The Conservatives know they are vulnerable

I am a little confused by the Conservatives' actions with regard to the blatantly partisan dispensation of the stimulus funds and the unprecedented amounts of taxpayer's money they are paying on partisan advertizing.

Both are high risk actions that have a very large potential downside for their political fortunes. They provide their main political opponents with ready made advertizement material where they can take Stephen Harper's statements of 2006 and place them beside his actions of 2009.

So, why have they done it?

Some would say it is hubris. They believed they would not get caught and even if they did they would not pay a price for it. There is some truth in that but I believe there is a deeper reason.

Simply put they are vulnerable and scared. For the first couple years of this government the Conservatives walked with a swagger. They believed they were unassailable and invincible. That swagger disappeared after Stephen Harper prorogued Parliament last year. It has never returned. Since then I have detected a very different attitude since then, an attitude of bravado covering up a great fear.

We saw that in the late spring and late summer when Stephen Harper first made a deal with Michael Ignatieff to prevent a summer election and practically begged Mr. Ignatieff to allow his government to survive come the Fall.

We have seen it in the fact the Conservatives are enjoying good poll numbers but there is not even a hint of Stephen Harper forcing or calling an election. We know he does not fear any negative fallout from the electorate about doing so because he totally ignored that threat last year. Certainly, we have seen speculation in the media that he will force an election but nothing from Mr. Harper, the guy who really counts.

We currently see it now in those poll numbers. The Conservatives have spent untold millions, maybe billions, of stimulus dollars in Conserative and swing ridings. He has spent an unprecedented amount of taxpayer's dollars on blatantly partisan government ads and they are still enjoying the afterglow of a backlash against their chief opponent when their necessary strategy to sever themselves from Mr. Harper's confidence games caused a widespread eruption of election speculation with Mr. Ignatieff being blamed for it.

In addition the Conservatives have enjoyed a national media that has been compliant at best and complicit at worst.

Despite this the Conservatives are not much better off than they were on election day last in 2008. They have failed to break the 40% mark for more than a couple of weeks and they are now slowly sinking back to the levels that they achieved before the Sudbury Declaration.

That is telling. Stephen Harper is almost four years into his government. He is at that stage where there is usually no great desire for change and where the government usually enjoys widespread support. If Jean Chretien would have had all of the advantages I describe above during his fourth year as PM the Liberals would have been sitting comfortably in the mid-40 range. The same could be said of Brian Mulroney and Pierre Trudeau.

Stephen Harper, he struggles to acheive 40% and even if he achieves that level it is not sustainable.

The Conservatives are not acting like a government that is strong and confident, like Jean Chretien did in the fourth year of his government or like Mike Harris for that matter at the same stage in his. Instead they are acting like a government that knows they are vulnerable and they are trying their damnest to turn things around, very much like Ernie Eves did leading up to his one and only election as Ontario Premier. You may remember that in the last few months of his goverment he lavished all sorts of money on Ontario voters while spending all sorts of government money on partisan advertizing. We all know that worked very well.

I have argued several times on this blog that the Conservatives are frightened. The fact they believe they need to take a huge political risk in playing partisan games with economic stimulus money during an economic downturn and spending an inordinate amount of government money on partisan advertizing would seem to confirm that argument has merit.

A warning to Liberals

EKOS is scheduled to come out with a poll this Thursday. That poll is going to indicate that the Conservatives do not appear to have been harmed by the current Cheque-Gate scandal.

They may drop but if they do it will be within the margin of error (MOE). The same can be said of the Liberals. They may increase but again it will be within the margin of error. Then again the Conservatives could increase and the Liberals decrease but within the MOE.

One thing about these kinds of scandals is they do not have an immediate impact on the horse race estimates of polls. When Ms. Fraser broke Adscam, in a much more dramatic fashion than this scandal broke, the Liberals did not suffer an immediate hit in the polls and the Conservatives did not enjoy an immediate benefit. Indeed, throughout the three year Adscam saga the Liberals never trailed the Conservatives until the final three weeks of the 2006 election campaign.

What these kinds of scandals do is cause a slow burn in the electorate towards the party in power. It causes many to believe that a change may be in order, even those who continue to tell pollsters they support the government. In other words, these types of scandals sow the seeds of discontent amongst the electorate that can be reaped at a later date. As well, they create the impression in the electorate that the government may be corrupt, which then causes even the smallest transgression to become magnified. Witness David Dingwall's pack of gum to see that in action.

So, when the poll comes out on Thursday and you see that the estimates have not moved much please do not whine and cry about how the Conservatives are getting away with yet another scandal or how the Liberals are not taking advantage of this. The time will come when the seeds Mr. Harper and his members have planted this week will germinate and grow until they overwhelm them and they find themselves on the opposition benches looking over at PM Ignatieff.

However, if you really must obsess over the next polls then I would suggest you look at the undecideds. I would suspect that the estimate for that will increase at greater than the MOE.

The Conservatives are just keeping an election promise

Remember back in 2006 when the Conservatives made an election promise to be a more transparent government.

Their using oversized novelty stimulus checks with the Conservative logo and being signed by individual members, cabinet Minister and Stephen Harper is them being transparent in using taxpayers money for partisan purposes. So they have kept that 2006 election promise.

