Looking Back on Crazy in 2014

Although in politics there always seems to be someone sticking their foot in their mouth, 2014 seemed particularly problematic on a number of levels. Whether it was a key member of the prime minister's party going way off track during Question Period, or a politician's supporter predicting doomsday scenarios because their candidate lost, 2014 was a prime year for crazy in politics. It seemed weird to not comment on it before the year was through, so let's relive the madness of some of the most truly bizarre political moments of the 2014. 

Presidential Appointment (Sorta)

You'd think an appearance by the President of the United States on the University of Toronto campus would be newsworthy. Look, Obama even met with a community blogger while he was there. Seriously though, the gentleman with me in this picture is actually Louis Ortiz, AKA: Bronx Obama.

Movie Review - Mitt

Mitt Romney was the candidate no one wanted, but still, everyone agreed that he would be the Republican nominee in the 2012 presidential election. Romney wasn’t the most charismatic, he wasn’t that convincing, and in a time of deep economic recession, no one liked the idea of a rich white guy calling the shots. He was a Mormon, the son of a rich business executive and governor, and he himself had made millions - some would say - buying up companies, firing everyone and selling them for parts. It’s not hard to paint Mitt Romney as unlikeable, but that’s part of the reason that Mitt is such a surprise.

The BTBB Awards for 2013

I'm writing this both as a way of organizing my own thoughts and encapsulating the year that was according to the criteria of the annual "Beyond the Ballot Box" Awards show. These year end analyses are always tricky; a balancing act of what was important, what was fascinating and what was overlooked. For this year's awards show, I was very conscious to sidestep around the words "Rob Ford," as he could have easily taken the prize in two, maybe three, of the categories. The truth is that even without RoFo, there was still a lot of material out there. I'll be interested to hear what the rest of the gang has to say, and who they give out their awards to (and by the time this article goes live, we'll all know). For now though, here's my BTTB Award winners, and my reasoning for their getting the laurels.

Top 10 National/International Stories of 2013

Last week, I looked at the Top 10 Local and Provincial stories of 2013, and, as promised, we now open our scope wider to the national and international stages. I believe I said that last week's list was easier to compile than this one, but the struggle with the National/International Top 10 was a "Sophie's Choice" of which stories make the cut and which to leave off. A couple of the stories below could be easily separated into their own categories, but since the year was jam-packed with activity, I can be understandably forgiven to fold a couple of things together in order to create a more inclusive picture of the year that was. So, without further ado, let's look at the national and international news that made the head of the headlines in 2013.

Dazed and Confused

As the U.S. government enters week two of its shutdown, America's primary source of information, its beloved lat night comedians, have pointed out some of the buffoonery that's driving the debate, specifically in regards of the Affordable Care Act. The ACA, or "Obamacare" if you like, was the lightening rod for the shutdown, with many in Congress demanding that if Barack Obama wanted to keep the government open, then he had to defund/repeal/stall the implementation of his signature piece of legislation.

Maple Leaf Politics

Professional hockey is back, and so is the idea that being Canadian and being a hockey fan are the exact same thing, synonymous and inseparable. This time last year though, there was no pro-hockey, and no one had any idea when there might be hockey. People were ticked, but that anger went away pretty quick when the millionaire athletes they both loved and hated finally took to the ice.

No place was that more true than a few miles down the road in Toronto, where Maple Leaf worship is devote and absolute, yet with far fewer miracles required to placate the faithful. In fact, Toronto is coming up on nearly half a century without a championship, and as teams in the United States, some of whom are recent champions, struggle to fill arenas, the Leafs remain the NHL's most profitable team. Actually, they're a quarter of a billion dollars more profitable than the number two team, the New York Rangers.

So what does any of this have to do with politics? Well, I would argue that fans of the Maple Leafs don't get a lot of return on their annual investment of $1 billion; no Stanley Cup in 46 years, one playoff bearth in 10, and even then they were put it out in the first round. It seems that if you're a Maple Leafs fan, you've not only come to expect a lot of disappoint, but you've become comfortable with the fact that you're going to get it. It sort of reminds me a lot of politics.

