Wild Bill

And if my granny had wheels she wouldn't bump her ass when she hopped! How's that for mixing metaphors? Layton could not show he's like his provincial cousins because he simply isn't! You would have more of a chance if the entire Manitoba NDP caucus quit en masse and ran federally. The NDP simply has not shown ANY such personalities at a federal level!

Angus, about a decade or so ago we had the last go-around here in Ontario over illegal smokes. I was an on the road salesman and at least once a week I made sure my route would take me home through part of the Six Nations Reserve. On that stretch of rural highway there must have been over a hundred "smoke shacks". I would pick up a couple of dozen cartons for workmates and family. None for myself as they weren't my vice and I never charged a nickel's profit. I did it as a favour to those I cared about and to satisfy the ghosts of my Bluenoser ancestors, who used to row booze in dories from Yarmouth to Boston. Well, maybe they used real boats. I always went to the same shack. The operator and myself had a common interest. I could tell from all the Sun-shine Girl clippings taped up on the wall of his shack! Also, on his front lawn was another common interest. He had a beautiful 1957 blue Chevy Bel-air convertible! Cigarettes had been "berry, berry good" to him, to coin a phrase. His service was excellent! He was a friendly and well-informed fellow who was very interesting to talk to. If he was out of any particular request he would hand me a couple of packs of something he suggested as very similar for FREE and promised he could supply those the following week. Never got that kind of treatment at any regular store! Often there would be a lineup. I would wonder how the cops could even pretend to police this situation. There are a multitude of country roads coming into and out of that area, and a couple of rural highways. Even if they blocked them all off (and the natives did nothing about it!) what were they expecting to do? Bust the entire blue-haired bingo playing old lady population of Brantford, Ontario? They alone were a good part of the lineups. I remember guys with sacks of cigarettes on their backs walking from business to business in the industrial malls of Mississauga, selling openly to the employees inside. It was just like the "coffee truck"! The story I saw in the papers is what finally got through to Chretien to lower the fed taxes was riding in his limo down a Quebec highway and seeing roadside vendor after roadside vender selling cigarettes off the tailgate of a truck. The magnitude of the problem was so obviously enormous that even he could finally see it. The situation is very similar today. It's just being done a bit more discretely. The players have learned that if you don't openly embarrass the politicians they won't get off their collective asses. Besides, McGuinty is so terrified of sparking a confrontation with natives that they know they can operate with impunity. Noises are made but nothing is actually done. Most variety stores in this part of Ontario at least are buying contraband for resale. If they don't they have no hope of competing. It's an interesting situation and oh, so peculiarly Canadian!

I'm 55, MG. If it makes you feel any better, if we went out into space, brought back just ONE typical middlin' sized asteroid of typical nickel-iron ore(out of BILLIONS!), smelted it with free solar power in orbit so that the pollution added to Earth would be zero and dropped it in large one ton ingots just off shore (just ballistics! You aim it and it falls for free. Any artillery man worth his salt could do it in his sleep!) and you could supply the world's total steel needs for a fraction of today's price! The capital investment would be huge but the payoff would make a company so rich it would make the oil companies look like a family run corner variety store! The whole concept of fixed resources is a myth propagated by folks who keep staring at their feet and never look up to the stars! Once we settle on the moon we will have taken the first step to infinite resources.

Leftwing is as leftwing does. If it walks and quacks... "they'll need to put forward truly democratic agendas, like some form of proportional representation; like direct democracy for important decisions, such as entering a war; economic and social programs fit for the 21 century;" Your first suggestion only hints at being leftwing but by the time you start suggesting "economic and social programs fit for the 21 century;" you're talking from the left by definition. You take it for granted that progressive action comes first from government. That's a fundamental leftwing viewpoint. Someone from what you might call the right would suggest that government programs ARE the problem! It's not really partisan I suppose. Particularly when our modern Canadian parties rarely act like a dictionary definition anyway but rather sing whatever song the parade of the day is playing. It's actually statist, in that the left has faith that more government involvement is the answer. This has always amazed me, since I have yet to see one government program that is cost-efficient and truly self-sustaining. It's always take $100 of tax money to deliver $1 of services to the citizenry.

