With signiifcant lead in the polls and Liberals in disarray, is it only a matter of time until Harper pulls the plug?

I wish this had been announced before Harper's NAC gig-- Layton is getting a rep for copying-- but on the other hand there is an interesting difference. Harper played before a crowd of what Lennon called jewelry rattlers while Layton is going to sing on the street for charity. I can appreciate that difference-- let's hope no Con dirty tricksters show up and egg him-- I guess it may be his response to those who will likely shjow up to disrupt by which he will be judged-- let's hope he will be prepared for that and know how to manage it.

You could also ask who is copying who. Layton has played the guitar and sung in public many times before. In fact I have seen him do it throughout his career so no one could ever say that he was only doing it for the first time to copy Harper. If Iggy suddenly started performing after NEVER having done anything like that befdore - it would mor eof an obvious monkey-see, monkey-do.

Ordinarily, I might be concerned that some Liberal dirty tricksters would show up and try to be disruptive, but i think that given that this is a fundraising drive for the Stephen Lewis Foundation to address AIDS in Africa - even Warren Kinsella and co. know that it would be in extremely bad taste to try to pull any stunts.

Doug wrote:

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/709139--garth-turner-resigns-as-liberal-candidate

 

I'm surprised nobody mentioned this yet. As a long-standing rat, Garth Turner knows a sinking ship when he sees one.

For those of you who don't bother to read the linked story, Garth is resigning as a 'potential Liberal candidate".

Umm, ok, where do I tender my resignation as a 'potential' Liberal candidate? Garth getting a bit desparate for attention or a slow news day at the Star?

 

Stockholm wrote:

[...]

There is nothing wrong with saying "we're listening". But the idea is to do what Layton did and say "I and my MPs have been talking to canadians across the country and they are all telling us they don't want an election". NOT to say what Iggy said which is "we did some polls and realized we goofed"

Ignatieff's problem is he can't convincingly say something like that, because he appears not to care what the average person thinks.

KenS wrote:

And what Harper Crew knows is that things have changed such that unless they are confident of achieving a majority- which includes being able to withstand any erosion of support over calling the election- then they are risking losing the reigns of power.

 

This might erode some CON support. The CONS are handing out Government of Canada cheques using partisan CONservative cheques.

 

 

 

 

And there have been reports that the bulk of stimulus money has gone to CON ridings.

Do not overestimate the voters. I bet Conservative voters love this and Liberals are sad and demoralized.

So if push comes to shove, is a coalition still impossible?

After all in a normal democracy, the other partys can count seats and I though a liberal leader with a brain would prefer to have a hand in handing out the checks. Beats watching what harper is doing.  Proves iggie is a total jackass.

If the Liberals got rid of Iggy, could a ndp/lib coalition work with the support of  the "separatists"?

(Thats how they stopped the ira) they are in government in northern ireland in coalition with the unionists.

I know some people in canada go into fits when the word coalition comes up.

Is coalition now illegal in canada?

We need coalition to kill off harper more than ever.

A couple of years out of power will politically destroy that lunatic.

Brian

 

David Young wrote:

With the Conservative 'Buy-votes-with-cheques-with-our-logo' -gate in the news, I think we can safely say that there's no chance in Hell that Harper is going to look to going to the voters any time soon.

After the Olympics, where a good showing by Canadian athletes will become a Conservative claim of competence, that's when the real election speculation will heat up.

An NDP win in Cumberland-Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley will be another reason.

Late April, early May election anyone?

Now that the Fall political season is in full swing, flu season is also upon us.  Has the Harper government dropped the ball on immunizations?  Other countries have already begun inoculating their citizens for H1N1.  Could this factor play a part in election timing.  Could a worst-case senario be another Walkerton ? Let's hope not.

Brian White wrote:

Do not overestimate the voters. I bet Conservative voters love this and Liberals are sad and demoralized.

So if push comes to shove, is a coalition still impossible?

I don't know how keen the LPC would be as the junior partner in a coalition, because they are well on their way to finishing below the BQ and maybe the NDP too.

JKR's ideas for what the NDP ought to do sound great - but unfortunately there is almost no way to actually do it. The sad reality is that in our parliamentary system only the government gets to set the agenda and propose legislation. The only way that opposition parties can get anything on the order paper is though private members bills which get picked by lottery and which have to overcome enumerable procedural hurdles before getting voted on - and then the government is under little or no obligation to actually implement them.

 

That's true, but there is a huge time lag to get them introduced etc... its not as if the story about Keddy can be in the news today and someone from the NDP can propose a private memebrs bill about it tomorrow - if the NDP wanted to propose the bills JKR suggests (which i like) I would conservatively estimate that if all went well and the bills had high lottery numbers, they MIGHT come to a vote by next april!

JKR wrote:

Stockholm wrote:

That's true, but there is a huge time lag to get them introduced etc...

Most voters probably think the NDP, if in power, would be doing exactly what the CONS are doing with these partisan cheques. So if the NDP publicly proposed legislation opposed to such CON jobs, it would go a long way to differentiate the NDP from the CONS, even if such legislation is never inacted. The average voter does not care how legislation is passed.

Despite all the rampant cynism, this is not in general true. In fact, one of the most durable assets the federal [and some provincial sections] NDP has is strong numbers around trust issues. So that isn't the problem, its getting that to not be trumped by perceptions of low competence and/or relevance on a lot of the issues.

As to your largerl point about getting attention for issues- its understood. But if legislation is virtually guaranteed to not see the light of day, then it is by definition a useless vehicle for calling attention to an issue. If the NDP makes a pronouncement about legislation it merely wants, that will be ignored by the media. And the more such pointless press releases, there is an accretion of reporters simply ignoring everything the NDP says.

Theres also a certain point at which if the Liberals have been noisy about an issue- then 'me too' from the NDP is fruitless and even counterproductive. And it doesn't matter even if its the case that the Liberals are actually johnny come latelies or hypocritical.

KenS wrote:

If the NDP makes a pronouncement about legislation it merely wants, that will be ignored by the media. And the more such pointless press releases, there is an accretion of reporters simply ignoring everything the NDP says.

I think the media is already ignoring the NDP. Lately most political discussions on tv don't even include the NDP viepoint. Often political programs only have repreentattives form the Cons and Libs. And how many pundits on tv have a NDP bias? There's talk even of having a tv debate in the next election with only Harper and Ignatieff.

Somehow the NDP has to make some sort of breakthrough and get more exposure. Otherwise the NDP will still be around 15% in the polls at the beginning of the next election and will have to have a great campaign just to keep their current seats.

Stockholm wrote:

As it happens I was reading the following in the Macleans website - what more do you want?:

This's exactly what I want from the NDP. Hopefully this story will also appear in tommorow's newspapers and tv news shows.

Stockholm-- I have noticed that powerplay and other tv shows both CBC and CTV are in fact reducing the number of panels with full opposition compliment-- mostly it is a Liberal and a Conservative followed by the media panel these days-- sometimes of course they make exceptions on CTV and have just a conservative. Very, very rarely do they have the old multiparty panels.