How to get a Conservative majority

For whats it worth, I didn't think you were a Liberal troll.

I was thinking trolling as in someone who puts out provacative statements. I wasn't /aren't sure of the purpose.

I don't know why you would critique first pat the post using examples that are mathematically possible, but very unlikely. What's the point?

And whats the point of mixing whats wrong with FPTP, with what the Conservatives might do with it?

Well, in BC, conservative voters will vote NDP (when their chosen candidate is a distant 3rd) in order to prevent the liberal candidate from winning. Although this time appear strange on 1st pass, there are more reasons for this than the simplistic I provided.

I also don't necessarily think that Harper asked Doer just for that reason - it can be multifaceted and add up to a win/win.

1. He needed a credible nationally known progressive Canadian, with a long track record and known good relations with the US to be appointed - Doer.

2. Doer needed to see this as a win/win too for him and for the prov. Manitoba NDP. Leaving on a high note with the NDP in majority power - 3rd term - leaves ample time for the party to pick a new leader and be ruling at the same time, as well as, providing time for the leader to establish his mark and popularity with the electrite.

3. Doer said he would leave in around the 10 year mark - it's 10 years (perfect timing).

4. Harper needed cover for his super partisan appts to the senate and national boards and so on.

5. It allows his prov con party to become perhaps competitive in Manitoba's next prov election (although that on his own would not have made him ask Doer).

6. And strategically he may have wanted to raise the NDP popularity to tap on liberals gaining although this is actually a very weak argument and these are the reasons why:

a) Doer is from Manitoba (prairies) and Liberals are not very competitive in the West (and nor have their polling numbers moved much there), thus

b) one could suggest that raising the NDP profile and their popularity could actually "work against" the cons as most races beyond the Ontario north border are between Cons and NDP.

Harper talks of Iggy selling out Canada and here he can't wait to make a deal with our American neighbors, any kind of deal.  As now that America is coming down on big corporations and sleazy deals Canada is the place to be.  Harper sold out Canada a long time ago along with Canadians. 

Handing over fist full of struggling Canadian dollars to investors on tax breaks sounds iffy to me as how does that equate to jobs.  Sounds like bigger pay checks for top guns while the little guy works at $6 bucks an hour where rent and food aren't in the budget.  Its going to be sometime before Canadians are back on their feet as tax dollars all went on big business.  How did that work into jobs for Canadians?  It didn't but it sounded good as Harper screws the little guy over good.  I thought the war on poverty was eliminating poverty not killing off the poor?

There will be a fall election and unemployment figures and the hardships of Canadian families aren't over yet and only just began as Harper has no use for average Canadians and their futures as its all big business.  And big business's future which is supposed to be the futures of Canadians what do you think big business cares about Canada or her people or her lands?  Well someone needs to because Canada and the average Canadian are in some serious trouble under Harper rule.  Harper makes homelessness a household word.  I'm excited there is going to be an election, a much needed election and its time to hear from the opposition.  Harper get a majority?  Thats as frightening a Campbell getting a majority as Campbell is a BC Liability and Harper is a Canadian Liability as one thing for sure you'll never get the truth out of these guys.  So why would you want to hand the country over to Harper, he can't be trusted to do the right thing by Canada or its citizens. 

Harper also appears to much as a weasel when out there drumming up business in the US and his relationship with the American president is poor to say the least.  Will putting Doer in the spot change the scene?  Not as long as Harper is running the county, sleazy.

sounds about right to me.

as for the conservative majority.  unless the polling changes, it would seem to be a mathematical impossibility.

I'd bet that trend will continue.  Conservatives and Greens up, NDP down and Liberals stagnant.

Ignatieff and Layton are both very out of touch with the West.

I can't speak for Iggy, but all the polls I've been seeing show that the NDP has been gaining ground in the west and that Ontario (and the GTA in particular) is the NDP's problem area. In any case what exactly is "the west". Is it downtown Vancouver? Is is Vancouver Island? Is it Edmonton? is it rural southern Alberta? is it north Winnipeg? is it south Winnipeg?

