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What we need is a new party dedicated explicitly to conservative ideas — a role that used to be fulfilled by the old Reform movement

[np_storybar title=”John Robson: I can’t vote for the Harper Conservatives. I just can’t

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Elections are such infuriating spectacles that sometimes one doesn’t know which obscenity to utter first. But I’ve decided to aim my initial outburst at the Harper Tories.

I cannot vote for them. I just can’t. They should be my natural choice but their coarse, vindictive, proudly unprincipled cynicism must not be rewarded with electoral success, regardless of the consequences.

Let’s start with Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s first major campaign pledge: to make the home renovation tax credit permanent if he is reelected. If it were economics, it would clearly be bad economics, aiming to “stimulate” one of the few sectors of the economy doing so well it already has the government worried about a bubble.

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I think it is significant that, notwithstanding his indignation at the Tories, Robson doesn’t endorse any other party for office. This presumably means that he will either not vote or elect to spoil his ballot this time around, while hoping that others will do likewise. These actions would hurt the party, but not as much as if he and his co-thinkers were to throw their support behind someone else. The reason for his reticence is easy enough to figure out: while he’s frustrated with Harper and the Conservatives to the point where he would abstain from voting for them, the other choices are so foul that they don’t deserve a vote either.