Boogeyman Jack

The scary soshalust hordes are already inspiring the media to write some resoundingly stupid stories about bond trader vigilantes.
Here's Andrew Steele in the Globe and Mail: Will Layton raise your mortgage payments?
No.

Silver lining to the Orange Crush

Ekos calls it a JackQuake.

Evidence suggests that the NDP vote is actually firming up and they continue to hold a sizable advantage on second choice. They may not have reached the ceiling of this JackQuake which is shaking the country.

The silver lining to the Orange Crush is that the Conservatives are dropping almost as fast as the Liberals.
Maybe its a reflection of the kind of cynicism that Steve V was talking about the other day, "a plague on both their houses" kind of reaction to the Conservatives and the Liberals.
But maybe we're also seeing a change in the way politics is done in Canada, a change that says, Hey, I'm going to try something new.
I'm going to vote for the guy I like. A guy who says he won't stop until the job is done:


Well, maybe that's not really so new after all.

Sanity test

Anyone who takes Donald Trump seriously as a candidate for President of the United States is certifiably nuts.

Whose strategy now?

Well, seems like Canadians are actually listening to Ignatieff's message about voting strategically to get rid of Harper.
Of course, its not exactly working out the way we imagined it would. But still...

That popping sound

Boom goes the EKOS poll dynamite:

Graves said the figures could conceivably bring the NDP, led by Jack Layton, more than 100 seats in Parliament. The poll indicates that Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservatives could win around 130 seats.
But that's not a majority in Parliament, raising the prospect that the NDP could form a coalition with the Liberals and Layton could become the party's first prime minister.

That popping sound you hear is a million Conservative wingnut heads exploding.

"Who do you trust to govern the country?"

Ignatieff asks "who do you trust to govern the country?" Its the basic question of any democracy.
Iggy has spent this campaign connecting with Canadians, but the polls are not giving him much encouragement. I'm hoping events like this will help turn that tide.


Halifax

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Montreal


Toronto

Voting strategically at Project Democracy

I just added the Project Democracy widget to the sidebar. They list some key contests for strategic voting:

• Beauport--Limoilou
  
Liberals and Greens should vote NDP
• Madawaska--Restigouche
NDP and Green should vote Liberal
• Ottawa--Orléans
NDP and Green should vote Liberal
• Sault Ste. Marie
Liberals and Greens should vote NDP
• Vancouver Island North
Liberals and Greens should vote NDP
• West Vancouver--Sunshine Coast--Sea to Sky Country
NDP and Green should vote Liberal
• Saskatoon--Rosetown--Biggar
Liberals and Greens should vote NDP

In Prairie Dog magazine, Paul Dechene uses Project Democracy charts to summarize some other key Regina ridings.

Can Ignatieff get out the vote?

With NDP support a mile wide but an inch deep, the question for Liberals this weekend at the advance polls and next Monday will be, can they get their vote out?
Liberals stayed home in droves in 2008 rather than vote for Dion, leading to one of the lowest turnout elections ever. Liberal campaign co-chair David Smith talks about Liberal campaign volunteers working to get the Liberal vote out:

"They know it's a battle, they know it's a challenge, and they know we are behind to the Tories, but they are pumped and we'll go all out right to the end"

How stupid do they think we are?

Saskatoon MP Brad Trost has let another cat out of the bag about the Conservative decision to pander to its pro-life base by cutting off funding to Planned Parenthood.
Now all the Conservative powers-that-be are perishing the thought.

William Stairs, chief of staff in Oda’s ministerial office said in an email to the Star late Wednesday that despite Trost’s claim, no decision has yet been made on Planned Parenthood’s application because CIDA is “still reviewing the file.” . . .
Conservative officials called an urgent news conference with reporters at 1:30 a.m. in Newfoundland to distance the party from Trost’s controversial comments. Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s spokesman, Dimitri Soudas, referred to Trost as a “backbencher” and said he was mistaken to say a decision had been made . . . “I honestly don’t know where he got his information,” Soudas said.

Oh, really? But we've heard from Trost before and he did seem to know what he was talking about then.
Fool me once....

Campaign photos

Yellowknife


Victoria


Vancouver


Edmonton


Regina


Sudbury

Rise up

Steve V is exactly right -- carting Martin and Chretien along on the Liberal campaign now is pointless and actually counterproductive to the message that Iggy is the new leader.
The Rise Up line was terrific.
What the Liberals need now is a new series of "my vision of Canada" ads, to build momentum.

What have they been smoking?

Tonight I heard the At Issue panel on CBC News suggesting that Jack Layton could come second in the election.
Seriously.
Now, Jack is a nice fellow, and the press will always like him because there's no way he's ever going to be in charge of their careers. But still -- why would Chantal Hebert and Andrew Coyne think that the party supported by fewer than one in five Canadians is somehow going to elect more MPs than the party supported by one in three Canadians, the Liberals?
What have those two been smoking?

Gazebo in the middle of nowhere

Remember the bridge to nowhere in Alaska, the earmark that finally triggered America's gag reflex about pork barrel government spending?
Well, now Canada has the $100,000 gazebo in the middle of nowhere -- just one of the Muskoka projects built with G8 money that Parliament had apparently thought was going to be used to improve border crossings.
The Globe and Mail has posted a blistering editorial thundering that the AG report into the G8 expenditures "must be released, immediately."
But actually, it doesn't matter anymore what the final report says -- now that we know that at least some of the auditors in Fraser's office thought the Harper Conservatives were using the G8 as an excuse for unaccountable, old-boys-club pork barrel spending, any mealymouthed exoneration in the final version will be seen for the whitewash it is.
The Toronto Star editorial doesn't even bother asking for the final version of the report:

The much-ridiculed ersatz Muskoka lake the Conservatives commissioned for the G20 in Toronto wasn’t the only example of spending like “drunken sailors,” to quote Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff. Clement’s constituents also got $1.1 million for trees and sidewalk upgrades 100 km away from the Huntsville site. Another $745,000 for civic amenities in towns nearly 70 km away. $274,000 for public toilets 20 km away. And a $100,000 gazebo an hour’s drive away. What any of this had to do with the summits is anyone’s guess.
That’s the problem for the Conservatives. We may not see the final version of Fraser’s report before the vote, but what we already know is bad enough: A party now trying to wrap itself in the mantle of fiscal rectitude threw millions around for dubious political reasons.

Great line of the day

Montreal Simon predicts the way the Harper Conservatives will try to "correct" the Auditor Generals G8/G20 funding report:

You had a choice, sir

Just in time for Tuesday's debate, we find out that the Serious Responsible Protectors of the Taxpayer's Purse -- the Harper Conservatives -- secretly hiked the pay of their political staff and improved their severance pay provisions.
Nice work if you can get it, I guess.