As much as I'd like to say otherwise, the NDP is out of touch with most of the country and always has been. The party does a poor job of speaking to the ordinary Canadians it wants to represent. The only place it is connecting with right now appears to be NS.

That said it is not worse off in the west than usual and appears in more trouble than usual in Ontario. But this idea of usual is a recent one-- the NDP used to be a much stronger force in the West than it is now

The interpretation of the polls needs to change. Previously, during its strong periods, the NDP used to get consistently around a quarter of the vote if you consider from Ontario west only-- with under a quarter in Ontario and over that west of there. When the black hole of Quebec and Atlantic Canada were factored in the party had just under a fifth of the vote. Today the party has almost the same support in Quebec as Ontario and is stronger in Atlantic Canada than anywhere else. This is masking a lack of recovery in the west to previous strong periods so I would say looked at historically the NDP is doing badly in the west and making no ground in Ontario. This is risky as the party has a track record of inefficient support ( substantial without showing up in many seats) in the areas-- Quebec and Atlantic Canada. The party could actually face a low seat count while breaking the 20% mark if its distribution were poor. We don't like to face this but the real measure of NDP success is not 20% now that Quebec and Atlantic Canada are in play but 25% if we want to consider ourselves making progress-- and we are mired well south of 20%. The same can be said about the seat count-- when the NDP had a record number of seats the House was smaller. 40 seats of the 1980s today would be 45. The party has recovered from the devastating 1990s but remains far from the highs of the 80s in its strong areas and can only point to one real area of improvement- the party is now viable in most of the country for the first time. Problem is viable is not the same as successful and the party has to figure out how to go from just having a pulse to being a winner. In real terms it has traded being a winner in some places to having a pulse in places it did not use to have. This is a zero sum game and will not increase seats as you need strongholds to deliver seats and the NDP does not have any significantly large ones today to compare with the days when it could deliver nearly half the seats of BC along with half the seats of Manitoba and Sask (now the weaker of those two provinces is the strength and the strong province the party is wiped out in).

So I think the party has to stop saying how successful it is and fix the serious problem of having lost its power bases -- the addition of smaller bases and new places where it can get one or two seats is not enough to compensate for losing large areas. If you consider the changes in seat distribution-- if the NDP were still as strong in BC as they used to be we would have 50 seats now. So, yeah, NDP out of touch in the west is not only fair comment be an essential realization if things are going to be turned around. It might take a new leader to do that but we have problems. The people on the street understand Layton when he is maneuvring politically or talking about power but can't understand him when he is speaking on their behalf and so many don't like him. The party should stop playing political strategy games that the country is fed up with and figure out how to speak directly to people on what matters to them- if this were done the polls would take care of themselves. It is unhelpful to pretend that all is well when we are in a recession, with a right wing unfriendly leader of the Liberals facing off against a Conservative that has machine oil for blood and guts and all the while the NDP can't consistently connect with 25% of the people almost anywhere in the country perhaps other than NS- a place with 11 seats only.

All very true when you have the electoral system we do.

Yes - Trudeau actually beat Clark in the popular vote in 1979, although that was largely as a result of Trudeau's huge numbers in Quebec.

May we take that to mean, then, that you're going to start trying to get the Liberal Party to back electoral reform?

except that every poll i've seen in the last few weeks shows that its in the west that the Tories are losing the most ground. Last year they took 44% of the vote in BC - now the polls all have them in the low 30s - that means a loss of many seats. And just about every poll shows Tory support eroding in Alberta (which probably could only potentially cost them 1 seat) and to some extent in "Saskatoba" which would mean dropping one or two to the NDP in Sask. and 2 or 3 to the Libs in Winnipeg.

How to get a Conservative Majority why would you want one?  You can tell everybodies getting ready for the election and I' ready to hear what the opposition has to say.  Aren't you.  Its been sometime, since the 3 last got together to bring down Harper as troubling economy showed its ugly face.  Only it wasn't time yet because Harper didn't really have a chance to respond to the needs of average Canadians and funny thing he still hasn't.  And I don't expect much change. 