The Conservatives cannot be blamed if everybody else interpreted their promise of transparency some other way.

Calvin Klein's Obsession for Politicos

This particular fragrance comes in many bottles sporting such labels as Strategic Council, EKOS, Angus Reid, Ipsos Reid and Nanos. The fragrance is likened to that which comes out of the back end of a bull but that does not stop politicos of every stripe, both professionals and otherwise, from constantly marinating in it.

Why? Who knows but the obsession is real which is very strange. After all

Polls are not predictive. I still remember reading a banner headline in a newspaper just a couple of days before the writ was dropped for the 2004 election that stated "Liberals Heading for a Majority: Poll."

Polls do not measure support for parties. They measure the opinions of a sample of people at the time the poll was taken. The only true measure of support for a political party is what it received on election day. When a person marks his X on that little piece of paper and drops it into the cardboard box he is committed. He cannot change his mind.

Public opinion can change at any time. You just have to look at the 2004 election example. It is obvious that many Canadians changed their minds as the campaign wore on because on the Saturday before the election the Liberals and Conservatives were deadlocked at around 33%. Then many of these same people changed their minds again because the final result was a 6 point victory for the Liberals.

Then you can look at the 2008 election. Towards the end alot of people had changed their minds about the Liberals and Mr. Dion, which fact probably went into the calculation of Mr. Duffy as he was deciding whether to release the now infamous Dion Atlantic TV interview.

I know many out there would still argue that all of this is true but polls do matter because of two considerations.

Polls drive the media narrative. What came first the chicken or the egg? I am more convinced that the narrative drives the polls, not the other way around. We saw that at the end August, beginning of September. The media began hammering away at the narrative that Canadians did not want an election but it took them more than a week to publish polls stating that. Assume it takes at about three days to take and publish a poll and that works out to almost a full week to peddle that narrative before actually asking Canadians for their opinions. I can guarantee that had some effect on the subsequent polling estimates.

Then there was Paul Martin. When Mr. Brault gave his testimony during the Gomery Commission the Liberal polling numbers dropped 6 points overnight. The Conservative numbers did not budge either way. The Liberal numbers had fully recovered and were back to their pre-testimony levels within 10 days but that did not stop the media from stating in almost every political news story, in the subsequent months, that the Liberals were plunging in the polls.

Polls influence public opinion. There is some truth in that but do not overestimate that influence. If its influence was as strong as some people think we would never have a change of government. It is very rare for an opposition party to ever lead a sitting government. So, except in the rarest of instances the sitting government will always be seen leading its chief opponent. That is true of the horse race numbers and the individual leadership numbers for each party leader. If that situation has such a strong influence on public opinion we would not have seen some of the big changes we have seen in the last 20 years. Think Peterson, Campbell, Eves, George Bush Sr..

As well, if polls had such influence on public opinion we would probably have a two tier health care system by now. The Fraser Institute has published many studies, containing much polling data, demonstrating that Canadians are alright with the idea for more than a decade. Yet no politician out their will ever suggest converting the Canadian health care system into a two-tier system.

With this in mind I find it disturbing that some Liberals out their are stating that the Liberals should change their strategy to turn their numbers around. That is bad advice. They had better hope beyond hope that the Liberals do not succumb to the temptation to chase higher polling numbers. They are unlikely to succeed in overtaking the Conservatives.

As well, a political party or individual who makes decisions bases on polls, particularly the public polls is destined to fail.

As I have stated in a previous post the Liberals having finally shown that they have developed a long-term election strategy and an election theme. It is easy to see if you look past all of the political noise that we have subjected to since the Sudbury Declaration. It would be a shame if they let that strategy and theme fall by the wayside in a futile quest to improve their polling numbers. Instead, continue to implement the strategy and the polling will take care of itself.

A little piece of trivia. In the primary season leading up to the 1992 US elections none of the stars of the Democratic Party believed they could unseat George Bush Sr. He was extremely popular after winning the first Gulf War and the polling seemed to indicate he would take the '92 election in a walk. So none of these party grandees put their names into the ring. They figured they would lose, thus ending their hopes of winning in '96, so they decided to let a relative unknown win the nomination so that he could be sacrificed. Needless to say they were wrong, Bill Clinton won two elections and the time of these grandees passed, denying all of them a chance at the White House. I wonder if some of them regret allowing the polls to have such an influence on their decisions.

I know I am asking alot in saying ignore the polls but at the very least I would suggest that obsessing over them is probably not a good idea.

Sometimes Canadian politics bugs me

Stephen Harper sang at an arts gala during the weekend and it becomes big news.

Liberal and Conservative bloggers begin examining this event like a witch doctor examining chicken entrails to try to determine whether this will help or hinder this reelection chances. Naturally, for the most part, the conclusions fall along partisan lines.

The media does the same thing. John Ibbotson in the Globe today was absolutely gushing and greatly demonstrated that his bosses should have left him in Washington. Dude, I really hope you wore a condom when you wrote that column.

Meanwhile, this weekend we saw evidence that the world economy is still not out of recession. The rate of descent has decreased for certain but otherwise it is still descending and this is before the stimulus spending governments pumped into the the world economy runs out at the beginning of the new fiscal year, which begins, in most countries, in April. That's only six months away folks. As someone in project management I can tell you that six months is a very short time indeed. Since the bulk of that stimulus was earmarked for this year, when April 2010 rolls around things will begin to change for the worst again and probably rather quickly.

