It’s all action over at Stephen Harper’s ice palace:Mr. Dion faces the possibility that Prime Minister Stephen Harper will try to engineer a quick election before he, Dion, can properly unite his party and organize for a vote. Across Canada, 26 per cent said they would be less likely to vote Liberal now that Mr. Dion is leader, and 20 per cent said they would be more likely; 47 per cent said their vote would be unaffected.
Mr. Dion moved immediately yesterday to prepare for a possible election when he announced the formation of his transition team. "I am a quick learner," he told reporters in his first press conference as leader. "We don't have a lot of time, as you know. We may be in an election at any time."
C’mon Stephen, c’mon. Sorry, sorry – mustn’t show any bias, must I?
They only had one last January. And the one before that was barely 18 months before hand. It's like 1950 & 1951 or 1974 in Britain. Fatige must be setting in by now.
ReplyDeletea canadian perspective.
ReplyDeletei'd say real, or engineered, voter fatigue is probably the biggest concern about engineering a snap election. harper could easily make "same-sex marriage" or the "farmer bob rifle registry" a confidence vote and the opposition would have to vote them down.
it's probably less about voters actually being upset, than the feeding frenzy that the opposition and the largely lefty media would make of it. the vote is typically split lib/ urban, cons/ rural... the west conservative, with the exception of largely left british columbia... quebec is half sovereigntist and half fed up with political machinations of any sort. the maritimes are traditionally huge pork barrel provinces due to their lousy economies.
right now harper is governing as if he has a majority... which has stunned the liberals. libs are in debt, and despite electing dion as leader, in disarray.
my guess is he'll continue what he's doing... acting large according to his conscience and if he's brought down, he'll be happy to go to the ballot box.
harper says what he means and despite a few concessions to political reality... does what he says.
my prediction is a conservative majority... i'll let you know if that changes.
Great take from both and I'm turning that into a post tomorrow morning. Thank you.
ReplyDelete