Harper talks of Iggy living in America as he tries to sellout Canada to American investors as the Conversatvies campagin had already started as Haper has been attacking Iggy from the get go.  And now its the Opposition turns to turn it on the Conservatives and how does Quebec feel about Iggy, now that is the big one of course.  So I am more curious of what the poles have to say once the Opposition gets it say, especially the East.  Harper has already has had his and although it may have cost the Liberals a few points before the campaign that is going to change. 

No, Not really after the last round with Harper the message was the Canadian people wanted government to cooperate in these hard recessionary times and work together.  An election was a big, no no.  And Like I said Harpers been campaigning all along and now its the Oppositions turn and believe me the NDP, Conservatives and Quebec have lots to say. 

Maybe Canada could use a brain after living with corporate best interests for years?  Well coporations certainly don't care about you as will take the food right out the working poor's mouth.  It certainly can't hurt as again Harper's government has made homelessness a household word in Canada.  You know why I like Iggy because he isn't slick like Harper as he opened up to Canadians and told them there would be the likely hood of a tax in the future to help Canadians out.  Harper's solution to helping Canadians out is getting cash strapped provinces to take on HST, as tax dollars are to attrack big business and its for their own good of course.  That comment just attracts more flies.

Chretin ran on a very progressive platform - liberal "lie" book 1" and theme jobs, jobs, jobs. In office with a huge majority, they screwed IE to EI (we are getting the results of that now), national daycare (another joke), cut health care spending, cut transfer payments to the provs, cut funding for status of women, kept the GST, and signed on the dotted line for NAFTA (althought they said they would rejig it).

Sure we are all Chretin lovers - lie to folks, pretend you are progressive, treat Canadians as fools.

So why do you so like Chretin?

Excuse me - I am not confused. Go back and read liberal redbook one, and see what they got elected on - they didn't get her done. Chretin got 3 majorities in a row - and it wasn't till the dying days of the Liberal Martin minority govt that they wanted to do anything about their 13 year promise of childcare, and at that, it was at the end stage.

Many posters had a big laugh when Dion trotted out national childcare in the last election - fool me twice (how about 5 times) - and he was already backpedalling in the last weeks of the election.

If unsure, read Maude Barlow's straight through the heart, it's a play on Chretin's ghost written book "straight from the heart." That's why Council of Canadians started, do to Liberals completely refusing their campaign promises.

Liberals had no problem stealing the money from EI - 5 billion to pretend that they had got Canada out of deficit - on the backs of workers. And Liberals had no problems giving huge corporate taxcuts - funny no money for the progressive programs they promised but always lots for corporate Canada.

That's why Iggy has no problem with backing Harper - what would he do different - not much - except just be a great progressive pretender.

Iggy is as regressive as Martin - remember it is the Martin Liberal cohert who are backing Iggy. Anyway, I'm not an Iggy supporter.

Your right about Martin I don't think he knows how to give up control, but maybe just maybe Iggy has some politics of his own.   I'm counting on it. 

My babble - Iggy is as much an elitest corporist as Martin. Liberals and conservatives are just different wings of the same party. And pushing Iggy and how the libs are going to enact all this great economic stuff for working Canadians is why nothing changes. Which part of rejigging EI under the libs which is causing hardship for workers and their families doesn't phase you?

Sorry about I got off the liberal band wagon after 1993 and their progressive bull.

thanks Neil or being so understanding of my obvious misunderstanding - I apologize.

Like you, I really want the NDP to come on strong for electorial reform. We can campaign on it and push it but my belief is that we need more NDP MPs in the House to push for reform, whether it is more seats, stronger opposition, minority govt or majority govt.

thanks

You know, Jan, this makes me think that perhaps Ignatieff wants Harper to get a majority seeing as how they are the same page and work for the same political masters.

Does he really care about Canadians and Canadians plight? No

Does he care about the Liberal Party? Doubtful.

