Affirmative Action: The Graph

Small Dead Animals features this graph and asks why the NDP has never gotten anywhere electorially, when Reform climbed to official opposition within ten years of its founding.

But note the years between 1989 and 2003. Fairly dramatic plunge, no? What happened then is simple: two markedly under-qualified leaders, chosen only because they were female.

This shows more broadly, I would suggest, the overall effects of affirmative action anywhere. If you choose under-qualified candidates, your actual results are going to nosedive. The under-qualified will underperform. Everyone suffers as a result.

I also think it is remarkable that nobody ever, so far as I know, has pointed out this interesting fact about the history of the NDP: that Audrey McLaughlin and Alexa McDonaugh truly sucked as federal leaders. They have been immune from criticism despite an obviously awful performance, I submit, because they are women. (Albeit this immunity from criticism extends only to women of the left--ask Sarah Palin or Margaret Thatcher about that). At worst, they were merely "ill-served by their advisors."