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Posted on 05/01/2011 10:49:48 AM PDT by Clive
It’s only been five weeks but it seems like years since this election campaign began and I’m sick and tired of it.
And, frankly, I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired. It can’t end soon enough for me.
For a political junky to admit this is hard but, really, aren’t there a few words you hope you never have to hear again after Monday?
* Majority government: Once upon a time, Stephen Harper wouldn’t let the “m” word pass his lips for fear of scaring voters.
But since the first day of this campaign, he’s been dinning “majority” into our heads at every opportunity. And heaven only knows, we know what a divisive and ugly thing that other “m” word — minority — can be. We’ve been watching it for years and it hasn’t been pretty. There’s only one way to make all this go away — give him one.
* “Prime Minister” Jack Layton: Come on, what have you people been smoking for the last week? Are you crazy? Hasn’t anyone checked out even Page 1 of the New Democrats’ platform?
Let’s see: Child care, elder care, pharma-care, doubling pensions, lowering credit card interest rates, dropping the tax on home heating, more public housing, permanent funding for renovations, a cap-and-trade system to put a price on carbon emissions … do I need to go on?
Doesn’t anyone remember the Jack Layton who, as a Toronto councillor, pretty well invented the homelessness industry.
Former Sun editor Barbara Amiel once said in an editorial that the way to make the NDP go away is to elect them once — because it’ll never happen again. Just ask Bob Rae about that.
* Helena Guergis: Here’s a disagreeable woman who had public meltdowns, married an iffy guy, went through staff like popcorn and generally made herself disliked both inside and outside her party, finally being dumped from both cabinet and caucus. And she won’t drop the poor-little-me act. But after Monday, her 15 minutes should be up — or at least, we can always hope.
* CBC Vote Compass: Was there ever a sillier, more transparent attempt to steer votes to the Liberal party than the CBC’s annoying little gadget? I tricked it into defining me as a Conservative only by answering “strongly agree” to every question involving government policy instead of a more honest “don’t know.” I know people who whiled away whole afternoons trying to force it to call them anything other than a Liberal.
* Elizabeth May: Say goodnight, Liz, your 15 minutes are up, too. After Monday, when she fails to defeat sports minister Gary Lunn in Saanich-Gulf Islands, she’ll be going down for the third time and, thanks to the NDP surge, the Greens likely will be returned to the political never-neverland occupied by the Rhinos, the Family Values Party and the Communists. And it’s about time. Her only hope: B.C. voters sometimes do weird, unpredictable things when they have a ballot in their hands.
Talk to ‘The boss’
* Rise up!: Does anyone know if Michael Ignatieff had actually ever heard of Bruce Springsteen before his infamous “rise up” speech was written? Did someone have to explain it to him?
* “Ignatieff: He didn’t come back for you.”: The Conservatives have been running this ad for what seems like forever. I laughed at it the first 1,000 times I saw it but it’s time to put it away.
* Justin Trudeau: Here’s a guy whose life experience seems to consist of being a famous prime minister’s son. Let’s hope Bloc candidate Vivian Barbot gives this not-as-young-as-he-used-to-be twerp a tough fight in Papineau and sends him packing. There’s not as much hope of this happening as there was earlier in the campaign because of the apparent collapse of the Bloc vote and the rise of the NDP in Quebec, but we’ll see.
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I love the sound of out of power Socialists in the morning.
There’s nothing else like it.
That whine, that simpering whine...
It sounds like “Victory.”
This campaign has turned out to be quite a surprise to me. I was confident a majority gov’t was within reach. The NDP? What happened?
Don’t worry republicans have a nack at of losing elections they will pick another great guy like McCain or Romney
Canuckistan appears to be in as much trouble as we are.
I was unaware that the campaign had begun.
"The NDP? What happened?"
What is happening is a protest vote run amok.
The same as what happened in Ontario in 1990. In that case the protest was against an opportunistic election call by Premier Peterson when only 3 years into his mandate. Peterson was heard to remark at one point during that campaign that "the voters are cranky".
In this case the protest is against the Bloc Québécois in Quebec and against the Grits in the rest of Canada. Neither protest can favour the Tories because the supporters of both the Bloc and the Liberal parties are leftists.
The NDP is traditionally party to use to cast a protest vote for those who would otherwise not vote for them. They are not ordinarily seen as being able, federally, to win a majority or even a plurality sot the protest vote is ordinarily seen as relatively safe. Provincially is another matter, although the 1990 Ontario win shocked even the NDP leader himself.
My hope is that this sudden NDP "popularity" turns some of the riding contests into circular firing squads among the opposition oarties such that the vote split between them allows the Tories to take seats that otherwise might have gone to the Bloc or the Liberals.
Since polling is pretty limited to national, or at best provincial popularity contests, it’s difficult to see how the percentages play out to actual number of seats won. Essentially, you have to look at the individual ridings historical leanings and recognize that, similar to U. S. congressional districts, most seats in Parliament will always be either Conservative or will swing between the left leaning Liberal and completely left NDP. While the current polls show 37% Conservative, 30% NDP and 22% Liberal, the final tally for actual seats won will be in the neighborhood of 153 Conservative, 65 Liberal, 45 NDP, and 45 Bloc Quebecois. It will be interesting to see how it shakes out on Monday.
After the disastrous Dion, the Liberals decided they needed another Pierre Trudeau, an intellectual politician. so they went to Harvard and talked ex-pat Ignatieff top become their leader, but he’s been pretty wooden and hasn’t caught on.
So, the usually-third-place NDP suddenly became the default place for non-Conservative voters. We don’t know yet if Jack Layton’s 1996 “bawdy-house-bust”, revealed last week, will have any effect (other than ticking off the leftists)
His family, the Grants and Masseys on his mother's side, are very privileged, and he's been more a part of an international academic elite than an ordinary Canadian. It's kind of the Obama thing, except Ignatieff actually does have the academic achievements that Obama's people claim for him.
So I'd suppose that average Canadians would rather be tortured to death than vote for Ignatieff's party this time. Years ago candidates were parachuted in from academia or the diplomatic corps to the top of the Liberal Party -- Lester Pearson and Pierre Trudeau back in the 1960s. But nowadays Canadians are probably a bit more populist and voters resent being told to vote for "their betters."
The Libs might have done better perhaps with Ignatieff's former college roommate, Bob Rae, an old NDP man who ran Ontario in the '90s, or with Ken Dryden, a former NHL goaltender. Both were in the running for the Liberal top spot. What was the party thinking?
It could be the guilt associated with Ad Scam. After all, Iggy ran on Ethics, and Trust. LOL! Then he brought out Mr. Dithers and Da little guy from Shawinigan.
The worry is that if the left unites under the NDP, well....
:-(
It’s a pity our elections can’t last five weeks or even five months instead of years!
Agreed
Connie Woodcock is fed up with it after 5 weeks. Imagine her impatience with one that has 18 months yet to go,
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