Wild Bill

Interesting! I found the rest of the article even more intriguing, however! "Since July 11, Tories Gaining Momentum Across the Country… The Tories under Stephen Harper have increased their national lead from 1 point to 6 points over Stephane Dion’s Liberals since July 11. This improvement has been driven by the gaining of momentum in a few key battlegrounds. Behind, But Closing the Gap: * In Quebec, the Tories have closed a 26-point gap between themselves and the Bloc. The gap now sits at 9 points, representing a 17-point improvement. * In Ontario, the Tories have closed a 12-point gap between themselves and the Liberals. The gap now sits at two points, representing a 10-point improvement. * In Atlantic Canada, the Tories have closed a 12-point gap between themselves and the Liberals. The gap now sits at one point, a statistical tie, representing an 11-point improvement. Maintaining the Lead: * In British Columbia, the Tories have widened their lead from 12 to 16 points, representing an improvement of 4 points. * In Alberta, the 46-point lead for the Conservatives has been maintained. * In Saskatchewan and Manitoba, the Conservatives are currently 14 points ahead of the Liberals, statistically unchanged from the 15-point lead they had in July." Surely this tells us more than the portion YOU quoted! I guess it always pays to read the entire link...

Oh, I dunno! I would agree with him! That's based on personal observations made since Trudeau. I guess I'm just foolish as well. Still, no need for Liberal boosters to worry. Obviously, we must be the only two folk who feel that way in the whole country, wouldn't you agree? Every accusation you've been making against the Harper Tories has been eclipsed by Liberal actions over the years. What else is new? That's politics and that's politicians. Let's assume just for the sake of argument that everything you've claimed is 100% gospel. Now what? Why should I vote Liberal? Should I vote for someone I consider a worse choice because of the faults you've pointed out with Harper? Putting someone down just puts him down. It does nothing to build another choice up! From what I recall of your posts I don't see a lot of reasons to feel the Liberals would be a better choice. All I see is a lot of Harper bashing. I already knew Harper wasn't perfect. Meanwhile, I've seen no compelling reason at all to vote for Dion! Or anything to refute the impressions I had already formed about him and his party.

Well, what would you expect Paul Martin to say? The Liberals triggered the avalanche and the Tories didn't shovel enough? Could you possibly have chosen a more partisan source?

Quite right! For example, I'm considered a "rightie" and I also know that the two old Muppet gentlemen in the balconey were named "Statler" and Waldorf". It's been a week since your post and there's no post from the left that knew that! I sometimes wonder if the left is incapable of having fun! Their humour tends to the snide and sarcastic, rather than the deep belly laugh. What's more, we could start a whole new thread on their apparent inability to EVER laugh at themselves!

Are you suggesting that our troops should NOT know how to shoot and kill? Just exactly what do you think they should do?

You don't have to convince me. You have to convince a LOT of other folks, especially in Quebec! I'm REALLY looking forward to exercising hindsight after the election is over!

Does the Ontario provincial government have anything to do with inspections? The reason I ask is that when the Walkerton tainted water scandal happened all the usual Lib left crowd were screaming it was all Mike Harris' fault. It didn't matter that it was a couple of good ol' boys that ran the town water supply and faked all the mandatory tests. Apparently, Mike Harris had put a gun to their heads and FORCED them to taint the water, just because he was a Tory and that's what Tories do! Now we have people dying from tainted meat yet no one is mentioning McGuinty's name. This couldn't be an indication of a bias, now could it?

Moonbox, most of the whiners already knew and understood all that you wrote. It's just simple partisanship! Ever since the last election Liberal boosters have been waging a ferocious battle against the tide, trying to tear the Tories down because it's so hard to build the Liberals up, considering the weight of all the albatrosses around their necks! The Liberal name has been badly tarnished and they are broke. Their riding machine is in tatters, especially in Quebec. So they're just doing what they can! Anything that can be held against the Tories will be used, no matter how trivial. If they can convince a few folks here and a few folks there that the Tories have done some bad things then maybe they might forget that the Liberals had done far worse. It might win a seat here or there. The Liberals will take whatever they can get! Trust me! These guys aren't ALL that dumb!

Well, all the talking heads pointed this out from the very start! If a minority government could be brought down by a confidence motion then of course the fixed election date would become moot. Funny how something so obvious was pointed out and then apparently forgotten. I guess no one thought it would become a big deal. No one ever conceived of a situation where the opposition would refuse every opportunity to bring down the government. In effect, that has meant that we have an artificial situation where the Opposition would refuse to do its job. It was assumed that to do so would be so embarrassing as to become a political negative to the Opposition. No one imagined a situation where that would be LESS damaging to the Oppposition than the alternative! In software it's called de-bugging, I guess.

