Saturday, January 17, 2009

Has Ignatieff's Shift To The Right Accomplished Fuck All?

The Conservatives are at 39 per cent support nationally, compared with 30 per cent for the Liberals, 17 per cent for the NDP, 9 per cent for the Bloc and 5 per cent for the Greens. In the Oct. 14 election, the Tories garnered 37.6 per cent of the vote. In Ontario, the Conservatives are at 42 per cent support, just two percentage points ahead of the Liberals. The NDP is at 12 per cent and the Greens at 5 per cent.

Everybody is still trading within their traditional range.

13 comments:

Dante said...

Time for a new leader. He just isn't getting it done.

RuralSandi said...

What - you want miracles overnight?

I think it's the coalition thing that's bothering Canadians, and Harper will make sure of it in his latest attack ads.

Canadians are always nervous about a change in government during a crisis.

Oxford County Liberals said...

You're overlooking the most recent Nanos poll there BCL... it's rather dangerous to make a presumption based on one poll.

Ti-Guy said...

I have to conclude that Canadians are just a lot stupider than I've been willing to believe. I honestly thought the online dingbats represented a marginal demographic but not anymore.

robins111 said...

Now, now, now boys.

We conseratives think the world of Iggy, he's your chosen messia isn't he?

Besides, he hasn't shifted to the right, just wandered towards the center.

Burton, Formerly Kingston said...

Morning all, Looking at this at what I hope is a truly objective opinion, I really do not see a huge difference between Iggy and Harper, now wheither that will work for the LPC, I guess were going to find out, Seriously, Who doesnt belive Iggy could be sitting on the other side of the aisle with out a huge conversion to the other sides beliefs

Ti-Guy said...

We conseratives think the world of Iggy, he's your chosen messia isn't he?

I rest my case. The sin isn't so much in the ignorance (although that's bad enough) but in the pride too many people take in it.

This month's Harpers has an editorial by Mark Slouka on just that issue. It's comically depressing.

Northern PoV said...

Harper will makes Iggy wear this coalition, now and especially in the next election whenever that is.
Polls should be ignored at this point. (Given the media stance and the way the questions are asked they have almost become push-polls.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Push_poll)

When Harper asked M. Jean for prorogation there was simply no modern precedent for her to follow.

If Harper loses a confidence vote - essentially right after an election, given his game-delay tactics, the precedent is well established that the GG refuses Harper and asks for the clearly established coalition to form the gov't.

Yes she may decide otherwise but leadership requires some risk and above all, courage.

So, do we want to spend the next 2 years propping up Harper while the BQ & NDP smugly vote against him?
(That felt so good - and increased our popularity immensely under Dion! My dipper friends referred to this period as the Conservative-Liberal coalition, btw.) And hold our fire while Harper continues to work his ULTIMATE wedge issue: a menacing coalition with the socialists and separatists.

Or do we show a little courage, vote him down and show Canadians a good constructive coalition gov't at work. Much easier to defend on the campaign trail.

In the past, informal coalitions where we were like the senior partner of a left-center alliance (Pearson, Trudeau72-74, Ontarion85-87) have led to Liberal majorities. While our little detour working as Harper's junior partner led to him winning even more of our seats.

bigcitylib said...

I know, Scott,but there's a 3rd one out there that has Tories up 36 to 29 (sorry, can think of name). Not a lot of movement.

Ti-Guy said...

Look, we're going to have to resign ourselves to the fact that a huge proportion of the Canadian population is barely sensate enough to even be allowed to vote at this point.

Comrade One said...

I expect current polls aren't worth a great deal, but I wonder if the Guru, has carefully calculated the gains against the losses in moving right?

Who is Guru you ask? You know, the new Nazi Hunter.

Liberal if necessary, but not necessarily Liberal.

Red Tory said...

I don't know what other result(s) you could possibly have expected.

The Mound of Sound said...

It's accomplished quite a bit, driving once loyal Liberals out and drawing some perhaps less loyal supporters in.