Hey, Marty, how’s your beloved election system treating you now?

Isn’t a multi-party reality in an anachronistic two-party maybe-you-vote-maybe-you-don’t-who-bloody-cares electoral system grand?

Don’t you thrill from the perversity of ‘democratically elected’ majorities springing from a minority of the vote? (I’m talking provincially now, Blue Rod. Don’t get too excited with your post-federal election results….)

On his website, Marty Morantz, that feisty tough-on-crime rookie PC candidate in River Heights, attacked the Liberal policy on electoral process reforms. Marty stops just short of writing ‘electoral reform is for loooosers, nah nah!’ Just short, I mean it, Google and go read it yourself. He’s totally eloquent in that poke-you-in-the-eye and give-you-a-wedgey way some PC’s have chosen to write in lately. A must-read.

So Marty… with less than a month before the writ is dropped, how’s that sexy old electoral system working out for ya’? (go ahead, Blue Rod, imagine Sara Palin saying that line, you dog…)

Ok… let’s take a peek at some predictions. (I just can’t wait ‘till October, and yes I shake my presents the night before.)

Good old Three Hundred and Eight (http://threehundredeight.blogspot.com/) serves up the freshest analysis this Manitoba Joe Public (aka the Red and White Rod) can find. Pie charts portry what many of our guts told us a long time back (oh and bloody heck, 308, don’t be so hard on yourself about the Federal Election. Just keep workin’ man, you do great things.)

Vote / Seat Projection for 2011 Manitoba Provincial Election (as of July 27^th)

PC: 44% / 22 seats (Official Opposition)

NDP: 40% / 33 seats (Majority Government)

Liberals: 11.5% / 2 seats (No Party Status)

Green: 4% / 0 seats (No Party Status)

Wow! The people of Manitoba have spoken (into the phone, informally, with a =/- rating run through 308’s wizzy prediction machine and all…) and the winner is…

A Loser by a landslide!

16 years in power here we come, eh Orange Rod! You beautiful, beautiful loser.

Lordy, but that is a sweet piece of perverse democracy. I’m getting chills… this is what its all about, eh Marty? The irony, the unfairness, the absurdity… better than most movies, almost better than good Cable TV (and free!)

In a stupid reformed system (that’s what you’d call it, yes Marty? Stoopid?), maybe with some crazy ‘representation by percentage of vote’ mechanism thrown in there, the results could have looked like this:

Vote / Seat Projection for 2011 Manitoba Provincial Election (as of July 27^th)

PC: 44% / 25 seats

NDP: 40% / 23 seats

Liberals: 11.5% / 7 seats

Green: 4% / 2 seats

Golly, can you imagine a result like that? Its… it looks somehow wrong, eh Marty? I don’t know, just looking at it, I’m getting… irked. I feel let down. I know… its like a ‘what will we gripe about down at the coffee shop now’ feeling. Conversational deflation, or something like that.

In reality, the Liberal prescription for electoral change Marty pooh-pooh’s is a little more sophisticated than just a Prop. Rep. Revamp. But I’ll write about that another day. Let’s keep it simple for now and just leave’er as is above, being:

A fairly accurate reflection of the will of the people, with the PC’s clearly relevant and having responsibilities, the Liberal’s having Party Status and serious influence in Government, the Greens finally at the table, and the NDP maybe in Government, maybe not, but waiting in case the PC’s screw it up…

Actually, that’s pretty cool. A lot better than the silly mess you find yourself in now, eh Marty? Well, ok, you can borrow this for a while if you want… just give it back, ok?

If we can’t fix the baloney that goes on in the Leg with above result and the resultant political dynamic, replacing the ‘one bunch of super-friends or the other takes and holds absolute power’ with forced accountability and multi-party reason, then we are truly doomed, my Keystone Brethren.

(We are not doomed. It would be very, very good for Manitoba.)

Marty, my friend, maybe… maybe next time you sit down to tell us what you think on your web site, why not wait a while before pressing ‘send’ until the conditions are right. I’m thinking, like maybe… after you picked up a book or two, read some Journal publications, talked with some pundits and experts, studied life in better formed democratic systems. Maybe after taking a good hard look at the results of your cherished, broken, foolish two-party first-past-the-post-gee-who-cares-if-people-vote system.

You know… or not. Your choice.

Blue Rod, seriously… you have brighter minds over there. I know some, I like some, I’d even work gladly with some. Pull some strings, man. Edit your guy.

Seriously, this is just too easy for us.

And others.