Molly

Aye. They didn't 'merge'; they 'sub-merged'... and ceased to exist. It was impossible to exise the progressive from the conservative, and still have progressive conservative.

Damn straight.

A merger would just necessitate the creation of yet another new party, so that a party of the centre-- one that is fiscally conservative and socially progressive-- exists.

(I_ don't_ wanna..) Okay, so make it 78 just to make the math come a litle closer to working.

That's why I'm not even going to try on this one. Rural Ontario stays Tory blue, but beyond that, it's as good as guessing jellybeans in a jar. In a few selected places, though: I do predict Goodale keeps his seat, AND that two more Sask seats will go NDP. I'm guessing Ms. May will become a parliamentarian, and no one will be more surprised by that than she.... and overall, the polls won't hold up for the NDP. I said it someplace else, but it looks like ABC to me, Vote numbers will be a lot higher than usual, Tory vote numbers will change almost not at all, but whoever is the best bet to beat them will get all of the increase and half the votes that the other parties would expect. It will be ugly for the LPC, but nothing like as bad as everyone is predicting. The votes they keep will be focussed in winnable ridings. And it will be very uncomfortable for the Conservatives. Their seat count will fall tooooooooo.... 136.

..Or another berserkly right-wing party emerges to collect up the wing-nuts, leaving the Conservatives to be nicely centrist conservative, with a soupcon of 'progressive' for spice. Edit: Sadly, I fear it'll take a generation to get there. Some terrible people have to finish their careers and move on.

'Plausible deniability' would be out of the question.

I don't believe that vote split, will be as bad as Conservatives insist, either. I'm reading the NDP surge as ABC.

0 Liberals in Saskatchewan isn't going to happen either. No matter how fine he has cut it from time-to-time, predicting Goodale to lose is a bad bet.

It has been a political truism that the bigger the change folks are about to make, the less they want to talk about it. Beware, oh beware the silent election. Even the folks who have been talking this time, have not been talking about issues that matter. Ab-so-lutely anything could be in the mill.

Why? You reap what you sow, after all.

My Dad said, "If all you learn is what's in those books, you'll be wasting your time." He was right. The stuff in the books is the very least of it.

One of the things that will make this an interesting day, too, is to see how many folks would claim to vote NDP to the pollsters, but sober up a little once standing in the polling booth. (Not wanting to rain on the parade, boys, but I just don't buy it. I figure the tsunami alarms foretell a signifigant splash of cold water certainly, but not a recontouring of parliament Hill.)

This is an astute and an important observation. (I'm glad not to be alone in thinking it.):

I'll call it 72, and guess that I'm being generous. They'll be #2 in sooooo many seats.

Sleazy politics, or just sleazy journalism... who knows? There has been no comment made about the whole disgusting mess, though, that has more of the ring of truth about it than, "Fantino's behind it."

I grok that. I found it a substantial challenge to find much difference between Roy Romanow and Mike Harris.

This last-second begging and scare-mongering makes me think of that Greatest Canadian thing of a few years ago... Tommy Douglas camde in first, of course, follwed by Terry Fox- and Pierre Trudeau was number three. Now, I didn`t agree with the outcome of that, but if Trudeau came up number 3, there were obviously quite a few Canadians who figured he didn`t co too badly. (With douglas as the greatest, they didn`t seem to mind those awful socialists, either.)

Let there be no doubt: a CPC majority is a whole lot more frightening than an NDP government. Social dinosaurs with an inclination to profligate spending? That`s the worst of all worlds.

Oh, good grief! Blue Liberals vote Liberal because they can`t stomach CPC sleaze! One complexity of economics you clearly haven`t grasped is that Harper GovernmentTM has been reaping credit for economic policies that preceeded him, and/or were forced upon him. His own legacy is billions of dollars of largely unnecessary debt. Yes, indeedy, We cannot go on a sky-high spending binge without us - the taxpayers - ending up picking the tab!

It is certainly people who do not 'stand on guard for thee'. I see quite a direct link between that non-voter apathy and an abject failure to grasp the rudiments of governance... that is to say, when/if the (apathetic) really do need to make a difference they: might not even recognize the need; and if they do, haven`t got a clue how to then go about it.

Good song.

And who 'one' is-- whether 'one' should have 'one's' opinion considered at all, unless 'one' is directly involved in the situation...

More like a vote against the CPC, at any cost. That's what it looks like here, in any case.