Actually, if the term Tory is a dictionary description of a conservative you could make an argument that the Progressive Conservatives were never Tories!

Well, I guess everyone is entitled to their opinion! Do we have a standard definition of what's left, right and centre? Or is it whatever we feel like?

Then we are more alike than we differ. We both hold our noses as we vote for lack of a strong choice! I had high hopes for Reform but I think they got in too much of a hurry. To have made the progress they had in starting from nowhere and in less than a decade becoming the Official Opposition was extraordinary! Then they thought it would be a good idea to "unite the right" and merge with what was left of the old PC's. The PC's have wound up running the show by making the larger party into a clone of their own Mulroney party. I found it ironic indeed how there was so much talk of Harper getting advice from Mulroney when he first became PM of the new CPC. There seemed to be a lot of historical revisionism going on to make Mulroney look better in the history books. This seemed doubly ironic to me considering how Harper had done his best to demonize Mulroney when Reform was a competing party. Then came the Schneider scandal! Harper found himself being tarred with Mulroney's Brush and couldn't dump the connection fast enough! Looked good on him! Oh well, maybe I'll get another good choice before I die...but it's definitely not Dion!

Forgive me. I wasn't questioning your scholarship. Rather your partisanship! Your arguments always strike me as trying to persuade more than just give an objective comment. You want the Liberals to win! That seems obvious to me in virtually every one of your posts. You're entitled to those wishes, of course. I just take exception to that style of persuasion! A campaign manager might say "A few points is all that is needed!" I would rather hear someone tell me "Here is WHY a shift of a few percentage points is not only all that is needed but is also LIKELY TO HAPPEN!" It's my fault, really. I've always been a bit contrary. Cheerleading has always bothered me. It has never inspired my loyalty but rather raised my suspicions. I was a salesman too long, I guess. I've walked away from many a deal because of too strong an odor of hype. Usually it proved to be the right move. That's why I followed Manning. He appealed to my head rather than my heart. To me, appeals to the heart are usually the approach of a carnival barker, trying to separate me from my money. So I'm not slamming you, just asking for deeper responses!

Ah, but if you want people to give credence to your predictions you need MORE than just your biases! You need well thought out REASONS why the Liberals would get that "a few percentage point shifts". All you have given is your very last sentence about those "pandering" pronouncements. Everything else is just your wishes. If you want people to put their vote on YOUR choice you have to give them good reasons, or at least what SOUNDS like good reasons to them. "And if my granny had wheels she wouldn't bump her ass when she hopped", to mix metaphors!

+1! What's more, a political party can call themselves anything they like but the PEOPLE will always have their OWN name for them! The people want to call them Tories. So Tories they are. Period. End of story. Would Ontario Loyalist like to start a thread about the usage of "irregardless" or ending a sentence with a preposition? It might be marginally more useful.

