The Liberals have been having a great old time blaming the NDP for putting the Martin government out of its misery (and consequently, holding them accountable for everything from the lack of childcare spaces to poverty in First Nations communities). It's a meme that's been repeated by everyone from Bob Rae to Martha Hall Findlay to Ken Dryden -- and one that I took the time to thoroughly debunk in a previous post.

Post-debate polls show the Liberals holding onto second place by as little as two percentage points over the NDP, but there's something in the Liberals' tactics that shows that they've all but given up on defeating the Conservatives. Instead, they're increasingly aiming their fire at Jack Layton in an attempt to stave off an embarrassing third or fourth place finish for Canada's Natural Grovelling Party.

Pundits' Guide, a project of Ottawa number cruncher Alice Funke, has rapidly established itself as the go to site for policy wonks and election geeks in search of meaningful information on the federal political scene.

Today, Alice provides a powerful counterpoint to those who are advocating strategic voting on October 14. Here are the major highlights of her argument [full text at the link; some bolding is hers, some is mine]:

Back when I read MAD magazine on a semi-regular basis, one of my favourite features was "Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions." I'm not sure whether this was the beginning of my penchant for using sarcasm or whether I had "the gift" before that and merely fed it through my youthful reading choices.

In any event, there is nothing like election time -- and, in particular, nothing like hearing Liberal talking points ad naseum -- to bring out my snappy answers. Here are a few that I've been muttering under my breath and/or shouting at my television (depending on where I am at the time that I hear them):

The NDP "brought down the Martin government"

Since Tuesday, catching up on sleep has taken precedence over catching up on blogging. Of course, that doesn't mean that I don't have a lot to say about the outcome of the vote. So, somewhat belatedly, here is my take on the highlights and lowlights of the 2008 Federal Election results.

The good

Jack Harris winning three-quarters of the vote in St. John's East (the highest percentage of the vote gained by any candidate in any riding) and Thomas Mulcair holding on to Outremont. This election marked the first general election that the NDP has ever won a seat in either province (they had won two previous by-elections in Newfoundland and one in Quebec, but did not hold the seats in subsequent elections).

Everyone else is offering their post-debate analysis, so here’s mine:

- Harper is still working too hard to appear mellow in order to expand his base and I don't think that it's working. He probably didn't lose too many votes, and he definitely didn't gain any. He's going to win the same percentage of the vote, from mostly the same voters as he did in 2006. There were signs of the old cheap-shot artist a few times, mostly directly at Layton and Dion, but he dialed it back right away - almost as if he remembered what he had been told to do in the debates.

At his opening campaign event at the end of March, Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff told voters that they had just two options in this election. They could walk through the blue door or they could walk through the red door. This phrasing represented new imagery, to be sure, but it is essentially the same message that the Liberal Party has been serving up to Canadians for years. To be blunt, after losing their grip on power and patronage, it's all they have left.