You seem to have completely missed my point. I did not slur the left with an inference that all left folks are gay. Nor did I cast any value judgement on being gay. Frankly, sexual orientation has never mattered to me. Being gay is not a fault but I reserve judgement on being leftwing. Or on being quick to jump to a wrong conclusion and responding with insults and ad hominem, for that matter. I simply pointed out that this thread appears to be an attempt to co-opt the meaning of the word 'progressive', in a similar manner to how the homosexual movement adopted the word 'gay'. The tactic seems to be that if the word is used in such a context often enough then it will become the new definition. Ever after children will grow up thinking that leftwing philosophy is 'progressive' and so by simple logic non-leftwing philosophy is regressive. You know, like how today many people think that 'liberal' is nice...

Perhaps it's all those programs that helps to keep them in perpetual poverty! From outside it looks like the entire reserve system is one big mess of do-gooder socialist programs. Great success story, eh? All those years and all that money. The root of it seems to be that the "system" sucks away initiative and individual responsibility. Without such a community CAN'T prosper! Unless it has a perpetual and ever-increasing welfare cheque. The approach of some in this thread appears to be defining FN as entitled to a cosmically big "repatriations" cheque for alleged historical abuse that it would be centuries before they could spend it all, no matter how wastefully. Of course, they would expect the monthly cheques to keep coming as well. Yet it seems obvious that even if we implemented such a hyperbole form of "solution" when that first big cheque was finally used up centuries from now the situation on many reserves would likely be EXACTLY the same! Ask people who have been involved on the "ground" level how well the government money is spent. You'll hear stories of how the government paid for a water treatment plant, that the local band of course insisted they would run themselves. A few years later the plant is falling apart and working poorly or not at all. When the water goes bad no one mentions this. They just blame the government and demand a new one. There are a host of such stories but they are rarely featured in the media. You have to talk to the people who were actually there. I've met a few in my life and my eyes were opened, often in shock! Of course, many supporters of the present system would dismiss these stories as merely anecdotal, or racism to put down native peoples. As they stand in front of the crumbling water treatment plant. These reports struck me as very similar to many foreign aid programs. In Trudeau's time the "poor nation of the month" was Tanzania. Canada gave huge sums of money to projects that seemed downright screwy. We shipped over crates and crates of tractors, that ended up rusting away on the docks because there was no local money or resources to transport and distribute them out from the cities into the hands of farmers. We build a hydro-electric dam and the power never reached the neighbouring city. Tanzania had a very primitive wire distribution network and the transmission towers stopped some miles from the city. I saw pictures on one documentary of villagers walking a few miles out of town to get fresh water. We paid for a clean water source but nobody looked after enough piping to reach the village! These goofy approaches only make sense if you understand the initial premises. First off, it's not to help the FN people or poor folks in Africa. That's just the photo-op and the ego-boo. By throwing government money out for "charity" ordinary people (voters!) get to feel all warm and fuzzy, and approving of their politicians. Even better, they don't have to feel any need to do something PERSONALLY! They can bask in the glow of knowing "the government is looking after it!" If you dig a little deeper, who gets the paid for a native water treatment plant or tractors for Tanzania? Somebody has to build that plant. Somebody has to manufacture those tractors. So some John Deere workers keep their jobs and the executives make some political donations. These are inevitable consequences of any system that denies individual responsibility. If you know any expatriate Russians you should talk to them about the old Soviet system, where more food was grown on tiny plots "for the farmers own use" than on huge government collectives. Cabbages would be loaded onto unrefrigerated boxcars and then rot before they ever were delivered to the cities. For all these years we've let these folks treat reserves as their very own socialist experiments. It's sad but not surprising that we have had all this suffering. Hopefully, my words will not be dismissed as racism simply because I disagree with you...

I have some sad news for you. We lost our liberty years ago when the Liberals instituted our new Constitution and Charter of Rights. We don't even have a right to our own property. They come for us whenever they feel like it. It happens in numbers small enough and low enough in any given area that the rest of us rarely notice, much less care. You want me to join your bandwagon on this issue. Where have you been while I've been carping about no right to property? Everyone wants support but the thought of reciprocating never crosses their mind. It's just the Canadian way, I suppose.

Perhaps some posters are expecting too much of Harper and the Tories as far as their attitude towards drugs. Sometimes we make things too complicated. I suspect that he and his team simply have never had much personal experience with drugs. Like members of Ned Flanders' church (The Simpsons) what little they know has been gleaned from movies like "Reefer Madness". To them ALL drugs INSTANTLY convert ALL AND EVERYONE into a raving, slobbering addict! Now, add to this naivety Harper's penchant for control trips. His Bill reminds me of the attitude expresses by many cops, where they have a childlike trust that if the State would only give them bigger clubs they could win the War on Drugs! They think too simplistically to realize the numbers of people involved would burst the walls out of the prisons. They would never consider the libertarian aspects of the right of the individual to go to Hell his own way. To this kind of personality, it's just a matter of getting a big enough hammer. To them the reason Prohibition failed is because they were too faint hearted to give Elliot Ness a howitizer instead of a shotgun! Sadly, these folks never seem to realize their initial premise was flawed. They just get in an arms race with the drug lords, except for those on the take to maintain HUGE illegal profits!