Remember folks the thing that started this whole ride, the sub-prime mortgage collapse and the gigantic toxic debt it left behind is still there. It has been masked by the stimulus spending and the bank bailouts but those were only temporary measures to prevent the collapse of the global financial system and to give the illusion that governments were doing something about the recession. However, once that runs out that debt will rear its ugly head again and smack the global economy onces more.

Do we see anybody giving this issue the attention it deserves on the weekend or today?

Of course not. Instead we hear about Stephen Harper singing the Beatles.

Sad really.

Liberals are sticking to their strategy

With the benefits of hindsight we are beginning to see that the Liberals have finally developed a medium to long-term strategy for winning the next election. Something we have not seen since before Jean Chretien won his third majority.

We have seen only the beginning and in broad strokes it looks something like this. Stop supporting the government and begin to lay the groundwork for having an election on competing values.

It began in June when they allowed the government to survive despite not receiving what many believed they could have received at that time. While others were thinking short-term political advantage it was apparent to some that the Liberals were playing the long game.

The summer was spent developing and fine tuning the strategy for the Fall and the Winter.

We saw the beginning of its implementation in Sudbury. A necessary first step was to extricate the Liberal caucus from Stephen Harper's confidence games and they did that beautifully, side swiping the NDP in the process. Of course that set off a storm that has lead to a predictable fall in their polling numbers. (Note I do not say support. Polls measure peoples opinions at a given time and we all now peoples opinions change all of the time.)

Despite this the Liberals did not flinch. They continued to implement their strategy.

The next step was for Mr. Ignatieff to outline the broad strokes of how the Liberals would handle the economy. It received as much play as you would expect for a speech by the Leader of the Opposition but it was generally well received.

Then we saw the Liberals begin to go after the Conservative record and set up their attack lines for the next election. Gerard Kennedy's report on stimulus spending is gold. It received very little attention at this time but it was never meant to. Again, the Liberals are thinking medium to long-term.

The final step of this part of the strategy that they have shown us is Mr. Ignatieff's speech for the non-confidence motion. It establishes an election theme. Something the Liberals have not had since I do not know when. As I stated in a previous post it is a winning theme. It is the one that has made the Liberal Party the Natural Governing Party in this country. If you do not believe me on this last point then I would point out the National Post is stating there is not much difference between the Liberals and the Conservatives. That is something I would expect to hear from Jack Layton. The Liberals should feel very good. When the house newsletter of the Conservative Party begins to spout decades old NDP talking points, when criticising your party, you are probably on to something.

I do not know the next steps in this strategy. I imagine we will see the Liberals continue to push their election theme over the next few months and I would expect to see more reports like that produced by Mr. Kennedy. As for other parts of that strategy we will just have to wait and see.

A month of bad press and dropping poll numbers did not deter the Liberals from pursuing their chosen strategy. That shows strength, resolve and courage. That should make Liberals happy and it should be a cause for concern to its opponents.

Why do the media try to be political strategists...

because they are not very good at it.

As I have stated in this space before Stephen Harper does not want an election this Fall. His reasons are many and Mr. Ignatieff just gave him another reason today. (See my previous post).

That does not stop the media and others from speculating that Mr. Harper will engineer his own defeat by using some sort of poison pill.

I saw the latest speculation on this yesterday in the Globe where they stated that the Conservatives may use the HST enabling legislation as a poison pill.

What stupidity!!

The HST is deeply unpopular in BC and it is becoming increasingly unpopular in Ontario. It is widely seen in both provinces as a tax grab during hard economic times.

In that kind of atmosphere why would the Conservatives even think of introducing legislation that will enable this tax as a stand alone Bill, let alone use it as the hill in which to sacrifice their government? Up to this point the Conservatives have been distancing themselves from the two provincial government decisions on the HST. They made the necessary agreements with the two provincial governments but they are hoping no one will notice that it takes two to make such agreements.

Now people are suggesting that they will abandon this strategy and highlight their role in the imposition of the HST by using it as a Bill to trigger an election?! These people must be on crack. I cannot think of a strategy more likely to cost votes in the two most populous provinces in the country.

It is true that such a bill would make things ackward for the Liberals. They would either have to make things difficult for the Ontario Liberals and break a commitment by voting down the Bill or they would have to give Jack Layton ammunition to use against them by supporting it.

However, neither option would hurt the Liberals that much in the long run. Mr. McGuinty would be inconvenienced by having the bill defeated but I am certain he also remembers the fact that former Harris reformatories now in the Harper cabinet have overtly tried to undermine his political position, leading up to the last provincial election, on several occasions. Now that another Harris acolyte and former colleague of these same ministers is the leader of the Provincial PC Party he can probably expect more of the same if they are still occupying those posts. As well, considering how unpopular the HST is in both provinces the two premiers may welcome an out from having to implement it without being seen as giving into the opposition in their respective provinces. In other words, neither provincial government is likely to make too much noise if enabling legislation is defeated.

As for Jack Layton, voting for the Bill will allow him to again say there is no difference between the Liberals and the Conservatives. But they have been saying that for decades and the results speak for themselves. Canadians believe that there are only two parties capable of governing this country and if both are implicated in the implementation of the HST it will be cancelled out as an election issue.

