Seat Projections

Two things will determine whether the Conservatives end up with a majority. 1) How much of the Liberal vote in the 905 migrates over to the Conservatives? 2) How badly damaged are the Conservatives by Harper’s attack on the arts community and his get dumb when it comes to crime plan in Quebec?

My prediction as of right now.

Canada

Conservatives 151 (+27)
Liberals 75 (-28)
Bloc 45 (-6)
NDP 35 (+6)
Independents 2 (+1)


BC
Conservatives 26 (+9)
NDP 7 (-3)
Liberals 3 (-6)

Alberta

Conservatives 28

Saskatchewan

Conservatives 13 (+1) Liberals 1 (-1)

Manitoba

Conservatives 10 (+2)
NDP 4 (+1)
Liberals (-3)

Ontario

Liberals 39 (-15)
Conservatives 50 (+10)
NDP 17 (+5)

Quebec

Bloc 45 (-6)
Conservatives 14 (+4)
Liberals 13
NDP 2 (+2)
Independents 1

New Brunswick

Liberals 4 (-2)
Conservatives 5 (+2)
NDP 1

Novo Scotia

Liberals 5 (-1)
Conservatives 3
NDP 2
Independents 1 (+1)

PEI

Liberals 4

Newfoundland

Liberals 5 (+1)
NDP 1 (+1)
Conservatives 1 (-2)

NWT

NDP

Yukon

Liberals

Nunavut

Conservatives (+1) (Liberals -1)

Conservatives: seat pick ups

1) Conservatives pick up Newton North Delta from Liberals
2) Conservatives pick up Saint-Boniface from Liberals
3) Conservatives pick up Nunavut from Liberals
4) Conservatives pick up Fredericton from Liberals
5) Conservatives pick up Brant from Liberals
6) Conservatives pick up Huron-Bruce from Liberals
7) Conservatives pick up Richmond from the Liberals
8) Conservatives pick up North Vancouver from the Liberals
9) Conservatives pick up Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca from Liberals
10) Conservatives pick up Newmarket Aurora from Liberals
11) Conservatives pick up West Nova from Liberals
12) Conservatives pick up Madawaska-Restigouche form Liberals
13) Conservatives pick up Mississauga South from Liberals
14) Conservatives pick up Oakville from Liberals
15) Conservatives pick up Winnipeg South Centre from Liberals
16) Conservatives pick up Kenora from Liberals
17) Conservatives pick up London West from Liberals
18) Conservatives pick up Mississauga Erindale from Liberals
19) Conservatives pick up Brampton West form Liberals
20) Conservatives pick up Oak Ridge Markham from Liberals

1) Conservatives pick up West Vancouver from Greens

1) Conservatives pick up Vancouver Island North from NDP
2) Conservatives pick up British Columbia Southern Interior from NDP
3) Conservatives pick up Surrey North from NDP
4) Conservatives pick up New Westminster-Coquitlam from NDP

1) Conservatives pick up Brome-Missisquoi from Bloc
2) Conservatives pick up Gaspésie-Îles-de-la-Madeleine from Bloc
3) Conservatives pick up Haute-Gaspésie-La Mitis-Matane-Matapédia from Bloc
4) Conservatives pick up Montmorency-Charlevoix-Haute-Côte-Nord from Bloc

Liberals: seat pick ups

1) Liberals pick up St John's South Mount Pearl from Conservatives

1) Liberals pick up Parkdale-High Park from NDP

1) Liberals pick up Papineau from the Bloc


NDP: seat pick ups

1) NDP pick up Churchill from Liberals
2) NDP pick up Nickel Belt from Liberals
3) NDP pick up Algoma-Manitoulin Kapuskasing from Liberals
4) NDP pick up Thunder Bay Rainy River from Liberals
5) NDP pick up Sudbury from Liberals

1) NDP pick up Oshawa from Conservatives
2) NDP pick up Thunder Bay Superior North from Conservatives
(Liberal win 2006)
3) NDP pick up Vancouver Kingsway from Conservatives
(Liberal win in 2006, Emerson)
4) NDP pick up St. Johns East from Conservatives

1) NDP pick up Gatineau from the Bloc

Bloc: seat pick ups

1) Bloc pick up Jonquière-Alma from Conservatives

Dion Disaster: Some Hard Truths

For weeks many Liberal bloggers have been clinging to Nanos. However, Nanos has the Conservatives at 40% now and it is time that every Liberal acknowledge some hard truths.

1) The green shift a disaster.

2) Dion is a disaster.

3) The Liberal platform is mix of boring platitudes and policies that have been announced before and have not captured the imagination of the Canadian people.

