.9%

Diotte has declared he was running before the poll and Sohi and said he is not after the poll.

So don't jump to conclusions but do create time and place for conversations on the future of Edmonton, the leadership we need and how do we get it?

Interested in our comments and hope for a conversation about the kind of leadership we need for Edmonton on this blog.

Brent Rathgeber Man of Political Character

I know Brent a bit, when he was in the Klein Progressive Conservative government.  He was smart and insightful and had a great legal mind.  He was also an independent thinker then.  I formed these impressions from political meetings and convention conversations but mostly from some consulting work I did for the Alberta Minister of Justice and the Speaker of the Alberta Legislature.

I was reviewing the risk management policies for the Government of Alberta as a result of a defamation lawsuit brought against Stockwell Day, a Minister in the Klein Cabinet.  The issues were complicated, politically laced and competing values were everywhere.

Brent grasped all of this in one and was immediately able and interested in exploring the issues, the implications and all in the context of the goal of public service and the greater good.  He was not a guy who as concerned about the "Party" or his position in it.  He was a democrat and a politician with character and competence.

I have to say I was sorry to see him join the Harper government.  I always thought he was better than that.  Well I was right.  It took some time but the Brent Rathgeber I knew is back to being himself again.

Rex Murphy has a take on this that puts some more context on what I am trying to say.

Last Wednesday as a good day for democracy.  Citizens need to be very careful who they vote for and why.    We get the government we deserve, especially if we don't vote or vote mindlessly.

Why Robin Ford is Bad for Progressives

The Kahneman work is the thesis on why the Robin Ford Scandal is bad for progressives.  Give the Star story a read here.

The essence of the Kahneman thesis is this:

Behavioural economics has shown that the more times you hear something - even if you don't believe it, the more familiar it becomes.  Familiarity breeds a sense of seeming truthfulness...what Colbert calls "truthiness."
Question is will inert complacent and compliant Progressives become even more disassociated with politics because of an even more enhanced sense of cynicism due to Mayor Ford.

I recently attended a lecture sponsored by Leadership Edmonton by Carol Tavris, the authour of "Mistakes Were Made but Not by Me.."  She spoke of cognitive dissonance and self justification.  The cognitive dissonance aspect applies to those who support something that they even know to be untrue is rationalized by focus selective evidence.  I am sure mayor Ford is getting some positive feedback from his supporters who feel theyhave to rationalize their mistake in voting form him

We are seeing some of that perhaps with the comments of Prime Minister Harper who says he was not told of the Duffy payoff by his Chief of Staff so therefore he has nothing to do with it.  Also the "facts are clear" avoids dealing with the legal and moral obligation to deal with the mistake...duck and cover is not leadership but his base will use this selective "evidence" to justify their earlier support for Harper.

Thinking of a blog post on Integrity as a fading value in a complex political and partisan world...stay tuned.