Clear the decks
While my American friends load the groaning boards for American Thanksgiving, Canadians are grabbing their swag bags and holding them open in the hopes that the Federal Liberals “spend your way to power”campaign will toss a little tucker their way.
Delightfully, the Liberals are going to be defeated in the House on a schedule of their chosing and before the Gormery Commission’s final Report is issued. While the Grits are screwed in Quebec, in the rest of the country they enjoy a comfrtable lead in the polls and a lead which is likely to widen over the campaign.
I expect it will widen because the Liberals will run a faultless campaign which will stress their fiscal probity, the overall health of the Canadian economy and have just a dash of the anti-Americanism - this time on trade - so beloved of the Toronto Star. Martin will point to the utterly dysfunctional Parliament and cry, “Canada deserves a Parliament that works.”
It is a fair bet that the Tories will run a campaign which suggests that the Liberals are corrupt scoundrels. To which Martin will reply that that was the old Liberal Party and that he’s been entirely exonerated by Gomery. By this point even Harper realizes that the anti-SSM routine will cost the Tories more seats than it wins; but that will not stop the dino faction from trotting it out with the Christmas pudding to ensure Harper spends a week or two off message trying to square the circle of opposition to SSM with a refusal to use the notwithstanding clause to abolish it. Other than that the Tories have no issues. The Grits have introduced measures to cut taxes, talk a good competition game and will buy special interests with the 10 billion dollar surplus.
In fact, the Tories are going to have to fight hard to keep the seats they have. In the Maritimes and British Columbia there are several seats which could go to either the Liberals or a resurgent NDP. While no one is particularily thrilled with Layton no one is scared of him and no one suspects him of having some dark “hidden agenda”.
When I have time I am going to do the seat analysis which leads to my prediction that Harper and the Tories will be lucky to hold fifty seats. Right now that is simple political instinct; however I think there is every chance that the combination of a strong Liberal campaign, the absence of any serious anti-Liberal issues, the inevidibility of dino Tories going off message and losing two to three weeks of voter attention to Christmas means there is effectively no chance for the Tories to even pull out a minority government position. And everything from there out is downhill. A full on rout is a very live possibility.
Written by jay on November 25th, 2005 with
1 comment.
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#1. November 25th, 2005, at 7:34 AM.
“When I have time I am going to do the seat analysis which leads to my prediction that Harper and the Tories will be lucky to hold fifty seats”
Oh, man, I triple dog dare you to