Here we are again! The use of 'progressive' as a synonym for 'leftwing' thought. 'Progressive' is now the new 'gay'...

This is old stuff to Reformers. Manning proposed a Triple E Senate - Elected, Equal and Effective. He noted that in virtually every other parliamentary style democracy they had a "Commons" or lower house based on "rep by population" and an upper house or "Senate" based on regions. Take the Americans, for example. Their Congress is roughly based on population but their Senate gives exactly the same number of senators to tiny Rhode Island as they give to California. This is to give a check and balance situation to their government. The "tyranny of the majority" is offset by the power of the little members in the Upper House. The situation is similar in all the British based democracies, from Australia to Britain herself. Only here in Canada do we have a system where the Upper House is next to useless, except as a reward to party bagmen. Trudeau was so disgusted with the way the Senate worked he appointed his chauffeur just to prove the point! I hear so many voices talking about Senate Reform that assume it would have to give more seats to Ontario or Quebec because of their greater population. These folks should go back to school - grade school! There is absolutely no point in having two houses both based on population.

When you're talking leftwing, Orwell has EVERYTHING to do with it! We had to read both "Animal Farm" and "1984" in high school. Today my daughters have never heard of them! Somebody got their way...

I don't think democracy is served by assigning seats only according to the number of warm bodies within them. The idea is to represent areas and groups, is it not? A Toronto riding may have far more people but if they all live in a similar part of town they likely have similar values and needs. One MP can represent them. In many if not most areas of the country if you wanted a riding to have a similar number of people it would have to be HUGE! Like many northern Ontario or prairie ridings. Such ridings would have areas from cities, farmland and "mountain men". How could one MP possibly properly represent all such voters? He would end up cosying with all the city folks and leaving all the rural voters to go hang, because of their numbers at election time. Come to think of it, isn't that the problem today?

Lemme see if I understand. You posit a new definition of a word, one that up till now has not been supported by the dictionary, like when 'gay' was co-opted by by the homosexual movement. Not surprisingly, some folks are confused. They perfectly understand the meaning of word as defined for centuries. They have trouble understanding how YOU are suddenly defining it! In effect "progressive" applying to only leftwing or politically correct thought is simply a new generation of slang. How do you respond? With insults, slamming folks for not sharing your views. Talk about ad hominem. Look in the dictionary under the word and you'll see a small mirror! This is another reason why I have little time for many on the left. I can't get past the arrogance! Too me your words are in the same tone as I read on some of those ultra-right "Bubba" boards. Different politics, same attitude and lack of manners.

'Fraid not! Miller is a socialist mayor and as such is congenitally incapable of speaking in anything but demands of other levels of government to fix his problems. We Ontario citizens who do not live on his Toronto planet apparently are here to pay tribute to the feds, so that they in turn can funnel the money back to David. Apparently this is to compensate them for providing all the cultural venues like Buddies in Bad Times Theatre that are available to us plebes, who never go to Toronto and would never attend anyway. Westerners often don't realize that they way they often feel towards Ontario is actually the way the rest of Ontario feels toward Toronto, for similar reasons. Toronto has enough seats to offer to get politicians to kiss it's butt. The rest of us resent it but there's nothing we can do about it. That's probably why we have what's referred to as the "905 vs. 416 split", which really refers to how a party can win Toronto or win the rest of the province but could never win both.