News Year Resolutions

Forget the Mayan doomsday that wasn't, four more years of Obama and the devil of robocalls. For me, 2012 marked the year I finally gave up on CNN. This is both a literal and figurative remark; aside from Reliable Sources and breaking news, I have no engagement in any CNN programming anymore, and since CNN is the godfather of cable news, as it goes, so does the rest of the networks that followed it.

What I mean by that is TV news is ridiculous. It's a pandering mess that offers neither context nor analysis lest they end up offending someone by making it seem like they have a point-of-view, or bias. Unless, of course, an identifiable bias is part of their "brand," in which case they will bang on that drum all day. Balance is fine, but when its false you're not just creating conflict for its own sake, you're actively making yourself a part of the story by helping to develop it. And that, in the common tongue, is a no-no.

Newsmakers and Mad Men

Before we adjourn for Christmas, a couple of things caught my eye in today's news.

Graduating from Gun Nuts to Just Nuts

The National Rifle Association and their various surrogates did themselves no favours this morning on the Sunday talk shows. So dedicated they were to the idea that the answer to the question of what to do about America's seemingly monthly plague of gun violence is to arm even more people, that even Republcian stalwarts like Lindsey Graham were doing difficult feats of linguist contortion to keep themselves separate but equal from the NRA. And frankly, any stand that has the seriously right-wing Graham taking a step back from you should automatically give you pause if you're someone like NRA President Wayne Lapierre. But then again, a ban on assault weapons should be a no-brainer after the death of 20 kids no older than 7, but here we are.

Remember way back in 1999 when the NRA had a convention in Denver mere weeks after Columbine. People protested, and I think even local Colorado politicians asked the lobby's leadership to at least postpone such a gathering in the municipality immediately adjacent to what was then the home to the worst school shooting in American history. But what came out of those protests, famously, were the words of then NRA President Charlton Heston, who held up a long gun rifle over his head and promised to the gathered supporters, "From my cold, dead hand."

Four More Years, And The Aftermath

Oh, what a night! Tonnes of surprises, and some other things that were not so surprising. On the one hand, Barack Obama, a man that had been written off so many times, beat handily Mitt Romney, a man who has been written off so many times... And although the election, like the campaign, was really close, there were some big winners and losers of the this past U.S. election. Let's break it down.

The Simpsons Do Presidential Politics

For nearly 25 years, The Simpsons have been a frequently insightful and irreverent source of political humour, and on the eve of the 2012 Presidential Election they've done it again.

In this new clip, nuclear power plant owner C. Montgomery Burns makes his case for fellow Republican Mitt Romney despite the “47 percent” tape or “the tax returns that Wesley Snipe would call suspicious.” But in the end, the whole thing might come down to an actual sniff test. But let's let Mr. Burns himself explain:

More Disasters in Tweeting

Yesterday, I talked about Danielle Smith's unfortunate tweet suggesting that the tainted beef from the XL plant in Alberta could be cooked and served to the homeless rather than deposited hook, line and sinker into a landfill. But Smith's slip of the tongue looks rather benign next to something the Toronto Sun's Sue-Ann Levy said on Twitter about Barack Obama Monday night.

You know Sue-Ann Levy, she's the Sun columnist that's constantly whiny about how her precious tax dollars are being spent on the homeless and city employees, and people not as lucky as her to sit behind a computer all day and spew her (mostly) misguided opinions. Like this one:

The Post Game

Well that was painful to watch. Even Barack Obama's political foes had to admit that during last night's presidential debates, the president wasn't playing at par. Will there be a long term impact on the campaign? Has Republican nominee Mitt Romney stopped the slide after weeks of bad press? And just what the hell was that format? Let's break it down.

The Mitt Hits the Fan

It was roughly this time in 2008 that the event called "The Great Recession" began rolling. Lehman Brothers, a huge financial services firm, declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy on September 15th, 2008, thus beginning a domino effect of big banks and financial firms shuttering their doors, filing for Chapter 11 or announcing that suddenly their huge profits were really huge deficits.

