Is Ignatieff politically incompetent?

[Bryan]

The numbers don't lie, and despite his bravado; Harper knows exactly what the numbers mean. The Liberals were down by 850,000 votes; but none of that vote loss went to the Conservatives. In fact, they were down themselves by 170,000 votes. This should have been Harper's Majority. One million votes down the drain.

Attack ads are one thing but when you fail to inspire, you cannot claim victory.

143 seats is still a Minority and the parliamentary crisis showed just how worthless they are. The fact that the Conservatives had to turn away from every single principle that a Conservative stands for, just to hang onto power, is proof of that.

Read your own post again. Liberal supporters abandoned Dion. Even those who would never vote CPC, just chose not to vote at all. The ads worked. Harper increased his seat count every time. Liberals opposing him have lost seats every time. Doesn't matter if more vote for you, or less vote for them, more seats is more seats. It works well.

And now that he has tabled the big spending budget, the left is divided again too. Another win. Next fiscal update, we'll see just how tough Iggy is. Remember, he's the one that demanded that those updates be confidence votes, and by that time enough time will have passed that defeat will mean an election no matter what. An election the Liberals cannot afford. Come back and tell me then how strong a leader Iggy is when he backs right down.

[jordan.ray]

Read your own post again. Liberal supporters abandoned Dion. Even those who would never vote CPC, just chose not to vote at all. The ads worked. Harper increased his seat count every time. Liberals opposing him have lost seats every time. Doesn't matter if more vote for you, or less vote for them, more seats is more seats. It works well.

And now that he has tabled the big spending budget, the left is divided again too. Another win. Next fiscal update, we'll see just how tough Iggy is. Remember, he's the one that demanded that those updates be confidence votes, and by that time enough time will have passed that defeat will mean an election no matter what. An election the Liberals cannot afford. Come back and tell me then how strong a leader Iggy is when he backs right down.

There is a difference between a strong leader and a politically savvy leader. What will determine if Ignatieff is savvy is not whether he votes down the next economic update. His savvy will be determined by his ability to read, manufacture and anticipate public opinion on the stimulus and the Harper Government. If the budget does it's job, Ignatieff would be a fool if he called an election on the economy, whether it's in March, June, or September. If the budget doesn't do what the government promised, then his job will be much easier, as he'll have something to campaign on. However a truer test of Ignatieff's instincts will be what he decides to do if the budget stimulus succeeds, leaving the Conservatives with a one up and the Liberals back to square one. In that case the freshly minted leader would have to come up with a new way to bring about political victory.

You are right when you say , "An election the Liberals cannot afford". For now, they quite literally can't afford it. And indeed, if financing doesn't come through soon, you're absolutely correct in saying that Ignatieff will back down. But if the Liberals can regain their fundraising prowess, possibly helped out by the new web technology donated to them from the Obama campaign, and if the budget measures can be spun enough to show that they have failed, I would say that we would be looking at another October election. But those two conditions are necessary for a 'Liberally induced' confidence vote: significant stimulus failure, and Liberal donor generosity. If those Ignatieff can bring about the latter and be lucky in getting the former, then he would be savvy indeed to send Canada to the polls.