4) If the Liberals stay the course, they will be wiped off the map. There is likely nothing that could stay off a Conservative majority now, but that is what makes a late hail marry worth it.

5) The Liberal ads suck. The negative ads are not specific enough and the positive ads are a complete waste of money. Go negative and do not let up.

6) If the Liberals hold the Conservatives to minority, they could dump Dion and elect Rae or Ignatieff leader and the party will survive. If the Conservatives take a majority and Rae and Ignatieff pack in, the very future of the Liberal party could be in jeopardy.

MSM and Objectivity

Paul Krugman once quipped that should Bush claim the earth flat the following headline would appear the next day “Shape of the earth: opinions differ”. His point was that a false version of objectivity holds sway over the MSM and this has a profound affect over the quality of news coverage. The media sees it as their job to report how opposing political groupings view an issue all the while withholding judgment on the issue itself. This sometimes gives news coverage an Alice in Wonder Land character. Take the recent controversy about “putting lipstick on a pig”. Rather than simply dealing with what Obama said and the absurdity of characterizing such a comment as a smear directed at Sarah Palin, spin doctors were brought in on both sides to give us their interpretation of what was implied when Obama uttered said comments. We do not need an authority to tell us the meaning of a mundane saying. Call a spade a spade and then show us that spade.

Another problem is that just because one side is able to appeal to legitimate authorities does not mean that the media should seek out some huckster on the other side, in the name of “balance”, and pass him off as being equal in statue and yet this happens all the time. This has allowed the right to assert that there is serious debate when a learned consensus exists. There is no debate about the merits of Darwinian theories of evolution as compared to Intelligent Design. There is no debate about whether climate change is occurring. Learned opinion about Insite is not spilt and learned opinion is not spilt about Harper’s criminal justice plans either.

On Crime: Conservatives say it is uninformed opinion that counts

Anthony Doob, a professor of criminology at the University of Toronto "it looks like some grade school dropout wrote this thing."

Nicholas Bala, a specialist in youth crime at Queen's University in Kingston, "significantly bad social policy."

Neil Boyd, a criminologist at Simon Fraser University "It's really very much a commitment to the American model. In America they have crime rate that's three-and-a-half times higher than ours and they put five times as many people in jail. That doesn't seem to me to be a very workable equation”

Ross Hastings, University of Ottawa criminologist, and co-founder of the Institute for the Prevention of Crime: "This is more of a politics of crime rather than it is a reasoned, evidence-based response to the problem of crime.”

Angela Campbell, who specializes in children and the law at McGill University's law faculty. "hard-line, law-and-order approach that is very simplistic and doesn't look at the social nuances that lead young people to criminal behaviour."

With their get dumb when it comes to crime plan panned by experts, the Conservatives argued that what really counts is what the uninformed where saying.

Jim Bob: The victims of crime should determine the punishment: they are the most objective

Jane Doe Tory: I hope those little #%$$# rot in hell

Grumpy old Guy: When I was young, kids knew their place.

Old guy from the Simpsons: that’s a paddling.

Sarah Palin: 14 year olds are not only enough to consent to sex, get married, drink alcohol, drive, join the army and vote, but if they commit a crime they need to be held to the same standard we would hold a adult to.

Your Average Canadian According to Harper

Liberal Platform

I had hoped for more, but the hopelessly temperamentally conservative Liberal party of Canada gave me what I expected. Dion acts as if Robert Stanfield was a Liberal icon and not Trudeau. The Liberals are not even promising to ban hand guns. I will hold my nose and vote Liberal, but only because in my riding the only two parties with a chance are the Liberals and the Conservatives. If the Liberals loose, and there is no reason to believe that they will win, I will be calling for Dion to be ousted as party leader as soon as the results are in.

Dion needs to go after the God, Gays and Gun crowd

The old adage has it that Canada is socially liberal and fiscally conservative. Dion seems to have forgotten this. He seems to have forgotten that calling someone a social conservative is just a polite way of calling them a moron. In past elections the Liberals have had Stockwell Day, Randy White and Charles Mcvety. This election Dion has not introduced anything that will cause the nuts to break free from their handlers. We social liberals are itching for the opportunity to beat the rhetorical tar out of social cons. Dion needs to give us that opportunity.

Save what you can

Stuff Dion in some room and tell him outside of the debates he is not allowed to talk English again in public. Speaking of the debates, 100% of Dion’s energies should be focused on them. Let Rae and Ignatieff do the talking from now on

Stop wasting money on useless leadership ads. Dion is unsalable. Anyone who thinks otherwise is delusional. The Liberals must go negative. Under no circumstances can Dion be shown in an ad or his voice heard.

The Green shift is unmediated disaster. Stop talking about it.