The long gun registry was never demanded by cities and those who live in cities were never asked their opinion anyway. The Liberals just did it! You may be confused by mistaking Toronto and Montreal for cities. Toronto is not a city. It is a strange planet peopled by aliens that have absolutely nothing in culture or values in common with the rest of Ontario, Canada or the rest of Earth, for that matter. Montreal of course, is French! <gallic, expressive shrug>

Ah, because I agreed with you? Actually, once you get to know me you'll find that I'm not really a conservative but more a classic liberal. Since the Liberal party of today has little or nothing in common with the dictionary definition of liberalism I can't support them. I could vote Libertarian but that would be a totally ineffective waste of time. So I vote Tory. Not a close match for me but better than the big government, statist Liberals. I can't vote for the left 'cuz I've got too much of a Utilitarian streak. I'm a techie by trade and a strong cause and effect type of guy. I find the NDP to be long on wishes and short on practical ideas. Like Jack Layton's suggestion to talk with the Taliban! At the time he made it, it was kinda hard to talk with someone who's shooting at you! I would have expected him to have known this from the start and dealt with it in his initial proposal. He seemed blissfully unaware! To me they seem worse than Rush Limbaugh in crying for "the way things OUGHT to be!". Here in Ontario the provincial party actually stated a year or two ago that their definition of rich was anyone making over $65k a year! Maybe in Canmore that's a living wage but not in most parts of Ontario. I'm willing to grant your point that some provincial NDP governments are more practical. However, I've never seen a federal NDP government so I've never been "shown", as it were. Meanwhile, while Taliban Jack seems like a nice guy when I listen to his words to be frank he strikes me as someone who couldn't put a new plug on a lamp! I've always had more faith in engineers to fix practical problems and Jack strikes me as the quintessential "artsie". Someone who might advise you on the most eco-friendly colour for a new bridge but the LAST person you'd trust to design a cost-effective one that you would cross in confidence. Anyhow, that's just me. I have no idea if I'm part of a large enough demographic to matter to the politicians. I DO know that the whole idea of Prohibition is a mere photo-op at best and a hellacious waste of taxmoney at worst! That's why I made my comment. I'm objective enough to know that while I have to vote for the Tories 'cuz to me they smell the least, on some issues they're either playing to their choir or just too "Ned Flanders" to have a practical grasp on the situation. "Ned" might play to the Christian conservatives but he'll cost them dearly here in Ontario. Big city folks demand real results for their taxes.

After a lifetime of listening to NDP loopiness and having survived Bob Rae I should just change my mind and vote for them, because YOU tell me they're now ok? Sorry. I don't want any swamp land in Florida either. I've been stung so many times by politicians over the years that I've been turned into a Missourian - I won't believe them until they SHOW me!

On this one I'd agree. Prohibition only keeps the illegal profits skyhigh. This is so inherently obvious that you have to question the sincerity of those who still support it. Or their intelligence. Or maybe they are just so naive they think that the war on drugs actually accomplishes more than a piss in the wind. Plays well at election time to the Lawrence Welk set, I guess. Meanwhile, it's historical fact that during Prohibition booze lords like Capone paid big bribes to politicians to keep Prohibition from being repealed, in order to protect their incomes. This is such a logical thing to happen in such a situation that I've come to get very suspicious of what may be happening with our politicians today! It's distressing but given the absurdity and futility of their Prohibition tactics the idea that they are being bribed fits just a bit too easily...

That may be what you think you're asking but that would not be the result. I'll spell it out for you, slowly! We all vote NDP. They liberalize drugs. They blow every time of our tax dollars in stupid programs run by people with big hearts but no brains. Every business leaves the country, taking all our jobs. We all have no money left, even for drugs. If you think that your one pet issue is the only thing that would be affected then you deserve whatever happens to you every day of your life!

Which specific people? If you had another Muslim woman who found the first's beliefs oppressive, should she be denied those freedoms? Do you define "will of the people" as "winner take all"? In other words, if the second woman did not want to be veiled, wanted an education and perhaps even a driver's licence she should either shut up and don the burkha or accept being stoned to death?