Oh dear! I don't like making predictions when there's so much confusion. I'm a techie. When I predict which part is likely bad it's only after putting a meter through the amp. However, if you're gonna push me I will say that I have some impressions that if true will affect the outcome. I don't think Dion is gonna do very well at all, for a number of reasons! First off, I don't think the real power in his party wants to help him! They want him gone in favour of a much more attractive leader like Rae or Iggy. Those guys will fake it good for the cameras but they don't really want to see Dion keep driving the team. They want the reins for themselves. Also, where is the growth for the Liberals? Not out west! You can forget anything significant there. The Liberals burned their bridges out West long ago and have done little or nothing since to patch things up. Dion's NewGST makes it worse! To the westerners it just looks like NEP II. I'm betting the back room boys threw their hands up in the air in frustration when Dion brought that one out! Quebec? Nope! Dion keeps scrounging to find a new Quebec organizer man. He keeps having to fire them and nobody wants the job. Quebec is crucial for a Liberal win. They always got a good chunk of their seats from this province. They OWNED the federalist vote! Not anymore. They have a few safe seats but the smell of Adscam is stronger in Quebec than anywhere else in Canada. The scam was in their province and Quebecers were very embarrassed by that fact. They haven't forgotten. The Tories picked up seats last time against all the predictions of the talking heads. They look like a good alternative for any federalist who can't stomach voting Liberal again. The Tories are hardly going to decimate the BQ seats but I'd be surprised if the Liberals made any major gains. There's some anti-Tory sentiment in Newfoundland but so what? Only a handful of seats. And Danny Williams might be disappointed about a couple of them. The Tories have a lot of history down home. Newfoundlanders tend not to be followers, as well. And in Nova Scotia, PEI and New Brunswick there is not only a lot of Tory history but a habit of voting for the winners. They need those regional disparity grants to keep coming so they can feed their kids. Besides, if they'd vote for a Conservative like Elsie Wayne there must REALLY be a lot of Tory love out there! That leaves Ontario. Harper's team has made some serious gaffes here. Jim Prentice seemed more worried about bashing Dalton McGuinty than making his own party look like a better choice for Ontarioans in the process of losing their jobs. Still, Dion has made some worse gaffes. His carbon tax scares the willies out of people who depend on smelly manufacturing plants for their livelihood! Dion can promise rebates next April but many folks here are wondering how to keep their house till then! Dion also has no history behind him when he promises to be "revenue neutral". Even if he's totally accurate it's still an almost impossible hard sell to a populace who have spent their entire lives hearing broken political promises. Why should they now suddenly trust Dion? His charisma? Harper has hardly been inspiring as well and that's why at first I haven't felt there would be a huge change in the seat count. However, the more I think about it the more it seems that its Dion who can more easily LOSE seats! Harper will snap a lot of them up by default. The NDP might very well look like a good alternative for a traditional Liberal voter who isn't inspired by Dion. Even the Greens might finally gain a seat or two. Certainly these last two parties could split enough votes in some Ontario ridings to allow the Tory candidate to come up the middle. Okay, I'll stop fudging around! I predict that Harper will gain seats. I just can't get a handle yet on how many. I don't believe that the "scary scary" talk from the Liberals about crazed redneck abortion/gay hating conservatives from Liberals works anymore. Canadians seem to feel Tories aren't anymore scary than the Liberals. More boring maybe but not more scary. So there's not likely to be much of an Anti-Tory trend. That being said, Dion needs a Pro-Liberal trend to keep what he's got, let alone make gains. I just don't see this sort of trend happening anywhere. Still, the writ hasn't even dropped yet. Afterwards when Canadians wake up and pay attention we might all see some surprises.

Well, we shall see! The proof is in the pudding, as they say. Again, it will be great fun to bump each other's posts to the fore AFTER the election!

That doesn't change anything! Your quote is not from Reform but from the National Citizens Coalition. Harper might well hold such views personally. As the leader of the NCC he might criticize the PC's particularly at a time when Reform/Alliance and the PC's were trying to slam each other into oblivion. Your quote has nothing to do with a political party's platform or how they would govern, just Harper's personal views. Or at least, views he thought might appeal to the supporters of the NCC. I don't care about politicians' personal views. A lot of Liberals believe the same thing about gay rights and abortion. You can google up all kinds of quotes from Liberals that will sound like this one. Yet when it came to a vote in Parliament they all toed the party line. Did you not watch the news clips during the vote on same sex marriage? There were Liberal MP's in tears because they were voting against their conscience, their own words and in many cases the wishes of the majority of their constituents, because they were "good Liberals". Personal views mean nothing in Canadian politics. Power and keeping it does and that means party solidarity and also NEVER touching hot button issues like abortion! When Harper told Reformers not to push religious values and social engineering causes he was telling them the "real world" truth. He wasn't telling them they had no right to their own beliefs, just that such beliefs were political suicide! What do you expect Harper to do? Achieve a majority with lies so he can ram through some bible belt crap and ensure that his party will get voted out and and NEVER get in AGAIN? That's just crazy! Tin foil hat stuff! I'm the farthest thing from a social conservative you can get. Yet I jumped to join Reform! Why? Because they were the first and only party that promised to vote according to the wishes of the people in their riding, regardless of the party line. At least, except for major bills like budgets. They also promised to change things so that losing a vote on day to day bills would NOT mean triggering an election. They wanted to make us just like every other parliamentary democracy in the world. Canada is the only one that practices such rigid party solidarity, right down to bills about where to buy the day's coffee and doughnuts. Forgive me, but it sounds to me like you're just scared of Christians! I'm not overly fond of them in some situations myself but it's ridiculous to be scared of them. Christians for the most part hold the same value of separation of church and politics as anybody else. Hell, it was Christians who enshrined that very concept when America was founded! There are a few OTHER religions that WOULD force social engineering changes! Then they'd change the laws so they could have fun stoning people to death. Until Harper and his crew change to that sect, I wouldn't worry about such things at election time.