Promise to ban hand guns. This will help them with urban women.

The election is lost. It is all about keeping Harper in minority territory. On the subject of minority, mention the prospect of a Harper majority at every chance.

Conservatives promised to slay the Surplus

Conservative candidate Cindy Silver: December 8 North Shore Outlook "Continuous federal surpluses are a sign, not of economic health, but of over-taxation.”

Chuck Strahl “Canadians know that the surplus comes from over taxation.”
http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:v_OTC4oJYs8J:www.chuckstrahl.com/view_page.php%3Fid%3D527+stephen+Harper+over-taxation+surplus+&hl=en

Jay Hill “For Conservatives, a surplus is an error known as over-taxation”
http://www.jayhillmp.com/news/weekcol/2004/Nov172004.htm

Conservative candidate Mike Wallace. “Paul Martin has no credibility in fiscal matters - by overtaxing Canadians he has run massive budget surpluses year after year”
http://www.mikewallace.ca/

Conservative candidate Jim Flaherty: “The total federal surplus (over-taxation) was 63 billion during the last eight years.”

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:8svPdM_x0jwJ:jimflaherty.ca/docs/GST.pdf+stephen+harper+surplus+over-taxation+&hl=en


Now where have heard this surplus = over-taxation talking point before? Think think think. Oh yes, it was part of Republican Party platform back in 2000. “Budget surpluses are the result of over-taxation of the American people.” Needless to say, having turned record surpluses into record deficits I think it is safe to say that the Republicans have, indeed, succeeded in slaying the surplus and now the Conservatives are poised to follow suit.

Green Shift is a Unmediated Disaster: Change Course

Call it what you will, the Green shift has been an unmediated political disaster that is now the Liberals cross to bear. That said, the Liberals are not condemned to press with only this policy. They need to change the channel and the only thing that is going to accomplish this is to wide into the cultural wars in a big way. Do not worry about what the hinterlands may think. It is too late to think about winning the election. The best the Liberals can hope for now is hold on to what they have in Canada’s major cities. My personal favorite is promising to legalize marijuana, but this will likely fall on deaf ears. Promising to introduce euthanasia is not nearly as bold but might buy the Liberals a few days grace from the green disaster headlines.

Change Course

The Liberals need to stop putting lipstick on Liberal pigs. The Green shift is abject political failure. They need to focus on other things and not just the Green Shift. They also need to stop making Dion the face of the campaign. They need to emphasize team. Yes this runs counter to usual campaign orthodoxy, but Dion is a clear liability. Every time he speaks the Liberals loose people to boredom or worse. The less he tries to speak English the better for him and the Liberals. Park him in Quebec and tell him to limit himself to French as much as possible. Assign each region a designated spokesperson or spokespersons. Put Rae in BC, Ignatieff in Ontario and Brison in the Maritimes for example. Next, fluffy short on specifics ads about the green shift will not arrest Harper’s march to a majority. The Liberals need to produce hard hitting political ads that are long on specifics.

The hopelessly conservative Liberal party of Canada

The Toronto Star Thomas Walkom is right. http://www.thestar.com/FederalElection/article/495706 The Liberals are entirely undeserving of the name “progressive”. What exactly is progressive about Dion? On paper he is no more progressive than Gordan, right of Attila the Hun, Campbell? Dion punted away the Afghan issue, has been silent on health care, seems to have shelved any plans for early childhood education and has not opened any new fronts on the cultural front. If he wants to inject any kind excitment into his campaign, he best throw us a bone or two.

Green Bore: ZZZZZ

What the Liberals need to do, other than getting Rae and Ignatieff to take some of the load off Dion, is they need to revamp their Green Shift talking points – or better yet switch the subject to something else, but alas that is just not going to happen. Anyway, saying that you want to tax more of what we do not want and tax less of what we want more of is fine as far as it goes, but one can not fill 5 minutes of speech mindlessly outlining such a “simple” plan. The biggest strike against the Green shift is not that the Conservatives have managed to paint it as a tax grab and they have been partly successful in that regard. No the biggest strike against the Green Shift is that it bores people to tears and they find its self appointed salesman hopelessly dull.

How to avoid a full on Dion disaster

Go negative in a big way.

run ads painting Harper as a mean spirited bully and promote viral internet ads doing the same

Attack Harper’s economic record repeatedly

Promote something other than the Green Shift. There is no evidence whatsoever that the Liberals own the environment or that environment is the issue.

Goad social conservatives into a major fight by promising to introduce something that really pisses them off

Promise to ban hand guns again

Get Rae and Ignatieff out in front of the cameras. Dion’s English has improved, but not enough.

Sask. and Alberta are lost causes --- forget about them.