...especially about their chances in Quebec.
Sure, they've been doing not-bad in polls in Quebec recently. But they're already faltering, losing ground to the resurgent Conservatives in that province, as in the rest of the country.
Now, while I usually find the Toronto Star to be little more than a convenient puppy housebreaking aid, I'd recommend y'all pay attention to the astute Chantal Hebert's analysis of Michael Ignatieff's and the Liberals' electoral prospects vis-a-vis Quebec. Over the years, I've found Chantal Hebert to be a solid, serious, impartial, unbiased analyst-commentator from the Quebec perspective, so I'd listen to her if I were y'all.
I believe that the polling in Quebec over recent months ought to be taken with a grain of salt. After all, the polls there, much like the polls in a number of other provinces, especially B.C. and Ontario, tend to move a lot for little or no apparent reason. The electorate in such provinces tends to be rather apt to change its mind big-time just like that, though big-time shifts for parties on election day, I've found, isn't something to be expected despite the constantly wildly fluctuating inter-election polls.
After all, the electorate's attention isn't easy to attract, and most folks will tend to be of the "ah, whatever" attitude and will say they support either this party or that party according to their mood on a given day, and their mood obviously changes significantly over time and can also shift big-time just like that.
Much has been uttered by pundits and talking heads about the Conservatives supposedly having fallen out of favor with Quebec voters, but, really, there's no reason to believe this to be true. What happened in the last election to prevent any advancement beyond the Tories' 10 seats in the province is that Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe successfully demonized the Conservatives, including smearing Catholic Conservatives as some kind of freaks to be feared. The Big Media helped Duceppe with his demonization, aiding and abetting his campaign of phobia and religious bigotry, manipulating the electorate into voting more for the Bloc and the Liberals, so the Conservatives this time have the opportunity to strike back in their defence should the intolerant Duceppe try this Saul-Alinsky-esque radical tactic again. I expect the Tories to swiftly and loudly counter any such tactic, "fight-the-smears"-style, and to pre-empt it by warning Quebeckers that their opponents will definitely attempt to use such nasty, hateful, divisive tactics again, and that they shouldn't be misled into a state of irrational fear by those hard-leftwing hatemongers.
If I was Michael Ignatieff, I'd spend time reforming the Liberal Party into an organization with a constitution, principles and policies acceptable to and reflecting Mainstream Canadiana. The Liberals are still the Party of ADSCAM. They're still full of hateful extremists who have too much influence on the leadership and on policy. All of this must be radically changed. But there's no reason to believe that they've been doing any changing, and no reason to believe that they have any intention of doing so in the future, so we can continue to credibly call them the Party of ADSCAM, the Party of Anti-Americanism, the Party of the Far Left, the Party of the Destruction of Traditional Marriage, the Party of Appeasement of Islamic Supremacism, the Party of Brainless Obama Worship, etc., etc...
Oh, and if I were Iggy, I'd also show Warren "Attack Clown" Kinsella the door. As long as Kinsella is the Liberals' top propaganda guy, they can never claim to be "taking the high road" or "running a clean campaign, eschewing personal-demonization attacks". After all, Kinsella's whole raison d'etre is to smear, to demonize, to spread hatred and contempt against all with whom he disagrees, pulling out of his dirty-tricks bag whatever infantile tool he can grab hold of. It's all the immature old twit knows, after all.
So Iggy wants an election pronto? No problem. Let him force it. Let him learn the hard way that delusion and denial do not a Prime Minister make.
ht: NNW
