Unless there are significant changes, Harper will get his majority next election

Your thread title has nothing to do with the story, nor did you connect the two.

"Harper is going to get a majority this time" has being a sky is falling reprise on Babble so many times.

Generally I ignore it now. But putting it in a thread title makes it more aggravating- let alone one when there is no connection to the content. It's just a statement, not an argument.

I guess, implicitly, the argument must be that if the Liberals keep being useless Harper will get a majority.

Well, the NDP and the Bloc have a role, and a responsibility in whether that eventuality comes to pass... and you of all people should know that and act accordingly.

There's a certain point when the "Liberals are utterly useless line" tips into treating them as if they really are the only solution to our problems.

Endorsing nuclear power in Saint John is designed to win back the saint John seat that Zed lost to the Tories in the last election.

Oh well, NorthReport, perhaps those voting Liberal and Con in ON and QC will finally stop being stuck on stupid if Harper gets a majority and further destroys the country.

Moreover, he does not need majority he is doing exactly what he wants already with the Liberals fully complicit.

Calling people who choose to vote for a political party stupid is the best way to keep them doing so.

KenS wrote:

Your thread title has nothing to do with the story, nor did you connect the two.

"Harper is going to get a majority this time" has being a sky is falling reprise on Babble so many times.

Generally I ignore it now. But putting it in a thread title makes it more aggravating- let alone one when there is no connection to the content. It's just a statement, not an argument.

I guess, implicitly, the argument must be that if the Liberals keep being useless Harper will get a majority.

Well, the NDP and the Bloc have a role, and a responsibility in whether that eventuality comes to pass... and you of all people should know that and act accordingly.

There's a certain point when the "Liberals are utterly useless line" tips into treating them as if they really are the only solution to our problems.

 

I'm happy to say for a change that I think you are the most objective voice on this thread, Ken.

NR's comments and speculations are so shaky and biased that I'm not even sure what to say in response.  He seems to have just started a thread for the sole purpose of claiming that Harper is on his way to a majority with no evidence to back it up so that he can say that the Liberals are in such bad shape that they may soon finish 4th!

Interesting that on the polling thread where those such as I, Stockholm and Chantal Hebert were actually dealing in real numbers and trends in Quebec that it was called complete fiction, and yet here he is making up wild predictions out of thin air.  Oh well, I guess it floats his boat.

Incidentally, the newest poll is the 2nd one this week that shows the Liberals tied with the BQ in Quebec.

Frankly, I want ya'll to keep voting Con and Liberal.

A Harper majority next election?  I doubt it.

The Conservatives are poised to lose up to 6 of the seats they presently have in Atlantic Canada, another 6+ in Quebec, and at least 6 more in the west & B.C.

Since they are 10 seats short of a majority at present, that means they would have to pick up around 30 seats elsewhere.

Newfoundland/Labrador?  Maybe 1 or 2.

B.C.?  Perhaps 2 or 3.

Ontario?  Where are the 25 seats they'd need for a majority?

Only a complete and utter collapse of Liberal support towards the Cons would see them get a majority, and they're consistantly running neck-and-neck all summer long.

Conservative majority in the next election?

I doubt it.

Wait for the results in the Cumberland-Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley by-election.

That will be the best indicator of what may happen in the next election.

Stay tuned!

This standard Liberal line won't work for the NDP, being the perrenial third place party outside of Quebec.  But a Harper majority is unlikley now anyhow, according to almost all the polls including those from Quebec. 

Are you suggesting that the Green Party is fulfilling their purpose of allowing Harper to win a majority?

Because all the rhetoric of May's hating Harper is just a smoke screen, IMV too.

Let's look at her intereference in the coalition for example, last winter, she managed to trivialize and marginalize people's opinion of it, by her out of fucking no where comment of wanting a senate seat.

She runs in Central Nova for no damn reason, and now SGI.

The session will be tough for the Conservatives, I grant you that.  But what will the Lib critique be? Their first big move will be to support the government for the 80th time on a confidence vote.  Will Iggy call for more spending and thus a higher deficit (and preclude any Liberal critique of the Flaherty deficits being too high) or call for lower deficits and thus either higher taxes or spending cuts, both of which would be massively unpopular with voters and would put the Libs to the right of the Conservatives? When you have a nominally right-wing party implementing huge stimulus programs and high deficits, it leaves the centre-left opposition in a box, and Iggy has walked right into that box.