As the world fell (or seemed to), then Republican Presidential candidate John McCain boldly said that he would suspend his campaign in order to return to Washington to work directly on the crisis. However, while he was in Washington, attending meetings on the crisis on all levels, instead of looking like a leader, he looked like he was barely paying attention. By contrast his opponent, then Democratic candidate Barack Obama, said that a president must be able to balance several priorities at once, and in those same meetings, looked attentive, active, asking follow-up questions and making notes; in other words, he looked like a working president. September 2008 is more or less seen as the point in the last election where McCain had officially lost his bid to become President of the United States.

Welcome to September 2012, a point where many, even Republicans, are saying that Mitt Romney lost his presidential bid.

Compounding on a series of gaffs already jamming the political pipeline is this week's release of a tape from a Romney fundraiser in Boca Raton. In it, Romney basically dismisses nearly half the electorate as moochers, beggars and parasites, people so hopelessly attached to the government teat that they'll vote for Obama out of sheer reflex. They can never be convinced to look to alternatives, because they're too busy being a leech to society, riding high on the government hog and not knowing the important American value of pulling yourself up by your boot straps. He also said, to somewhat less fanfare, that he'd be having an easier time if his father had been born an actual Mexican rather than just being born there.

I'd say that Mitt Romney shouldn't give up his day job, but running for president is his day job.

A Great Week for Politics

It occurred to me today that this is a great week for the politically observant, filled with many interesting stories from all sectors of politics: the local, the provincial, the national and the international. Let's look at the big four this week:

Heart of Darkness?

This week, the Democratic National Convention kicks off in Charlotte, North Carolina. But despite the eagerness of American Democrats to put on their pageant and get the word out about the awesomeness of four more years of Obama, there's still some lingering insanity from last week's Republican National Convention, and it comes in the form of action superstar and former Texas Ranger, Chuck Norris.

Any recent cool points Norris bought for himself appearing as one of the ensemble in The Expendables 2, paying off his debt as a Mike Huckabee supporter in 2008, have all been lost in an instant with this video, which, to say the least, is the worst Romney infomercial ever to hit the internet.

To break it down succinctly, Norris and his fembot wife are concerned that America is "going down the path of socialism of something much worse." They want to encourage evangelicals to get out the vote invoking that quote from Edmund Burke about how evil triumphs when good people do nothing, and further suggesting Obama's re-election will plunge the United States into 1,000 years of darkness. There was also a salute to Saint Ronald Reagan in there somewhere.

But why take my word for it? Let's go to crazy already in progress...

The Old Man and the Chair

So what was that?

It was pure entertainment, that's what it was. Amongst a media event so scripted, it might as well have been overseen by a Hollywood filmmaker, the Republican National Convention brought out an actual Hollywood filmmaker to open an evening of important speeches on its final night. Now laying aside the irony of how the party that chastises "liberal Hollywood" for its dalliances in politics while beatifying the few members of Hollywood out as conservative, I'm sure no one in the Republican National Committee foresaw the events that transpired last night.

Making his entrance like the Hollywood legend that he is, to the tune of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly as if he were about to present an Oscar, the following 12 minutes were as memorizing as they were unexpected.

Ryan Rebuttle

It didn't take long for the Obama-Biden ticket to start cranking out the counter spin to today's announcement of Congressman Paul Ryan (R-Wi) as Governor Mitt Romney's running mate in this fall's U.S. Presidential election. Surrogates on behalf of President Barack Obama and Vice-President Joe Biden sent out two e-mails in eight hours to supporters in an effort to start deflating the GOP's celebratory mood, by attacking Ryan on his background and policy, particularly his proposed federal budget, Roadmap for America’s Future, which includes new tax cuts, deep spending cuts and privatization of entitlements like medicare.

A Dark Night Rises

The preference for a lot of people today in discussing The Dark Knight Rises, one of the most hotly awaited movies of the year, should have been whether or not it's a good movie on it's own or whether it falls short of the rather high water mark of Christopher Nolan's last Batman film, The Dark Knight. Instead, a real life madman barged into a midnight screening of Rises in Aurora, CO, set off tear gas and proceeded to shoot over 70 people, killing 12, with the small arsenal he brought with him. It's now the worst mass shooting in American history.

Aside from the visceral anger towards the perpetrator, and the outpouring of sympathy for the victims and family members, there are a number of questions persisting this evening. Here are a few: