He's tried it all. He has emulated his neo-con hero-pal George W. Bush by extending a call to arms in Afghanistan. He has a couple of his dim-witted Ministers over there running around telling anybody who will listen that thanks to Canada's role there that things are improving (we lost 6 more of our valiant young soldiers there again today). He tried to solely occupy center stage at the Vimy Anniversary Memorial, by freezing out other Canadian political leaders.
He's ran American style attack ads in both official languages to beat up on Stephane Dion before the bell had sounded. He has resorted to Joe McCarthy tactics to malign opponents.
He tried to bamboozle the Canadian people with phony guarantees of maximum wait times for surgery. He has sucked up to Quebec in truly epic style by purporting to correct a laughable financial imbalance by giving it 3.4 billion of hard-earned Canadian tax dollars - thus allowing Premier Charest to give Quebecers a 700 million election eve tax cut. He cozied up to the Bay Street establishment by torpedoing oil income trusts.
He has stolen a good deal of the Dion Environment policy after dumping poor Rona Ambrose from the Environment portfolio and replacing her with his pit bull John Baird. He reminds Canadians daily of the Grit Adscam debacle.
He has unveiled his Party's cyber-age 17,500 square foot election headquarters. He implicitly or explicitly threatens to call an election every couple of days. Yada, Yada, Yada.
Yes, Bush's pal Steve Harper has tried everything. Every low-life political trick in the book. Blarney, subterfuge, smarmy brown-nosing of Quebec. You name it.
And guess what? SES Research has just released the results of a poll conducted for Sun Media, and it is bad news for Stevie. The poll conducted between March 31 and April 5 has the Conservatives with a 3 point lead - 36% to 33% - over the much maligned Grits. That's about where they started from at the start of the last election. A party has to be at the 40% mark before it is in majority territory.
The Grits are 12 points up in Atlantic Canada, 1 point up in Ontario, only 6 points down in the west and 10 points down in Quebec.
Of further worry to Stevie is that the margin of error of the poll is within 3.2% 19 times out of 20. SES called the last election to within one-tenth of 1 %. They're good.
The only region where the Tories have significantly increased their numbers is in Quebec. Now, is there anybody in the country who is willing to bet against the Liberals improving their standing in Quebec during a Federal Election?
How about when the Conservative leader is an Anglophone raised in Toronto and grazing in Calgary, and the Grit leader is a home town francophone? How about when the Conservative leader has been an arch-rightist most of his adult life, is a pal of Bush's, frolics in international adventurism and until recently did not give a damn about the environment? And suppose the Grit leader has an impeccable reputation for integrity and brains, occupies the center, does not cozy up to Bush, is cautious about sending Canadians into war, and has led the environment debate with a comprehensive policy from the beginning?
I like the sound of the phrase - "Prime Minister Stephane Dion." Get ready. We're going to hear it a lot more often. You can say you heard it here first.
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5 comments:
Harper is up in Quebec, up in Ontario and the same in the West and East. Sounds pretty good to me. And take away the Liberal numbers in Toronto and Vancouver - where the Libs typically do much better the Cons - and that means that the Cons 40 in Ontario is much better than the Libs 41. That could easily switch 10 seats right there.
It is not a majority for Harper, but 135 to 145 seats is probably with these numbers.
Right now, its a minority. Harper can't afford another minority. He needs a majority. If he doesn't get it, the jackals in the party will be after him right away.
Also, the Grits will improve during the campaign. Dion will improve. Grit voters will come home. His fortunes will rise in Quebec as I have predicted.
Then what strategy should Dion and the Liberals use now knowing that once he jumps into the lead at the opinion polls, Harper is finished.
Mush - This is the way I see it.
Dion has to be well managed. Dion will probably move ahead during a campaign. Public appearances/speeches at one or two a day. Little scrumming. Strong Policy. Foreign Policy should be right up there as an issue. People have to be reminded about the illogical Afghanistan commitment as well as Harper's penchant for adventurism (including Iraq). Obviously Dion will hold to the environment. Probably, cities should be the third. Dion will do well in the debates.
If it happens before the campaign, I say the same formula should apply. And Dion's english should show some improvement.
Never in my life have I seen the likes of this conservative government under Harper. They never admit or own up to anything and blame all of their miscues on the Liberals. They play dirty politics all of the time, and have a strange but true American style. If this country doesn't get rid of this regime, I strongly feel that we are going to end up as a commonwealth in association with the U.S. not unlike Puerto Rico. Oil oil oil.....get it?
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