Don Martin quotes Carolyn Parrish in the Post today.
“Liberal voters are sloppy voters. You have to work to pull them out to the ballot box,” declares the 20-year Liberal party veteran. Not so the Conservatives. “White-haired, middle-class voters will march through anything to the ballot box and they are mostly Tory voters,” she says. Throw in whiteouts and black ice to endanger the voting process on election
day and the Liberals’ tepid support might well remain curled up by the fireplace while Tories storm the polling stations with throw-the-Grits-out fire in their belly. The result? Parrish feels the potential for a lump of Christmas coal in her party’s stocking. “The Liberals could easily lose half a dozen seats in Ontario and end up with a shallower minority. Or we could be in for a Tory minority surprise. That might well be the case.”
You can file this in the "dog bites man" file. This is what we have been looking at for 6 months now. I hear a lot of media commentators state that the next election will be a repeat of the last. This is laziness and clearly not correct. At best (for the Liberals) it is the same result in "English Canada" and they lose 6-10 seats in Quebec. Meaning a weaker minority and no chance of working with the NDP. Furthermore, check out these points made by Don Martin (which have been made plenty of times in the blogsphere).
- Dampening Liberal expectations is the historical trend of governments losing public support during the course of the campaign
- the electorate didn’t buy this week’s fiscal update as a legitimate budget
- There’s the seniors situation ...support is turning Tory after Finance Minister Ralph Goodale caused a meltdown in their equity holdings by musing about curbing the proliferation of income trusts.
- The Conservatives plan to unleash a...war chest at more than $12-million
- They have policy papers ready and waiting to be hammered into place as the election platform for a legitimate government-in-waiting
The result will be entirely dependent on the campaign. If the Conservatives run a professional one a minority is within their grasp.
Another interesting thing to note. Last night on CBC Politics Tom Axworthy mentioned that for the first time the NDP is in the sights of the Liberals and they will fight them directly. Also, Robin Sears advised the NDP to go soft on the Conservatives as to protect themselves from a last minute vote flip to the Liberals. If the Liberals are forced to defend two flanks and the NDP doesn't cave (more like a wish than a huge assumption) then things could be very interesting.