The HST enabling legislation will not be introduced as a stand alone bill. It is too toxic. Instead it will be buried in a good news budget in the Spring or it will be buried in a big, good news omnibus bill just before or after the Christmas break.

Oh look, an election theme

Today Michael Ignatieff did something that Liberal leaders failed to do in the last three elections. He actually set out an overarching theme for the next Liberal campaign. Good on him.

As elections themes go, it is a good one. The agreement amongst Canadians that governments are a force for good runs deep in this country. Canadians do not want governments to be all encompassing but at the same time they do expect their governments to actively contribute to the greater good of the nation and society.

This idea has been a core Liberal value for over a century and it is a contributing factor to its great success in that time in winning elections and forming governments.

From a strategic point of view it is a good strategy as well. Stephen Harper has never articulated his vision for Canada. There have been hints which have lead to accusations amongst his opponents of a hidden agenda and hopes amongst his supporters of the same thing. Mr. Ignatieff might have just removed that luxury from him. Depending on how well Mr. Ignatieff continues to articulate and elaborate upon his vision the greater the pressure he will put on Mr. Harper to put forward his vision. If it is as bad or as good as his opponents or supporters believe it could make things rather difficult for him.

During the last election he took some flak for waiting until almost the last minute to release a platform. He could take more if he is unwilling to offer his own vision when his chief opponent does nothing but talk about his.

If this theme continues through to the next election, in the Spring, then we could find ourselves in a campaign that we have not seen in awhile. One that is actually about competing visions for this country.

No election this Fall

As expected Mr. Harper did not put any poison pills into his economic statement on Monday so I would expect the government to last at least until Spring. With the EI legislation still working its way through The House Jack Layton still has his excuse to support the government during the vote on the Liberal confidence motion.

This is the ideal situation for the Liberals. Although it was apparent that they were ready for an election their best outcome is to wait but not be blamed for the delay. Despite the likely defeat of the confidence motion they will have established themselves as the Opposition party in the House and they will have displayed strength and resolve. This will probably not overly impress the general public and the defeat of the confidence motion will have the media saying it is a crushing defeat but this motion will further energize Liberals for the Winter in preparation for a Spring vote. Hell, it might even convince many of those 800,000 some odd Liberal supporters who stayed home in 2008 to come out next time, which would have a significant impact on the final outcome.

Incidently, congratulations for the Liberals for sticking to their guns despite a concerted effort by the Conservatives and the media to force them to change their minds. The media in particular tried their best by publishing polls and telling us all that we did not want an election. Their final salvo was found in the G&M today and Bob Fife yesterday buy taking a little incident in Quebec and trying to conflate that into disunity within the Liberal Party. The Globe had about three articles, an editorial and a column by Mr. Simpson today on the Liberal Party's perceived troubles. Kind of excessive if you ask me but I guess that is what you call a full court press. Mr. Fife was funny last night though. His voice and body language demonstrated to me that he did not believe a word of what he was peddling about Liberal disunity. It was fun to watch.

Stephen Harper got what he wanted. He desperately wanted to avoid an election this Fall because he knows that it is an even bet that he would lose it and even if he were to win it he would probably only win another minority. I am pretty certain that after three kicks at the can, ending in minority governments every time, his own party would force him out. Or at least try, with him fighting it tooth and nail, which would be a great thing to see. He has bought himself the Winter with which to come up with a way to rehabilitate himself and his party. That probably involves waiting for the end of the Olympics followed by a budget then an election. It will likely fail. Him and his government are past their best before date and they will only become older and moldier as the cold winter months progress. The small rise in fortunes that they have enjoyed in the last couple of weeks will fade a little bit, as the threat of an election fades, and we will again settle into a pattern that should be very familiar to political observers and bloggers.

The NDP got what it wanted but at a price. They have avoided an election but at the cost of some of their credibility. In the long run it will not harm them but they are destined to lose support and seats as people grow tired of the Conservatives and gravitate back to the only party Canadians believe can govern competently, the Liberals. Jack Layton will be like Mr. Harper, looking to rehabilitate himself and his party but he will have as much success in that as Mr. Harper will in his efforts.

The Bloc is just trying to stay above the fray and they are succeeding. They will probably just spend the winter doing what they usually do.

All-in-all, everybody got what they wanted, for now.

Will Stephen Harper engineer his own defeat?

There has been some speculation on Liblogs and in some of the media that Mr. Harper may engineer his own defeat this Fall, likely by placing a poison pill within some kind of confidence motion.

I find this unlikely.

Stephen Harper and the Conservatives are not lying when they say they do not want an election this Fall. There are several reasons for this.

Such issues as the partisan ads and partisan stimulus spending are issues that resonate with Canadians. Even if they are the recipients of such largesse most Canadians do not like governments using tax payers money for partisan purposes. As these issues are recent they would still be topical during a Fall election. The same will not be true in the Spring.