You see this dilemma in the Saturday Globe lead story (don't have time to link to it) about how the Libs won't bring down the government over EI.  There is a quote from Marlene Jennings, MP (Lib-NDG-Lachine) where she says how the Libs are about much more than EI, there is the West Coast Salmon fishery, HINI concerns, the isotope crisis, infrastructure funding, etc.  The problem is, those aren't issues - they are headlines.  There is no magic Lib solution to restore the West Coast fishery, cure HINI instantly, repair Chalk River nuclear plant in 2 weeks, etc.  Those are all long-term structural problems and they don't lend themselves to scoring partisan points. Harper will get lots of negative press (as he has largely had all summer long) but I don't see it benefiting the Libs until and unless Iggy can take a clear stand on key issues and differentiate himself from Harper on policy.

Yes, Stockholm, your analysis is dead-on if we were in 1991 or 1993, respectively  In 2009, the context is somewhat different, wouldn't you agree? Everybody from Obama to George Bush in the US to Stelmach, Harper, Campbell and McGuinty (and the NDP in Manitoba and NS will have no choice but to follow suit) is getting on the Keynesian bandwagon of stimulus spending and deficits to face the biggest economic crisis since the 1930s.  The Herbert Hoover/W.B. Bennett "balanced budget every year no matter what" lunacy will hopefully never be heard from again.  You simply can't govern that way without gutting public services or massively raising taxes - balancing the budget over the business cycle and keeping the debt-to-GDP ratio manageable is the rational way to approach fiscal responsibility. 

You are correct that this is a huge opportunity for the federal NDP to present a clear alternative to the two old-line parties - hopefully based on a green economic stimulus as Obama has done to move towards a clean energy economy - saving $$ for consumers, reducing emissions and creating local jobs that can't be outsourced.  That's the real "hope" message Jack should be presenting, not bashing credit card fees and protesting "high" gas prices (which will go way higher in the next few years regardless of who is in power). 

The HST is the wrong issue for Carole and Jack - as Carole should have learned from the "ax the tax" debacle, for the NDP to run on an anti-tax message is not a vote winner - the 2009 BC results were virtually identical to 2005 and turnout was even lower.  Chretien famously broke his GST promise after 1993 and won 2 straight majorities after doing that, McGuinty broke his brain-dead "no new taxes" pledge after 2003 and got re-elected, and it will be the same story with Campbell in 2013 unless Carole finds a different strategy.  People hate new taxes before they are introduced and then accept and forget once they are in place, as happened with Gordo's carbon tax and as will happen with the HST.  I hate the HST as a policy but it's not the issue Carole can win on in 2013.  Jack will have a hard time with the HST as an issue if the Manitoba NDP government adopts it, which I predict will happen within a year.

Opposition to the HST in BC is not about winning the 2013 election. It will be ancient history by then. The point is to inflict maximum damage on Campbell now and to demoralize his party etc... sort of like how within months of the NDP being re-elected in 1996, their popularity took a nosedive that they never really recovered from. Similarly, in 1993 people wanted to punish the Tories for the GST. It didn't matter whether the Liberals axed it or not - people just wanted to punish the Tories.

Campbell and the BC Liberals could have been enjoying their honeymoon right now while the NDP was in disarray. Instead, thery are on the run and divided and the opposition to Campbell has been emboldened. 

That's true, but for some reason the HST seems to be creating a much bigger backlash in BC than it is in Ontario.

Unless Quebec successfully tags out of the federation before the next election, party status for the Greens is a more likely outcome than a Harper majority.

The Liberals were also the top federalist party in Quebec in 2008 - they had 23% of the vote and 13 seats while the Tories had 22% of the vote and 10 seats.

I think Iggy will be a complete flop, he has no appeal for the center left who fled under Martin and although its a very low bar, he frankly doesn't have the charisma that Harper does.  Harper reminds me of rightwingers who I know and argue with over a beer, Iggy is just a pretentious weasel who has spent his career peddling imperialist bullshit in elite academies.  I'm not a fan of either but the former has a much broader appeal with your average voter. 

The NDP are watering themselves down to the point that their appeal in the West is going to shrink and that will help Harper too.  Combined with the fact all the party leaders are uninspiring I think it isn't impossible Harper pulls out a good result simply by being the most competent party leader in a very weak crop. 

Take a couple more drags and see if enlightenment comes.

.