It is now official, Edmonton Liberal MP David Kilgour has left the Liberal Party and will sit as an independent.
"It is not just Gomery", he said, "It's just about everything. There are a whole lot of issues where I am increasingly out of sync with the government."
Meanwhile, National Post columnist John Ivison does some similar math to mine and comes to this conclusion.
...An unscientifc calculation based on the latest Ipsos-Reid poll, which has the Liberals 10 points down
on last June's election result, suggests 52 members will lose their seats. That includes 12 Cabinet ministers, if things remain the same.
For the record, I have posted an election prediction to the left based on the Ipsos-Reid. With 77 Liberal seats, I am a little more aggressive than Mr. Ivison but 12 Cabinet ministers sounds about right to me. They include Ministers McLellan, Lapierre, Frulla and Pettigrew. The Monger has done some similar math at his blog.
...Yes, I know this is BS. Yes, I know everything will probably change tomorrow. Yes, blah blah blah. Look, I don't care what you think, okay? I hardly care what I think. I'll bet you $5000 in small bills left in an envelope in an Italian restaurant that Paul Martin has done the exact same math, and has gone to bed with a tummyache.
In other news, the stress of the SSM legislation and Adscam is beginning to get to soon-to-be-former Liberal MP Pat O'Brien.
...Ms. Bulte had been quoted as saying, "When the ship is sinking, the rats are running," in reference to Mr. O'Brien's talk of jumping to the Tories.
"First of all, she didn't have the courage to come and speak to me at all, at least not yet. Secondly, it's a walking ad for the dumb, blond, bimbo comment," Mr. O'Brien said in the television interview.
"This is the chair of the Ontario Liberal caucus, and one of the concerns I've expressed directly to the Prime Minister in the last 24 hours is the lack of respect I'm seeing in our caucus, one colleague for another."
Reached for comment, Mr. O'Brien said he regretted making the remark, saying he was upset at being called a "rat" by Ms. Bulte.
"I guess I reacted like the old hockey player who hasn't yet reached perfection in this life. I felt like I'd been high-sticked," he said. "She's not a dumb, blond bimbo. I reacted in anger. What can I tell you. I guess I would have preferred to have taken the high road even though she didn't."
If MP O'Brien joins the Conservative Party the Liberals will not only call him a rat, they will call him a sexist rat. Tough week.
Update: Kevin Libin of the Western Standard points out something I didn't notice in all of this.
...I'm sure Bulte is hardly a dumb, blonde bimbo—she is a lawyer, after all. But referring to your own party as a "sinking ship"? Not exactly the smartest political statement ever made.
Some consesus is building around the 30% support ceiling for the Conservative Party. On Norman Spector's site/blog (I don't want to get into that debate) you will find this quote from L. Ian MacDonald.
...Which indicates that while the voters are ready to throw out the Liberals, they aren't ready to elect the Conservatives in their place, reason enough for Stephen Harper to take an itchy finger off the election trigger. Or as one of Harper's advisers put it yesterday: "A welcome cold shower to some of our election hawks." …
At a minimum Harper should wait another month, to see if his voting intention grows, while Gomery drills a few more gushers. There's also a provincial election on May 17 in the major regional battleground of British Columbia, where there's significant brand overlap with the Liberals and the NDP. Federally, many Liberals cross over to the Conservatives but, paradoxically, so do some NDP voters. Harper doesn't need that confusion in the background.
Here is Greg Weston's take:
...Ipsos-Reid president Darrell Bricker put it all in perspective in an interview yesterday, noting that despite all the fallout from the Gomery inquiry, support for the Conservatives is almost exactly where it was when they lost the election nine months ago.
Amid the deafening election buzz, cooler heads seem to be prevailing in Harper's inner circle.
Conservative strategists say they want to watch the polls at least until mid-May, and hear back from MPs after a week's break back home in their ridings at the end of this month.
"We're under no illusions that this is going to be a free ride," says one strategist.
"It would be folly to say, 'Well, we'll just run on corruption.' That will maybe get you through the first 48 hours of a campaign."
Instead, he said, the party will have to convince voters it is a viable alternative to the Liberals, that the Conservatives have the right leadership and policies to run the country.
Judging by the polls, they are not there yet.