Their chief opponent is not the pushover it once was. The inter-writ ads with Mr. Ignatieff demonstrate that they have money to burn so they will be able to spend money during the next election dollar-for-dollar with the Conservatives. Analyses of the last election show that the Conservatives actually lost votes in 2006 compared to 2004 but the Liberals lost more because almost 1 million former supporters stayed home last fall. Now the Liberals seem to have a renewed purpose along with a leader who seems to have his stuff together so the Conservatives cannot count on Liberal supporters staying home on the next election day. I am not certain the same can be said of Conservative supporters. As I have stated before Stephen Harper seems to be spending a great deal of time throwing red meat to his base. A strange course of action at this stage of the game unless he fears that his support amongst his base may not be as solid as he would like. They would never vote Liberal or NDP of course, but they could just stay home as many Liberals did in 2006.

Then there is the NDP. They are not ready for an election and it is in Stephen Harper's interests to have a healthy and competitive NDP to pull votes away from the Liberals. As it stands now they will not do that.

This combined with the probable return of Liberal supporters to the polling booth puts between 40-50 Conservative seats in play plus another 20 NDP seats. This is not to say all of these seats will fall to the Liberals but the potential is there.

Now add a poison pill to the mix. By their very nature they are designed to piss off one or more parties opposing the government. So by extension, they will also piss off their supporters and depending on the poison pill it could alienate enough of the broader electorate to cost enough votes to cost another half-dozen seats. When governments engineer their own defeat they prefer to do it on something that is positive for them, such as good news budget. That will not happen until the Spring, which is when I expect the next window for an election will be.

Many people have pointed out the recent uptick on the polls for the Conservatives. However, it should be noted that they only returned to where they were in the last election. As well, this only came after almost 9 months where they were either trailing the Liberals or tied with them. For an engineered defeat to work he would need to see his party polling above the 40% range for a sustained period of time. Only then could he have a reasonable chance of surviving the inevitable decline in support that happens to all sitting government during election campaigns.

I do not believe we will see an election this Fall. The NDP does not want one so they will find an excuse to support the government. The Conservatives do not want one either so I do not believe they will try to goad the NDP into supporting the Liberals and the Bloc in any confidence motion.

Then again, Stephen Harper has demonstrated a political tin ear at crucial times on more than one occasion so he could decide to roll the dice anyway.

We will have to wait and see.

Filling the quiver

For the second time on two days the Liberals have made a major announcement regarding some questionable actions by the Conservatives regarding stimulus spending and government advertizing.

Being the Opposition Party these announcements will be largely ignored at this time. However, what the Liberals are doing is setting up their attack lines for the next election when people will be paying attention.

This is actually a positive sign for those of us who want to see the back of the Harper government. What we have been seeing in the last few weeks is exactly what Opposition Parties are supposed to do.

Of course, they also have to offer alternatives to what the government is doing and we are also seeing the beginnings of that.

It would appear the Liberal Party is finally getting its shit together.

President Obama is not able to vote for the Conservatives

There has been some buzz on the Liberal blogsphere about Mr. Harper's decision to skip President Obama's speech at the UN to come home and do a photo-op at Tim Hortons.

Of course, those very same Liberals have been claiming that this just further indicates that Mr. Harper is not a world leader. To which I state, Mr. Harper does not care. His only concern since he won power a few years ago is to amass more power and Barack Obama will not help him do that.

Mr. Harper is constantly campaigning and since he knows that Barack Obama is unable to vote for him he came home to where those votes are. In his judgement he does not believe he will be hurt by not staying in New York to listen to the President.

He is probably right with regard to his base. It is well known that they

• do not like the UN and what it stands for,
• do not like President Obama and what he stands for. Certainly, they like their guy to be with him so that some of his popularity will rub off on him but they do not like him,
• do not really care about foreign policy except for how it can further their short-term political advantage, and
• certainly do not care about the environment, global warming or climate change.

So his base very much appreciated his actions today but the broader Canadian public may not.

Which brings me to a question I have asked before. Why is Stephen Harper spending so much time trying to shore up his base? One thing public polls do not ask of respondents is if they would vote on election day. However, that is routinely asked by party pollsters when they identify a supporter of the party that sponsored the poll. Perhaps, those polls are not saying what the Conservatives want to hear.

A second reason why Stephen Harper might have skipped the speech was for a little tit for tat. Last week President Obama snubbed Mr. Harper by not meeting him at the door of the White House. Of course, the media, the PMO and others blew it off but Mr. Harper is the leader of the United States' leading trading partner and oldest friend. To leave greeting Mr. Harper, upon his arrival, to a relatively low level protocal officer is a snub and Mr. Harper felt it was just that. You just have to look at his facial expression and body language when the was greeted at the White House door to see he was disappointed. For a man as image conscious as he is that snub probably caused a slow burn.

That event was the first indication that there is tension in that relationship. It is well known that Mr. Harper tried to derail the President's run at that office early in the primaries and I am certain that has not been forgotten by the President or his staff. They both hide it very well at joint news conferences of course but that is just diplomacy. President Obama could find Stephen Harper in bed with his wife and he would still have nothing but nice things to say about him in front of the media.

The actions by Mr. Harper today is quite telling on two fronts. It further demonstrates that the Conservatives feel the need to shore up their base at the risk of alienating the 70%+ Canadians who would not automatically vote for the Conservatives. As well, it might indicate that behind all of the nice words being stated publically that these two men really do not like each other.

