I'm a stubborn, rational atheist who worked in health-care non-profits, and live in Alberta. I would never, ever vote for Liberals at the provincial or national level. They stand for nothing but power. Mr Harper had it right yesterday when he asserted that Ignatieff has "no moral compass"—-a self-evident truth about any leader of a Liberal Party.
David Swann is compassionate, thoughtful, intelligent, hard-working, articulate—-and he walks the talk—-everything one could want in a true leader.
Go to one of his events; hear him speak; talk with him. Then make up your mind.
This Alberta business of knee-jerk partisan reaction or identifying uneducated leaders (consider our current crop of PC MLAs, including the leader, not to mention past leaders) as somehow more capable of connecting with ordinary folks and thereby more virtuous is symptomatic of Alberta's inferiority—how will we ever truly be a great province, if we are afraid to elect great leaders? I am surprised that people would label David Swann as a power grabber or as a person not able to connect with others—-this tells me that no effort has been made to get to know him.
I've seen the word "overeducated" tossed around a lot, usually in reference to liberals and always in a negative sense. Does that strike anyone else as strange or funny? I see "overeducated" at least as much as I see the word "uneducated". I've never seen the word "undereducated", but I'm not even sure if it exists - this ignorance is somewhat of a relief, however, as I suspect it will exempt from being branded as "overeducated" (apparently much worse)!
The use of "overeducated" in this context implies that there is an acceptable threshold of knowledge that, once surpassed, becomes a weakness. How can knowledge equate to weakness? The only answer I've found is that it "doesn't resonate with the average guy". Isn't it a good thing if our leaders are more knowledgeable than the average guy? Moreover, is it not possible that this additional suspect knowledge would actually enable a candidate to identify and emphasize with a broader spectrum of people and issues?
So how is "overeducated" an insult again? Now there's something I'd like to know, at the risk of becoming less competent!
