{"id":5704,"date":"2014-02-26T15:49:54","date_gmt":"2014-02-26T20:49:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=5704"},"modified":"2014-03-05T15:23:45","modified_gmt":"2014-03-05T20:23:45","slug":"politics-as-usual-house-of-cards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/politics-as-usual-house-of-cards\/","title":{"rendered":"POLITICS AS USUAL: House of Cards"},"content":{"rendered":"

House of Cards — Aurora-style
\nBy Alison Collins-Mrakas<\/strong><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t watch a lot of television. I have better things to do with my time than vegetating in front of a TV screen. I have 1 or 2 shows that I watch regularly (I won\u2019t tell you what they are lest you judge me\u2026and, no, there\u2019s no \u201chousewives\u201d in the title\u2026).
\nOf course, I also watch Power and Politics with Evan Solomon because it\u2019s one of the best political shows out there.
\nI like all things political \u2013 and TV shows about politics are, of course, my favourite. In the late 90s and early 2000s, my favourite show was The West Wing. The writing was great, as was the acting. But, what was most appealing about the show was the sense that we, as viewers, were getting insider\u2019s access to the corridors of power; how decisions were made; what was hidden; what was revealed. It was fascinating to see how things were\/are \u201creally\u201d done in the White House.
\nFast forward 10 years and we have a new political drama on TV (okay, it\u2019s not on TV, it\u2019s on Netflix, which I rather grudgingly finally gave in to the hubby\u2019s wishes and agreed to get it\u2026cable and Netflix for a person who never even had cable until I got married\u2026)
\nAnyway, House of Cards is the buzz of the political world. It\u2019s an extraordinary show (we binged watched the first season last weekend. All I can say is \u2013 OMG!). It is extremely well written. The acting is superb. Kevin Spacey is simply malevolent as Vice President Frank Underwood. And Robin Wright is positively sociopathic as his wife \u2013 and partner in crime \u2013 Claire Underwood.
\nHouse of Cards is like the West Wing \u2013 the nasty years \u2013 much, much nastier. It\u2019s like Jed Bartlett has been replaced by a de Medici and advised by Machiavelli (with an assist from Karl Rove). The machinations and the double dealing are intricate and terrifying, but wholly believable.
\nIt is the dirty underbelly of what real politics are like.
\nSo, why am I discussing my TV viewing habits? Well, because recent events in the PC nomination race seemed to be ripped from the script of an episode of House of Cards.
\nHow else to explain the truly extraordinary situation our riding is in. First, one of the PC candidates\u2019 nomination applications is rejected. That decision has been subject to much \u201cdiscussion\u201d and derision by some \u2013 certainly in the twittersphere, that bastion of reasoned discourse and sanity.
\nAnd now, one of the remaining two candidates has withdrawn from the nomination race citing threats to himself and his family. Threats, to a candidate for nomination. I\u2019ve never heard anything like it.
\nThis isn\u2019t some third world country we\u2019re talking about where candidates \u201cdisappear\u201d before their names are even printed on a ballot.
\nThis is Canada. We don\u2019t threaten our candidates for office! Yes, attack ads could be called threats one supposes but they are reputational threats. This was \u2013 allegedly – a direct threat \u2013 that now involves the police, for heaven\u2019s sake. Unbelievable.
\nSo, just what the heck is going on? Is this some half-baked political strategy? Or have people simply lost their minds? How else can you explain such a colossally stupid move as to threaten a candidate? Whose ends does a threat serve? As a political tactic, it has failed miserably.
\nPolitics is all about the long game. Rank amateurs play the short game.
\nFrank Underwood would not be impressed.
\nUntil next week, stay informed, stay involved because, this is after all Our Town.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

House of Cards — Aurora-style By Alison Collins-Mrakas I don\u2019t watch a lot of television. I have better things to do with my time than vegetating in front of a TV screen. I have 1 or 2 shows that I watch regularly (I won\u2019t tell you what they are lest you judge me\u2026and, no, there\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-1u0","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-09 07:08:16","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5704\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}