Jdobbin, I would be very surprised if the average voter even knew about the fixed dates thing. Even more, you can point it out to him and again, I'd be surprised if he cared! I think it important to remember that most Canadians are not hard core political junkies. WE are the minority!

What planet did you grow up on? Can you give me a single link to an example of Harper EVER saying any such thing about abortion? If you can I'll eat my hat, without salt! I was there at a convention when Harper told the Reform party that if they tried to push ANY social engineering ideas into their party platform THEY WOULD LOSE! He told them flat out that religious values had to be kept totally out of the party or they would never gain power. He said that the country as whole would NEVER elect a party that tried such a thing. He SPECIFICALLY mentioned abortion! I think you are imposing a cartoon idea of a conservative onto your impression of Harper. You might get farther if you just stayed in the real world.

If Dion was ready for an election he wouldn't have voted with the government every time to prevent one. The Liberals are not only broke but their riding system of campaigners and volunteers is in tatters in many parts of the country, especially Quebec. Every day he can delay is another day that they can pass the bucket at more meetings and raise a little more money. Looks like Harper is not going to give him any more time. The Liberals can whine all they want about the unfairness of it all. Harper of course still remembers how the Liberals seized the opportunity to call elections when the Alliance party was barely formed and certainly not ready! Sauce for the goose... This petty fighting doesn't mean beans to the average voter, of course. Only political junkies like ourselves even know it happens, let alone care. This coming campaign will show the Liberals to the country like the Wizard of Oz when the curtain was pulled away. This is all according to plan. Dion will lose because everyone knew the Liberals couldn't win the next election. Too much baggage from the Chretien/Martin days with all the scandals and the loss of support in Quebec. NEXT election is the important one! Dion will be gone and Rae or Iggy will have taken his place. Enough time will have gone by that no one will still be thinking about those nasty old scandals. Harper's team will be looking a bit old. Like all incumbents, the people will be taking their good deeds for granted and focusing on their bad ones. It's just human nature. This fight is going to be a yawner! It's the NEXT one that might go into extra innings!

Actually, from a games theory viewpoint Russia is being quite astute. They don't fear a western invasion. That's not what the West does! They might find the US to be a rival for some resource or the political support of a particular county but Uncle Sam is very unlikely to initiate a military invasion. They tend to RESPOND to attacks like 911 or Saddam's bluffing about WMD's but otherwise they tend to be "nice". Meanwhile, Russia can and has used their military as their first tool, as with Georgia. Obviously they have assessed the US and NATO as unlikely to respond to any but the most outrageous provocation. They MIGHT go to war over Poland but never for Georgia. The Baltics remain to be seen. It's basically just taking advantage of the biblical Golden Rule. If you know that your opponent is more likely to just "turn the other cheek" and will first respond to you in the way they themselves would like to be treated then you have a great advantage if you rely on this to do whatever you want. As long as you keep from pushing your opponent too far and cornering him into a response you can get away with a helluva lot! Steyn is right. Those who are willing to fight usually win. Those who will not stand up for themselves tend to become victims.

This is simply not true! Political inclination has NOTHING to do with who owns such little "rat dogs". I have it on good authority is that the way these dogs appear has to do with weight! Whenever a woman exceeds 350 lbs she is issued one! A walk through any mall will prove my point!

You know, this sounds like the same argument with global warming. If one side is right, we've spent a lot of money for no good result. If the other side is right, we die! The parallels are interesting...

Well, when the election comes we shall see how accurate are your predictions. Should be great fun to go back through the threads and bump a poster's words back up to the fore! As for Dalton being fiscally responsible, he sure seems to be spending a lot of money buying disputed land to lie fallow in Caledonia. He might win another term but it will be a LONG time before a Liberal wins again in the Brant or Haldiman areas! Then again, he's really only Toronto's premier anyways. The Ontario Libs know where their bread is buttered. When he first campaigned he promised to reverse Harris' forced amalgamation of suburban cities into Hamilton. He also promised to ease Hamilton's crushing social services tax load from all the halfway houses and other programs dumped onto Hamilton's civic budget. Once he got in he not only broke his promises, he can't even remember even making them! Maybe he's David Miller's friend but he's no friend of us here. The sad thing is that the Liberals have such a strong base in the area that he'll likely continue to get away with it. People have short memories. We get what we deserve, I guess.