I've never quite bought in to the villification of Mike Harris. He came into politics like a breath of fresh air. He inherited the party mostly because no one else wanted it, it being so far down in the dumps. The red and blue factions had fought for years to control the party and for most of those years it was the pink Tories running the show. He offered himself as not just a real conservative but a politician who intended to keep his word. To everyone's surprise he eventually achieved two hefty majorities. Of course, the left was horrified and refused to believe that Harris got his majorities 'cuz his views were so popular. Everything had to be skewed to paint Harris as a villain. After some of the Walkerton water scandal talk had died down the media almost made it seem like Harris had FORCED Mr. Cable to poison the water! Harris retires and Eves steps in. Right from the start of the campaign it was obvious his advisers were telling him to "fight for the middle". The pink Tories were back in power. Of course, they lost! Eves lost and John Tory lost. Badly. To hear the folks on the left tell it, it was because both Eves and John Tory were still too much like Harris! This made no sense at all to me. Voters already had leftwing candidates. They were running under the Liberal and NDP banners. Effectively, all of Harris' true supporters had been denied a choice. Judging by the numbers, a lot of them chose to stay home. I say again, Michael. Politics is driven by popular perceptions. You can have perfectly valid reasons for a given approach but if it's not accepted it doesn't matter. People are ALWAYS dissatisfied with their usual choices! Look at Trudeau, Mulroney and Harris, who achieved stunning success and majorities. They didn't get that success by "fighting for the middle". They presented themselves as different from the usual bunch. You could also make the argument that Mulroney's fall from grace happened when the people lost faith in him and decided his uniqueness had been a canard for their votes and not sincere. Now the CPC seems so concerned with not appearing "scary" that they don't look all that different from the others, at least at times. The dominant colour is beige, beige, beige... I keep coming back to the idea of inspiration, I guess. Without inspiration people tend to stick with the status quo. The CPC approach has obviously been successful in the west and some parts of Ontario. It needs something more to achieve more Ontario seats. I dunno, maybe beige is the right colour for Ontario as well. After the votes are counted, we'll see. A little late then to change tactics, however.

You should look at things less like an academic, Jerry. The common Joe in Ontario doesn't get up each morning and say to himself: "Gee! Isn't it great that we dominate Canada! It's so nice to be in such a lofty position! I'm so glad that we are more equal than the other partners!" No, if the truth be told the common Joe never thinks about such things at all! He thinks about trying to hold on to his job through layoff after layoff, closure after closure. If he thinks about his place in Canada at all he might think about how a big hunk of his taxes have gone to other provinces in the form of equalization payments. It doesn't matter how fairly or how intelligently his taxes were spent. That's in the hands of the federal government and not in his control. All he knows is that he's left with less for himself and his family. A good percentage of these Joes are too young to remember how Trudeau screwed the West with the NEP. In their lifetime they've only seen the West become prosperous with oil money. That colours their perception. We can argue like political history junkies all we want Jerry but that was never my point. You'd likely find that I agree with you on virtually everything in that area. After all, I was one of the very first Ontario members in the Reform Party, card issued 10/06/91. What IS my point is how the Tories should be working to gain even more seats in Ontario next election! This is not going to happen if the perception is that a western based Tory party regards Ontario's troubles as their "just desserts" for all those years of western alienation. I'm sincerely worried that the Tories are going to LOSE ground if they don't step it up a notch! If the Tory party achieves a majority there's a chance that some of those buried Reform planks, like a triple E senate, might be resurrected. I'm not totally confident Harper's party would do it but it's the only hope we have. There's much more chance of getting support for such ideas from Ontario if the people there didn't feel like you were scolding them!

Well, here's a link. Actually, it shows that the entire country has experienced income stagnation but that doesn't change the feelings here in Ontario. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/sto...ry/?query=valpy As for Flaherty's measures like transit passes, while valid they're hardly high profile. I'm not saying they don't have value, just that they are about as exciting to the common man as the typical CBC NW documentary about gay rights in native communities north of the Arctic circle. Yeah, I missed the truce. I was in the hospital having a quadruple bypass so I was a bit pre-occupied! I'm catching up as fast as I can. Thank heavens for Mike Duffy! True, we're not in an election but we're definitely in pre-election mode. The writ could be dropped at any time and it would be a bit late then to start trying to increase a party's appeal. These months are a golden opportunity to try to increase Tory attractiveness to the voters. I'm just saying if there is anything happening it sure seems low key. As for Jim Flaherty, John Baird and Diane Finley, that's a mixed bag. Jim still has a good rep in southwestern Ontario and the 605 belt. Not likely to be any help at all in making 416 inroads. John Baird seems to be a good man but not that well known. The type of guy you call reliable and punctual. Low on charisma but strong on character. Poor Diane is damaged goods after Caledonia, I'm afraid. I'll bet a shot of The Glenlivet she won't retain her seat. Pity, for it's not really her fault but the depth of despair and frustration from her constituents over the native protest is just too much for her to overcome. McGuinty bears the brunt of their anger but the feds are regarded as having done nothing but watch McGuinty squirm, at the town's expense. As for the Tories holding the majority of the seats outside of the GTA, I would wager it would be easier to try to pick up seats from what's left than from the GTA. Harris? Hard to argue that there's a man who understands the mood of the Ontario voter, after his successes. The question is, is Harper listening to him? It's all supposition at this point, Michael. The election will prove or disprove your views, the Tory views or my views. It's just that I really DON'T WANT to be able to say I told you so!

