Holy #$%^!
I think I just wet myself. What happened to the thread from the old babble where all the predictions on the deficit the Tories would saddle Canadians with were made? I want to see how well I did- I believe I undershot massively, but who could see this recession coming or the Tories useless "stimulus" package. I hate to say this but...give me Obama...at least the American people got some value out of his deficit spending!
I guess now might be time for a whole new set of predictions threads: 1) How are the Tories going to pull themselves out of this mess? 2) How likely is the next election to be run on economic competence, competence of any kind? 3) How likely is it that the federal NDP is going to get crushed when it comes out that they don't understand the macroeconomic issues at all and have no new ideas or federal track record to run on?
My predictions: 1) They won't, although if they try the only thing the Tories can do is raise taxes and flee wildly from Afghanistan. 2) If it's called within the next 12 months: extremely likely. If it's called within the next 18 months: moderately likely. 3) The NDP will lose its soft flank (read 5 percentage point support drop) and several seats unless it manages to either completely shift the focus of the campaign through successful negative campaigning or learn enough about macroeconomics to actually sound competent and generate some new and thoughtful ideas.
Will there be election this summer? I think Ignatieff is licking his chops and waiting for a public reaction. If the backlash is strong enough, the Liberals will ride it to a mid-summer poll date if that's what's necessary. Ignatieff is eager to not give the Conservatives any more time to batter his image with negative attack ads. Ignatieff also wants to lead the LPC into an election at the height of crisis. This moment looks promising.
