Apolitical Staples

Dan Leger of the ChronicleHerald points out some potential difficulties for the Liberals.

...All the opposition parties are now somewhere on the left of the political spectrum. The NDP is where it traditionally is, presenting itself as the true progressive alternative. The Green party seems to be gaining traction as a credible force, and the Bloc Quebecois remains as socialist as it is separatist.
Now the Liberals are crowding into that space. They’d better be careful.
Traditionally, the federal Liberal party has found ways to place its ample posterior right in the accommodating centre of Canadian politics. Under Jean Chretien and even Paul Martin, it sounded friendly to a broad spectrum of voters. The party was able to support gay marriage one day and send troops to Afghanistan the next.
Somehow, the Liberals always found a way to co-exist with the voters. It made them our governors for most of the last century.

So far this supposed shift to the left (by picking Dion) is working fine and it is the NDP feeling the pinch. I am of the opinion that it won't last...completely anyway. I see no reason why the NDP would stay at the 10% it was polled at most recently but similarly there is no reason that they have to continue growing as they have been in the last few elections.

Word was that the Conservatives tested out the divided-left play in London North Centre and got thumped in the process - it will take more than a crowded "progressive" field to keep the Conservatives in power. That being said I am a big advocate of shifting to the centre to occuoy this vacated space. Continuing to craft policies that help middle-class families sounds about right to me. I expect the rhetoric to ratcheted up a notch or two - as the Liberals try to paint the Conservatives as right-wing, neo-conservatives ideologues the Conservatives will counter will left-wing, statist raiser of taxes.