Measures? Don't really know offhand, Michael! Fortunately for me, it's not my problem. I'm not the one looking for more seats! I disagree totally that Ontario folks will become more resentful merely because we're no longer "number one." The average joe couldn't care less! He's concerned with his immediate problems and chooses his vote according to who he feels would help him or hurt him. I submit that it would be westerners and Newfs who care about provincial ranking. That's something you feel when you are comfortable enough to afford to consider it. No, the Ontario voter cares about keeping his job! A raise has been out of the question for years! Stats came out last week that showed the average middle class worker's adjusted wages have stayed stagnant for the last 25 years. Except for those I know who work in the public sector, this would agree with what I've observed. That fall fiscal update better not be as esoteric as most of Flaherty's measures, Michael! That plays well on Bay Street but shoots over the head of the average man. The Liberals have always been good at implying quick fixes, even when they were lying. I'm not suggesting the Tories should lie but they would do well at providing some inspiration! That is the essence of leadership and in Ontario so far I've seen precious little signs of it from this government. Too little Manning with his folksy explanations and too much Ross Perot with his boxes and boxes of flip charts! As I've stated often before, the Tories need to do far more than just put McGuinty down. We have a few more years of job losses before we'll have the chance to toss him out and even then, what has that got to do with which federal party would be the most positive choice for the Ontario voter? It's true that the provincial government has the most power to affect the Ontario economy but that's not the issue. It's vital if the Tories want to pick up more seats that not only do they highlight the provincial Liberal failings but that they also appear to be agents of positive change themselves! If they can't do enough within the purview of their own power THEN AND ONLY THEN should the tactic be to show McGuinty as the one who's blocking the road! Besides, someone should remind Jim Flaherty that his opponent is NOT McGuinty anyway! It's Dion! We've been hearing election talk for months and yet a political news junkie like myself has sensed less action on the ground here in Ontario by the Tory Party than one would have seen in Quebec from the fractured and impoverished, understaffed party of Dion! Where is Harper's Ontario lieutenant? Where are the efforts to raise awareness down on the street? A full war chest and and army of volunteers is no guarantee of winning elections. Votes are ALL that count! It was not that long ago in my own riding I watched a young man named Mark Morrow win for the NDP and Bob Rae. I swear Mark ran with $50 in his pocket and only his mother banging on doors but that was all he needed. There was a wave happening and he rode into office upon it! There was a sense that the incumbent Liberals had gotten arrogant and many people wanted a minority government to "teach 'em a bit of a lesson". Unfortunately, too many people had the same idea. I was struck by how many people had expressed that thought to me before election day and flatly refused to admit it after they were horrified by the result! Maybe downtown Toronto is an insurmountable challenge for the Tories but the rest of the province has been swept before and could be again. Harris did it by providing a clear voting alternative. Eves lost it by fighting for the middle of the road. John Tory blew it by listening to young Turks who were in diapers when Davis instituted funding for the Catholic school system and then skedaddled out of town. That decision had never really been popularly approved, just accepted as a fait accompli. Just who are the PM's war room advisers, Michael? Lawyers, rich executives and academics only? If they want to make gains in Ontario I think they desperately need an Ontario version of Ralph Klein to provide input. No disrespect to the man but a Chuck Cadman type might give a more accurate read than a Tony Clemente. I've had dinner with Tony and find him a likeable fellow but if I'm going to reach the maximum number of people I'd go with a Chuck-type to tour a few blues bars...

I hope your attitude is not typical of the Tory caucus, Michael. I was a salesman for years and one thing you learn early if you hope to be successful is that you should never take your customers for granted. Yes, Dion is a "nob"! Yes, the Tories are going to run a much more successful campaign with more money and an obviously more competent leader. That doesn't mean that people will vote Tory because they like them! It only means that Dion and his crew smell worse! Harper already has been tarred as arrogant in the public eye. It doesn't matter if the perception is deserved. It's there and you have to consider it as a factor. A smart pool player knows he should do more than just sink the shot. He should also try to leave himself in good shape for the NEXT shot! If people vote Tory only because the Liberals are so bad this time around and the Tories have given the impression they're taking the support for granted it could cause a backfire NEXT election! After all, Dion will certainly be gone. The next opponent is likely to be FAR more formidable! I realize that politics rarely attracts rocket scientists but SOMEBODY should think beyond only the immediate next move on the chessboard! Perhaps that's one of the reasons why the Liberals have been the Natural Governing Party...