Perhaps he is even a plant out to destroy the Liberal Party. As voting against this Ways and Means Bill which contains the home renovation rebate,  and against the extended 20 weeks of  EI, the NDP is pushing for, will assure a Harper majority.

Also, there is his mysterious abscence over the summer, which definitely harmed the Liberals, and his failure to  go ahead with the coalition, which could have helped the Liberals, as opposed to his voting dozens of times with Harper, which hurt them tremendously.

Moreover, Ignatieff will just go back to doing what he was doing prior to "becoming" a Lib, should the Liberals axe him, if he loses the election. He has absolutely nothing invested in the Liberal Party, nor in Canada.

This almost sounds like a North Report post.

I don't know remind as I don't think about the short path between lib and con benches. That said, I just see both parties as the same - more or less - just different wings.

Now that Iggy has come out on the big thumbs up on the Harmonization prov tax, it's looking like trying to be distinct is not in the cards. At least I appreciate Iggy coming up truthful rather than the BS on GST from years ago.

you are right about that - let the cons do the dirty work - come in and do more of the same. What I remember about after the libs - those progressive fakes did - Mulroney could only dream of doing.

For the elites and corporate barons, either/or is fine and hence why they fund both.

I disagree Remind, he left the States to come back here and he's been slogging here for a few years now.  He certainly does not want to lose an election.  Iggy's an egotistical prick, and someone like that has a lot to lose by being shown up.

I'm no Iggy fan either, but to me he seems way too hgh on himself to not care about winning.

Becoming the prime minister and ensuring neoliberal ideology and global rape of the environment and people serve profit and not people, don't you know.

The last poll I saw the Liberals were being blown out of the ballpark by Harper.

I believe that Harper now has a 9% advantage over Ignatieff, and Harper was closing in on a majority government.

So much for the Liberals change in leadership, eh!

Conservative senator Finley gunning for majority

Newly sworn-in senator Doug Finley says that he likely will remain campaign director for the Conservative Party in the next election, and that the Tories will be gunning for their elusive majority.

http://www.canada.com/news/national/Conservative+senator+Finley+gunning+...

Finley was one of nine individuals appointed to the Senate late last month by Prime Minister Stephen Harper. On Tuesday, the new appointees were sworn in to the Red Chamber, putting the Conservatives within reach of a majority in the upper house.

As national campaign director for the Conservative Party, Finley managed the last two election campaigns for the Tories. Political observers had speculated that Finley would now step back from that role.

While he intends to spend most of his time taking care of his Senate duties, Finley told Canwest News Service on Tuesday that he will stay on as campaign director.

"I anticipate that's what we'll do, yes. And we'll go for that majority," he said before attending the swearing-in ceremony. "I have an excellent team. We're very well prepared, should there be an election - an election we don't want, an election the country doesn't want."

Harper made waves last week when video footage leaked of him telling supporters that the party needs to win a majority in the next campaign. The Conservatives have tried to steer clear of speaking publicly of a majority, for fear of scaring off swing voters.

The swearing-in ceremony was an intriguing step

Very good point, remind!

I don't know if this was a serious post or a trolling post but I'll answer it objectively just for the heck of it.

If the Tories want a majority they need to keep attacking Ignatieff and the Liberals like they are doing.  Keep excluding them from everything and get Layton and Duceppe to vote with the Tories as much as they can without giving too much. 

The Tories cannot discredit/attack the NDP too much in the east as he will need those soft left wing liberal votes to go to the NDP while the Red Tory votes come to Harper.  But discrediting the NDP in the west(Man-BC) is exactly what Harper must do because out there people vote either Tory or NDP very few Liberal votes there so discrediting the Liberals out West is a waste of time.

With the BQ voting with the government Harper can try to erode those soft nationalist Quebec votes and bring them into the Tory fold.

If Harper can do all those things and run a perfect campaign and all the stars line up he has a shot at it...it would be possible.  I don't really see that happening at all but his was a tongue is cheek post any how so I thought I'd run with it a little bit :)