Thursday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Alice offers her own take on Ian Capstick's leadership musings by questioning why a current candidate would see more prospect of influencing the race by dropping out now rather than staying in the field:

* It is worthwhile being able to win the second choice support of members supporting the candidates most likely to drop off the ballot first, in order to create a sense of momentum at the top.
* A leadership candidate may not have control over the direction of second choice support for his or her supporters, but there is one thing he or she can control after the first ballot – and that's when to drop out. If candidates have a good handle on the amount of second choice support they themselves have elsewhere, and also know where their own supporters are likely to go next, they can optimally time when to withdraw from the race, so as not to forego second choice support that might come their way soon, but also to free up second choice support they might be able to send elsewhere (or prevent it from being counted by staying in).

None of this is true before the first ballot is cast though. Which is why any suggestion that a candidate might drop out for strategic reasons now to "stop" someone, would have to be taken with a grain of salt, unless they could also deliver some other benefit, such as campaign organization, information, or something else.

- Sixth Estate points out another classic example of the Fraser Institute producing prepackaged spin on what looks to be the issue of a sponsor's choice. But it's worth noting in fairness that a firm commitment to non-disclosure is a part of Fraser's own business plan.

- Erin highlights some of the flawed assumptions in Kevin Milligan's attack on full taxation of capital gains.

- Finally, Sandy White asks rhetorically whether we want to be a society that encourages hope or extinguishes it in criticizing the Cons' crime policies. But I'm not sure the answer actually is all that obvious from the Harper Cons' standpoint: after all, isn't their long-term anti-government direction based largely on a desire to convince citizens to abandon hope that their public institutions can create a better society?