Mr. Ignatieff's well spent summer

Well, I guess we now know what Mr. Ignatieff did with his summer. We know our MSM had a little fun with their "Where's Iggy" game but now we have confirmation that they were full of crap, as expected.

When he was not meeting with Canadians at small events across the country he was planning the extrication of the Liberal Party from Stephen Harper's confidence game. And doing a little fundraising along the way.

He implemented a new strategy in Sudbury and he has been driving the Canadian political bus ever since.

He has both the NDP and the Conservatives playing his tune and it is driving them and their supporters bananas. As well, he has surprised the MSM and they are not happy about it.

The troubles of the NDP are well documented. They are now the Party that is expected to prevent an election the media says no one wants but in order to do so they have to support a party and a leader they state they cannot trust.

The Conservatives are terrified of going into an election campaign this Fall. They realize it is one they have a very good chance of losing so they are hoping to delay it to the Spring so that they can come up with something, anything to rehabilitate their political position. Of course, they will not find it by then because it is permanently gone. If anything their political position in the Spring will be much worse than it is now.

The media is cranky. They have been pushing the Liberals-are-hopeless meme for years and now that they are showing that they are wrong they are pissed off. The media does not like to be shown to be the fool. Their reaction has been predictable, claiming Canadians do not want an election although it should be noted they did not publish polls indicating that until they pushed that meme for a few days first.

For their part the Liberals are ignoring the polls that predictably show them losing support, knowing that the underlying trend is pointing to a Liberal government and this erosion is the result of the Conservatives trying desperately to hang on and the media helping them because of their anger at being made to look foolish.

My only worry is the Liberals may be pushing too hard. I still say they would be better served to let the Fall go without an election, putting forward their non-confidence motion but allowing the NDP the slimmest of outs to prevent the government's fall. Nothing has changed my belief that the political dynamic in this country will lead to the inevitable defeat of the Conservatives and if the Liberals allow that dynamic to deepen and take on a life of its own that defeat could be a big one.

Regardless however, no matter what happens this Fall it has been a long time since I have seen the Liberals in this kind of control.

Michael Ignatieff had a very productive summer.

Listen to Mr. Harper, not the polls

I have argued on this blog over the last couple of weeks that Stephen Harper is afraid of an election and he is afraid because he is reasonably certain that he will lose one when it happens, regardless of what the polls say. In fact, I have argued that the polling should be making him more bullish about an election and he has been acting the exact opposite.

That point was again demonstrated by that "secret" video that came out last night. When I viewed it my jaw hit the ground. I could not believe that a sitting Prime Minister (thinking of Stephen Harper holding that job still makes me queasy) would make such as speech, to party faithful or otherwise.

In order for Mr. Harper to win an election, let alone a majority government, he needs to appeal beyond his base to women, minority groups, people living in cities and Quebec. Last night he managed to bad mouth most of these groups in one speech. He gave the Liberals ready made advertizement material that they can use to hammer home the message to these groups that he really does not like them. Considering the Conservative base is really only about 30% of the electorate, concentrated mostly in the West, it is not good politics to alienate groups outside of your base.

A rule in politics is a sitting government never, ever, ever, ever acknowledges that their chief opponent can beat them. They do not say it specifically, they do not infer it, imply it, surmise it or speculate about it. It shows weakness and you avoid doing it at any cost. In last night's video he broke this rule with both his words and the tone of the speech. It shows that he is very afraid and that is often the kiss of death in politics.

Then there is the question of why he made such a speech to begin with. Yes, it was in front of party faithful in a closed door meeting. But he should know that given his position every word he utters outside of the confines of 24 Sussux and the Langevin Block will be recorded and eventually disseminated to the broader public. So, he was taking a great risk in making these statements in "public". Why would he make these statements? Perhaps because he is not as afraid of Michael Ignatieff as much as he is afraid of his own base. He has run a decidedly unconservative government and many in his base are not happy about it. If just a few percentage points of them stay home during an election day he loses government.

So for those Conservative bloggers who have stated that this was a planned leak I would suggest you pray that you are very wrong. If the PMO really decided that they needed to leak such an imflammatory speech, one that will only appeal to their base, then you can be certain that things are going much worse for the Conservatives than the polls are telling us. They are seeing things that the public newspapers and their polling companies have not detected or are not bothering to report.

Then again, the most likely scenario is Stephen Harper thought he was amongst friends and fellow travellers so he could "let his hair down", which surely demonstrates the chess master had better take some more lessons.

As well, if this was not a planned leak then Conservatives had better be very worried because this was a room filled with his base. If one of them cannot be trusted to not leak a damaging video to the media that would seem to show the level of displeasure they have with Mr. Harper, which again reinforces the idea that he felt compelled to give such a speech to the party faithful despite the risks involved.

Stephen Harper and the Conservatives are not posturing. They are afraid of an election and they are increasingly showing signs that they do not expect to win it when it occurs. That speaks much more loudly than the polls we have been seeing from our MSM for the past few days.

Wait until the Spring

I am not one of those who believe the Liberals would necessarily benefit from a Fall election.

The key reason is there is no groundswell out there to "kick the bums out". Although we are seeing the beginnings of such a groundswell it has not hit the critical mass necessary to guarantee a loss by the Harper government. In such a situation Mr. Harper could eke out another win, particularly against a chief opponent who will be fighting his first national campaign.

