Swifter and fiercer than most imagined, the knives are truly coming out for Stéphane Dion since his announced back-room deal with Elizabeth May.Here, here, and here.
But it’s not the only reason Liberals are turning on Dion.
There have been the 16 MPs who have announced they won’t be running, including the incredible departure of Belinda Stronach.
Liberals are panicking over meek candidate recruitment (what does it say when “Jodie” from “Today’s Special” is considered a star candidate?)
Liberals are falling far behind the other parties in fund raising.
Dion’s personal polling numbers have dramatically tumbled to Stockwell Day levels.
And less tangible, there is also the sense that the people around Dion - who long-time Liberal Ray Heard calls "control freaks"- aren’t up to the task.
But Dion’s ridiculous and inexplicable deal with a party that has no seats has become the flash point for Liberals.
Where this goes next is anyone’s guess. Recent history has shown that Liberals do internal wars better than anything else. It is now established fact that Paul Martin’s “Board” dispatched Chretien and his acolytes over 11 years with brutal efficiency compared to how they governed and ran elections.
While the Herle-Reid instincts take over and the Liberal Party becomes a font of anonymous comment, secretive backstabbing and internal leaks, the NDP is the only party with a leader Canadians actually like and its guns facing outward -- actually in a position to take on Harper.
4 comments:
The Greens are at 10-14% in the popularity polls and almost matching that of the NDP. Yes yes, the NDP will say that the Green vote will drop during an election while the NDP will rise, slightly.
Nevertheless, Canadians are showing a decided preference to vote Green, and many are leaving the NDP and going towards the Greens. The NDP believes that the Green vote will come back to the NDP, but will it?
By cuckolding May, Dion has laid claim to the Green vote, ALL of the Green vote come the next election. Have no doubt that May will suddenly decide, on the eve of an election, that all those who want to vote Green should vote Liberal because that is the only way Green environmental policies will be achieved. May herself will also suddenly join the Liberal party "after much anguished thought".
If Dion can win over the Green vote, and then convince the strategic voting Dippers to massively vote Liberal to "Stop Harper" from getting a majority government at all cost, that will utterly destroy the NDP.
The only way the NDP can survive this Dion-May onslaught is to pass the Harper Clean Air Act adjusted for NDP changes, and then viciously attack Dion and May in the next election. If Layton attacks Harper that will push back the vote to the Liberals and Greens, and the big loser will be the NDP.
Meanwhile Harper is decimating the federal Liberals in Quebec by dragging them into the Paille Inquiry that will cast Martin into the same hole as Chretien ... both crooks and both from Quebec.
A Harper majority government with a NDP official opposition would drastically change the Canadian political landscape and pave the way for an eventual NDP government in Ottawa, something that many in the NDP do not want because they are single issue neoDeviates and only use the NDP for their lifestyle protection.
Thanks for the comment.
Let's just say, to borrow from Mr Twain, the rumours of the Greens polling at 10 to 14% have been greatly exagerated.
The most accurate pollster in the last election was SES and they have never pegged the Greens higher than 7% nationaly. Their latest (http://www.sesresearch.com/library/polls/POLNAT-S07-T229.pdf) has them at 6%.
The notion that the Greens are an electoral threat to the NDP in more than a few ridings is media invention, as most of the Green support is upset Liberals.
Dion was able to convince Liberals into making him leader by making a big play on the environment. This pitch didn't wash on Canadians who know too well the Liberal record on the environment. Now he needs help on his green flank.
The optics of these two leaders cooking up a backroom deal to tell Canadians how to vote is turning a lot of people off Dion and on to the NDP.
I suppose the big question is whether May can deliver a portion of the Green vote to the Liberals. When Dion advertises May, the foremost environmental politician in Canada, urging Canadians to vote Liberal if they (a) love the environment and the planet, and (b) hate Harper and his Conservatives, many who intended to vote Green will swing over to the Liberals.
Together with the strategic voting quisling Dippers, that can amount to a 10% swing in the total popular vote. Besides what has Dion got to lose considering where he is in the polls nowadays.
Canadian voters do suffer from a Lemming Syndrome 48 hours before it's time to vote, and the issue of the moment will overwhelm any doctrinaire sentiments. Nevertheless, I see the Dion-May axis being very effective against a Harper-Layton entente cordiale.
Of course, we could see the current Parliament being extended, and watch Dion AND May twist in the wind as the Liberal party crumbles, with the Ignatieff Liberals pressing for a leadership review if not a leadership abdication. Dion does need an election fast to squelch dissent in the ranks of the Liberal Beast.
Anonymous said: "Nevertheless, I see the Dion-May axis being very effective against a Harper-Layton entente cordiale."
Two things wrong with that:
1) The Dion-May axis is unready under so much seige internally that it may not last. It certainly won't survive the scrutiny of the campaign.
2) Harper-Layton entente cordiale?? Hardly. Ignatieff? Is that you? Jack Layton held Harper's feet to the fire over the Clean Air Act, and got a better bill as a result. It's like saying you and the cop who pulled you over for reckless driving are in kahots. Give it a rest.
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