Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday.

- Dan Lett points out who holds the ultimate power to force the political class to act more responsibly:

Despite the fact political leadership is as important now as it has ever been, voters spend most of their time complaining. They will lament the lack of choice among the parties. They will complain about a charisma deficit in our party leaders, a lack of new ideas, negative political advertising, and broken moral compasses. The worst part is that along with the heightening and increasingly shrill whining, fewer of us are voting. The 2008 federal election had the lowest turnout in history at just over 58 per cent. Provincial and municipal election voter turnout has suffered the same fate.

In the same vein as 'you get what you pay for,' it's pretty safe to say that if you trade in your election ballot for moans and whines, you'll get the government you deserve. Remember, those parties so many of us dislike are out there poking and prodding and doing their own polling. When you see their policies and pledges, you can bet a lot of it was exactly what we told them we wanted.
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(T)hat's what the federal political system needs more than ever. A profound, forceful, definitive electorate that will reassert itself on the political stage. With all the moaning and whining, recall petitions and referendums, we've forgotten voters have always had the power to make a difference.

- Meanwhile, Sarah Barmak highlights why the Libs don't figure to be in a position to meet any demand for more substantive politics anytime soon:

Ignatieff is still searching for the right way to reach Canadian voters, and he seems to be trying a different tack every week. In an interview with the Star earlier this month, he attempted to align the Liberals with newly elected Toronto mayor Rob Ford’s successful platform of good customer service.

“We want value for money from our taxes. It’s not a message that’s anti-Liberal,” Ignatieff said.

The message is not specifically anti-Liberal, but it’s not pro-Liberal, either. Such attempts to make the Big Red Tent everything to everyone have been hallmarks of Ignatieff’s reign. But they risk watering down voters’ understanding of Liberal policies — and perhaps alienating those on the left who want the Liberals to rebuild social safety nets, not worry about “value for money.”

- Michael Norton and Dan Ariely's chart on views about wealth distribution has been making the rounds again, with most of the focus on the gap between how wealth is perceived to be distributed and how it actually is. But I find it even more interesting that even from a starting point that assumes less inequality than actually exists, every single group of people polled nonetheless sees the ideal distribution involving far less concentration of wealth - meaning that there's plenty of room to argue for greater equality even before correcting the record as to how distorted the current system has become.

- Finally, Alice's fascinating post on movement among Quebec voters over the past decade-plus is well worth a read.