The Liberals can afford to wait and allow that groundswell to flourish, and it will flourish. The Harper government has gone past that line where they will be able to do something to rehabilitate their party and their government. The longer they stay in power the more inevitable their defeat becomes and the greater the potential of that defeat being a crushing one.

None of this means that Mr. Ignatieff should change his mind. I imagine that Mr. Ignatieff made his statements because the Liberal Party is ready for an election, regardless of when it takes place. They have no reason to fear one as I would say it is a little better than even money that the Liberals would win an election this Fall. By all means maintain the hard line, make the other parties react to that hard line and let the chips fall where they may. However, at the same time Liberals should hope that Mr. Harper will become desperate enough to do something that would save his government in the short term but set him up for a much bigger defeat in the medium term.

The pieces for a Liberal victory are falling into place but the puzzle is not yet complete. The Liberals should hope the Conservative government survives the Fall, allowing that groundswell to hit critical mass over the Winter and then hope for an election in the Spring. By that time the conditions will be set for a virtually guaranteed Liberal victory and maybe even a big Liberal victory.

It is a tear in the space-time continuum Captain.

Watching the desperate machinations of Mr. Harper and his party in trying to prevent an election I am struck by the similarities between now and the Fall of 2005.

In 2005 the Liberal government was on its last legs. Everybody knew they would lose the next election, including themselves, the only question was by how much. That made them desperate and they looked it.

One of the tactics they used to attempt to stave off their inevitable defeat was to point out all of the great programs that would be killed by an election. They trotted out all sorts of different and popular programs that had yet to be implemented or approved by Parliament and they claimed they would all turn to dust in an election. It was remarkable and in many cases it was untrue.

At the time the Conservatives just claimed that they would honour the more popular committments and then plowed on to defeat the government anyway. They did not suffer any electoral consequences of their decision.

Now we find ourselves in the same position four years later with only the position of the parties involved being changed. You would think the Conservatives would come up with a better line than the one they ignored with impunity four years ago. It really is not effective.

Of course, there are some differences. The media seems to be more willing to carry the Harper government's water than they were with the Martin government. In 2005 the media dismissed the Martin government arguments for the desperate ploys that they were. This time the media seems more willing to buy what Mr. Harper is peddling. Another notable difference is there is not as much of groundswell to "kick the bums out" as there was in 2005. However, another big difference is the Conservatives were about 6 points back of the Liberals at this point in 2005 and except for a week long period of time immediately after the release of the Gomery Report they stayed their right up until the writ was dropped. In 2009 the Liberals are tied, so they are starting from a much better position than the Conservatives in 2005.

Mr. Harper is now the new Mr. Martin. A desperate man who knows that his political career is coming to an end and is trying everything in his power to prevent that from happening. Mr. Martin had limits. We know that Mr. Harper does not. I wonder what he will do when he is finally backed into a corner.

Make a deal with the socialists and the seperatist? Prorogue Parliament? Cancel the sitting of the Fall session of the House?

Time to wait and see.

And now you are thinking: "I hope that's Sheppards Pie in my knickers."

The fear is palpable.

Mr. Ignatieff has created, with one speech, a new dynamic in Canadian politics.

The Conservatives, who were already showing a great deal of fear, are now terrified. So much so they are considering doing a deal with the NDP.

Yes, yes, yes, I know that Jason Kenney and some other Conservative officials have made statements that they would not make any deals with the NDP. That is just a ploy. It is to reassure the base that they will not give away the farm to stay in power and it is to try to convince the NDP to keep their demands "reasonable" but make no mistake if Mr. Harper believes his government will fall he will do anything to prevent it. November should prove that to everybody.

The NDP for their part have suddenly found a new desire to "make Parliament work". Of course, when it was the Liberals trying to do that they called it surrender. Now they are contemplating it and claiming it is not the same thing. My God how the NDP has fallen since the days of Ed Broadbent. The hypocracy is breathtaking. However, make no mistake, their new found desire is all the result of the increased pucker factor for them going into the new session. Gone is their safety net. Now their decisions will have consequences.

Even Gilles Duceppe has made a play for the government's hand. Of course, his demands are hopelessly unreasonable but we all know how negotiations work. You start off with unreasonable demands and then negotiate something more reasonable.

The only question is which one them will wind up being the eventual winner in the government handout sweepstakes.

As for the Liberals, they have been in the driver's seat for months and they have finally decided to take the wheel from the rest. I would caution those Liberals crowing about the new strategy and how it will lead to an inevitable election victory this fall. Things change in politics and if they change too much for the worst between now and October 1 the Liberals may be forced to find a way to finesse this new hardline. And make no mistake, this announcement has just put a great big target on their backs for all of their opponents to shoot at. Expect all three other parties in Parliament as well as much of the media to be taking pot shots at that target for the next month.

The next few weeks should be interesting.

Where has the summer gone?

Well, what summer we had here in Eastern Ontario (cool and wet, except when I took my holidays when it turned hot and muggy) will pretty much end with the young ones going back to school on Monday.

So how do we assess the summer from a political standpoint?

If you look at the polling, not much has changed from the beginning of the summer. The Liberals and the Conservatives are still very close to each other, some polls saying the Liberals hold a slim lead, some saying the two parties are tied and others saying the Conservatives hold a slim lead. In other words the polls can be ignored.

