Apolitical Staples

Since any money bill is a vote of confidence, my guess is that there will be a lot more “confusion” and “missed votes” in the fall.

Is Harper fun to watch or what ! He’s keeping the Libs off-balance, striking fear into their hearts, forcing them to spend valuable time getting ready for a snap election.

On the offence. Making them fight on his turf. A master of “The Art of War”. Like Bob Rae said on Duffy a couple of weeks ago, “these guys [Conservatives] play hard ball all the time. They throw the ball at your head !” Looking for sympathy, Bob ? HAR HAR HAR

Harper now has the system rigged in HIS favor, and is going after these Liberal stumblebums relentlessly. Pass the beer and popcorn. This is the best show in town.

If we wait until Harper can turn it around and we finally get “accountability in government” we might not be going to the polls for quite awhile.

Just dealing with the fiscal imbalance with the provinces is impossible to predict. How long will that take? We won’t know, until it is actually negotiated and signed off .. Assuming Ottawa/Provincial agreement is even possible . .that may in fact turn out to the THE election issue. Maybe I’m wrong, but fiscal imbalance looks to me like a massive undertaking.

But I do think it is a good idea for Conservatives to think about what the next Big 5 should be and get ready to fight an election on them.

Harper would be cutting his own throat if he did this. To begin with, it would expose the emptiness of his plan to bring in fixed election dates.

But the worst is it would be the most abhorrent, crass political move ever perpetrated by a party in Canada to engineer an election right in the midst of another party’s leadership campaign. The name Harper would become synonymous with weasel and except for a few diehard koolaid drinkers, every single media outlet in the country would work to rid Canada of this type of rubbish politics.

RM: “But the worst is it would be the most abhorrent, crass political move ever perpetrated by a party in Canada to engineer an election right in the midst of another party’s leadership campaign.”.

True. But he’s got the Liberals THINKING about it, which is worth a lot in this game ! But hey, haven’t the Libs painted Harper as the devil incarnate ? So if Harper does pull a fast one on them, they could just re-use their old campaign ads, legititmately making the same points as before.

Look at it this way, Harper is thinking about their financial plight, and saving them advertising money. He’s kind of like their new Chuck Guite !

“…it would be the most abhorrent, crass political move ever perpetrated by a party in Canada to engineer an election right in the midst of another party’s leadership campaign.”

Oh Robbie - you’re just so much fun! No long-term memory, but fun all the same.

“…every single media outlet in the country would work to rid Canada of this type of rubbish politics.”

Yes - and Harper gets such great press now that it would be a tremendous loss for him. If we could tell the difference, I mean.

Sounds like a good plan, if true. Confirmed: Because RM sounds scared… ;)

so basically if I’m reading this right and not being confused by all the big threatening words used… RM’s suggesting that it’s been okay the last 35+ years for the Liberals to pick an election date when the Conservatives have been ill prepared for the election and they’ve been riding high in the polls but for Harper to force an election after completing all his campaign promises in under a year it’s not a good thing? And the fixed election date deal RM is based on a majority Gov’t.

I do agree though that they should wait… beter the Lib’s should finish picking their new leader so he can spend all his time during the campaign defending the “old guard liberals” when all the charges start to be laid on the Liberal party from all the mis-appropriation of funds which is likely to start coming more to the surface as details are further released and charges pressed against the likes of Chuck and company… some interesting names will undoubtedly come to the surface as the rats start to scramble to make deals with RCMP as they close in like they did on the NDP’s buddy Syven Roberson…

Since nobody in the PM’s inner circle is likely to speak to JTaber, we have to be very sceptical of her “sources” and their motivations.

SHarper will want to go to the polls by Spring/Summer ‘07 because he would not want to give the new Liberal leader any chance to settle in, raise money, and form clear policy planks.

If he wants to go to the polls in the Fall ‘06, it would have to be on something substantial. Complaining about Liberal obstructionism, or a new environmental plan, or a bunch of microtargeted goodies will not be sufficient.

It would almost have to be a constitutional plebiscite to justify an early trip to the polls.

He won’t confuse an Ontario election in the fall with a Federal election the same season.

Harper will benefit from a stronger Con organization following either a tory win in Ontario, or an increase in tory seats at the very least.

I think what the real plan here is that while the liberals are leaderless, Harper is going to have as many votes as possible that are either confidence measures or ones that divide the liberal party. Spreading information that there could be a fall in the fall could mean that the conservatives are going to show how ineffective the liberals are and if they can’t get their act together as opposition, should not be allowed to get their hands on the levers of power.

There will be a “fall in the fall”….Fall of 2007, that is. If not later.

I really believe that Harper is going to try and get two full years at minimum out of this mandate, however I’m even more convinced that not one of the other three parties wants to push into another election and since all three are needed to bring down the government and Harper’s stated that he won’t simply ask the GG to disolve it, that leads to a longer than expected term.

Liberal & Dipper obstructionism might just be enough to trigger an election.

Have to say though, that the idea that the Conservatives are bad guys for choosing the election timing as a minority and that they’ll get bad press…..well I laughed so hard that I almost choked on my perked coffee and back bacon.

It is a great show though.

Pat

SHarper will want to go to the polls by Spring/Summer ‘07 because he would not want to give the new Liberal leader any chance to settle in, raise money, and form clear policy planks.

That’s when I figure Harper will make his move providing the polls are favourable for him. He’ll likely introduce an early budget designed to engineer his government’s fall.

There won’t be an election in the fall of 2007. It would be too close/overlapping the Ontario election.

Spring 2007 or Fall 2007 could also clash with the Quebec provincial election.