The Home Stretch

The election has entered it's final stretch, with seven days of campaigning left. The game has started to change. With the economy melting down around the ears of Canadians (witness the TSX being down as much as 1100 points this morning, and closing down 570-odd), Steve Harper finally blinked and admitted something was wrong. But he didn't take the opportunity to unveil his magical vanishing platform, instead he tried to turn a mea culpa moment into another opportunity to rail against the Liberal carbon tax plan. Too late, Steveo. Canadians are (finally!) tuning in to this election, and they don't like what they see.

Much as I have ranted against a focus on polls in this election, this is a moment in which I think looking to them is justified. Every poll reporting over the last two days (generally three day rolling polls) is showing the CPC below the level of support achieved in 2006, with Harris/Decima showing them as low as 32%. Nanos shows the CPC at 34%, the LPC at 29%, the NDP at 20%, the BQ at 11% and the Greens at 6%. The Conservative message is obviously falling flat on its face. Canadians are not an inherently conservative group of people. We support government intervention in the economy and, to blatantly steal Stephane Dion's good line, Harper's laissez-faire, I don't care attitude isn't going to cut it (of course the Liberal economic plan is pretty laissez-faire too. Dion's economic plan seems to involve meeting with bankers and capitalists so they can tell him what to do. You know, SOP for the Liberal Party of Canada). You can smell the stink of desperation coming of the planned release of the CPC platform tomorrow. They never intended to release it until they got hammered over their lack of a platform in both debates.

Harper will still, probably win this campaign, but any chance for a majority has gone right out the window. Given the poll numbers in Ontario and especially Quebec, the CPC will be lucky to net a gain of ten seats overall this election. After this, the knives may come out for our Robot Emperor.

Oh, and in my neck of the woods, Jack Layton was in town for a rally. Fantastic energy, and probably about 500 people out. Yelling, screaming, all revved up. Jack gave a great speech, and showed why he is the best one to lead this country. As the signs they were handing out said, "United with Layton" "We Will Beat Harper".

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 105