Not alot happened during the summer with regard to the various leaders either. Mr. Harper virtually disappeared until his great northern adventure. If you are to believe our MSM, Mr. Ignatieff did not tour the country talking to Canadians. Jack Layton did not show up until he had a little talk with Stephen Harper last week. Gilles Duceppe...?

The greatest events of the summer was the saga of Ms. Mohamed, the media's where's Iggy meme and the virtual begging by Mr. Harper, to Mr. Ignatieff, to not force an election.

The treatment of Ms. Mohamed by this government highlighted just how much this government believes there are two or more class of citizens in this country and it has not been lost on many immigrant communities that their members are not members of the first class. That perception will only get worse as Ms. Mohamed's lawsuit winds through the courts, although I suspect the government will settle just days before any election. The upshot of all of that is the diligent efforts of the Conservatives to court the immigrant vote these last three or so years has been destroyed.

The media's treatment of Mr. Ignatieff was predictable but not over damaging. Some would point to some recent polls to say he has faded in popularity but I would point out that always happens to opposition leaders during long Parliamentary breaks and I would also point out that he is much closer to Mr. Harper than Mr. Harper ever was to Mr. Martin, in between elections.

Mr. Harper's begging has been telling. Gone is the belligerent and arrogant Stephen Harper who made bathroom breaks confidence motions. Instead he has given us a very good demonstration that him and his government are vulnerable and afraid of the Liberals. That should make Liberals very happy and hopefully between now and the next election (June 2010) they can use that weakness and fear to their advantage.

So, no dramatic changes occured this summer. The government is still progressing towards the point where winning the next election will be impossible for them regardless of what they do, a process that started when Mr. Harper prorogued Parliament. The Liberals, who are still considered the only other party trustworthy enough to govern, continue their progression back to government.

The Liberals are in the driver's seat

I should have bought a lottery ticket on the weekend. When I saw Stephen Harper stating that he "needed" a majority government to maintain some "stability" during the economic downturn (the same one many of his Members were saying was over just weeks ago) it hit me that Canwest and Ipsos would release a poll to support such a notion. Dammit, I wasted that moment of precognition on politics instead of choosing the winning 649 numbers on Saturday.

Anyway, the poll is useless like all polls are. Any political observer worth his salt knows to ignore the actual estimates and to instead look at the media frame for the poll. Doing so for this poll speaks volumes.

It was not too many months ago that if a poll indicated that the Conservatives were pushing 40% the media would be speculating on when Stephen Harper would be calling an election. For this poll the media frame is the poll will cause Michael Ignatieff to think twice about forcing an election. That is quite the change.

I said it after Stephen Harper prorogued Parliament to save his political hide that everybody in this city knows that he has won his last election. They know that, barring proof that Michael Ignatieff is a reptilian kitten eater, the Liberals will win the next election. The frightened and defensive media frame on a poll that should make the Conservatives and its shills at CanWest gung ho for an election just further demonstrates that belief.

Sometimes I feel sorry for Jason Kenney

Jason Kenney has been given an almost impossible task. He has been charged with bringing the "immigrant vote" into the Conservative tent. Since most of them live in the three big cities their votes are imperative to the Conservatives attaining their much sought after majority government. Unfortunately, Mr. Kenney is a member of a party that has the reputation for being anti-immigrant, intolerant and bigoted

Such reputation is unfair. The Conservative Party is not any of these things but they do seem to have a fair number of prominent Members of Parliament, who are all of these things, who just cannot keep their mouths shut. As well, many of these Members have been re-elected numerous times so it would seem that at least a small part of the Conservative base is all of these things as well.

This background makes Mr. Kenney's job very difficult to begin with but it becomes impossible when his own government knocks the pins out from under him. They have done it to him twice in less than six months this year alone.

The first instance was the imposition of the visa requirements on Mexicans. That was just stupid. It is probably not lost on many of the Latin American immigrants to this country that the Canadian government does not seem to have any problem bringing in seasonal workers from Mexico, to work for low wages in the fields of many agricultural operations, while forcing others from that country to jump through hoops just to visit this country as tourists, or more importantly, as business people looking for business opportunities in a NAFTA partner.

The second instance was Ms. Mohamed. Although it has not been mentioned by anybody in the mainstream, many believe that if the person being held by the Kenyan government would have been white with a surname like, Smith, Michaud or Levine, no government representative would have been allowed to state that she was an imposter and they would have been returned to Canada within days instead of three months.

This has not been mentioned, except for some whispers, in the mainstream, but you can be certain that this idea has not been lost on many of the immigrant communities in this country. This government has shown them that if they get into trouble while they visit family and friends in the country of their birth they are on their own. The Canadian government will not lift a finger to help them and might actually help the governments in their birth country to make their trouble even worse.

Conservatives and their media apologists seem to believe that reaching out to and schmoozing with some prominent representatives of the immigrant communities will actually bring around the whole of the communities. They have no idea that the treatment that Ms. Mohamed was forced to endure, as a direct result of the Canadian government, will have a much more profound negative effect on their support within the immigrant communities than any positive effect any schmoozing Mr. Kenney has done in the last few years.

Like I say, sometimes I actually feel sorry for him.