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Jan. 23rd, 2006 02:22 pmWell, that was the vote I never wanted to make.
About a month ago, I spoke of our election being the same song all over again, like a dozen drunken Karaoke verions of 'Sweet Caroline'. However, half way through the warbling chorus, someone kicked the leads out of the mic and cranked up some 'Sweet Home Alabama' instead.
Well, the Liberals managed to run a completely inept campaign, against a much more steamlined and controled Conservative one. Harper, for the first time, kept his mouth shut about the worst of his views and stayed on message. That's going to pay off big time. As well, not only could the Liberals not stay on message, but they managed to find yet another scandel to occupy the holiday conversations over Christmas.
There are three rules to winning elections, and for the most part, they are based around message control and organization. The first is to stay on message. Your leader goes into a debate with his talking points in hand, so an hour after the debate, every party candidate is out to reinforce that message. The 'who won the debate' nonsense really doesn't sink in until a couple of days later, and if the local candidates can keep on the message they heard in the debate, they can solidify support. Martin decided to toss out a couple of new initiatives during the debate, leaving his party scrambling to figure out how to adapt it on the fly. Amateur stuff.
Second is feet on the street. An election is won district by district. That means you need to have your people out in all the tiny shithole rural clusters and side streets. You need to canvas, follow up, analyse, and then canvas again, until you're able to identify the make up and concern of each area. The Big Red Machine, the supposedly unbeatable Liberal engine, has barely been turned on this election. Even in my riding, which is a strong Liberal one, I've recieved one flyer from Sam Bulte, the Liberal candidate. Meanwhile, the NDP's Peggy Nash has been through here like a plague of locusts, and has turned this safe riding into a dog fight between red and orange (our Conservative candidate is a retarded monkey with a shellacked wife, and the best man, Rick Unpronouncablelastnameski of the Green Party is the best suited of the lot, and he doesn't have a hope in hell).
Last is issue control. In war, the person who controls the choice of terrain and the circumstances of battle is commonly the victor. Same in politics. The Liberals lost an early chance to flank the Conservatives, instead trying to siphon votes out of the left prior to Christmas. In turn, the Conservatives just kept hammering the weakest points of the Liberal Party (culture of corruption anyone?) so when the news of yet another investigation came up, it was like crank to a street fighter; energy and no pain. The Liberals needed to defuse the corruption aspect early, and they had a shot. The fact is that the Gomery inquiry exonerated the Martin government. They could have tied the Conservatives up with charges of misrepresentation ("If you need to lie about us, what else are you lying to Canadian about, Mr Harper?") and come back over with the social safety net and business growth. Liberal votes needed to come out of the soft Conservative support, not the bloody NDP's 17%. The Red Tory legacy should have been a no brainer for Paul Martin to pick up. He's a rightest Liberal who got credit for balancing the damn budget. Slap a blue button on him and he could have been out of John Roberts' cabinet. Instead, they try and softpedal the corruption in stages and give Harper the room to shift centre and solidify his base.
So, instead of a ten seat loss for the Liberals and some hard years in rebuilding ethics depth back, we have likely a thirty seat Conservative swing. Luckily for Martin, Harper's made some slips this week, right in the middle of the most vicious of the negative Liberal ad blitz, and instead of the Conservatives running away with the independent break, it's narrowed down to 7%. That means favoured Conservative races are now back to statistical ties, and slightly breaking Conservatives races are now slightly breaking Liberal in Ontario. Rural and southwestern Ontario will be the big pickups for the Conservative Party. BC and Ontario can tighten things up, depending on today's movement.
So, personal bet? Lib: 95, Con: 126, PQ: 60, NDP: 27 if things remain stable. If there's a momenteum break today, you could see upwards of thirty Liberal seats going to the other three and a couple of Independents.
About a month ago, I spoke of our election being the same song all over again, like a dozen drunken Karaoke verions of 'Sweet Caroline'. However, half way through the warbling chorus, someone kicked the leads out of the mic and cranked up some 'Sweet Home Alabama' instead.
Well, the Liberals managed to run a completely inept campaign, against a much more steamlined and controled Conservative one. Harper, for the first time, kept his mouth shut about the worst of his views and stayed on message. That's going to pay off big time. As well, not only could the Liberals not stay on message, but they managed to find yet another scandel to occupy the holiday conversations over Christmas.
There are three rules to winning elections, and for the most part, they are based around message control and organization. The first is to stay on message. Your leader goes into a debate with his talking points in hand, so an hour after the debate, every party candidate is out to reinforce that message. The 'who won the debate' nonsense really doesn't sink in until a couple of days later, and if the local candidates can keep on the message they heard in the debate, they can solidify support. Martin decided to toss out a couple of new initiatives during the debate, leaving his party scrambling to figure out how to adapt it on the fly. Amateur stuff.
Second is feet on the street. An election is won district by district. That means you need to have your people out in all the tiny shithole rural clusters and side streets. You need to canvas, follow up, analyse, and then canvas again, until you're able to identify the make up and concern of each area. The Big Red Machine, the supposedly unbeatable Liberal engine, has barely been turned on this election. Even in my riding, which is a strong Liberal one, I've recieved one flyer from Sam Bulte, the Liberal candidate. Meanwhile, the NDP's Peggy Nash has been through here like a plague of locusts, and has turned this safe riding into a dog fight between red and orange (our Conservative candidate is a retarded monkey with a shellacked wife, and the best man, Rick Unpronouncablelastnameski of the Green Party is the best suited of the lot, and he doesn't have a hope in hell).
Last is issue control. In war, the person who controls the choice of terrain and the circumstances of battle is commonly the victor. Same in politics. The Liberals lost an early chance to flank the Conservatives, instead trying to siphon votes out of the left prior to Christmas. In turn, the Conservatives just kept hammering the weakest points of the Liberal Party (culture of corruption anyone?) so when the news of yet another investigation came up, it was like crank to a street fighter; energy and no pain. The Liberals needed to defuse the corruption aspect early, and they had a shot. The fact is that the Gomery inquiry exonerated the Martin government. They could have tied the Conservatives up with charges of misrepresentation ("If you need to lie about us, what else are you lying to Canadian about, Mr Harper?") and come back over with the social safety net and business growth. Liberal votes needed to come out of the soft Conservative support, not the bloody NDP's 17%. The Red Tory legacy should have been a no brainer for Paul Martin to pick up. He's a rightest Liberal who got credit for balancing the damn budget. Slap a blue button on him and he could have been out of John Roberts' cabinet. Instead, they try and softpedal the corruption in stages and give Harper the room to shift centre and solidify his base.
So, instead of a ten seat loss for the Liberals and some hard years in rebuilding ethics depth back, we have likely a thirty seat Conservative swing. Luckily for Martin, Harper's made some slips this week, right in the middle of the most vicious of the negative Liberal ad blitz, and instead of the Conservatives running away with the independent break, it's narrowed down to 7%. That means favoured Conservative races are now back to statistical ties, and slightly breaking Conservatives races are now slightly breaking Liberal in Ontario. Rural and southwestern Ontario will be the big pickups for the Conservative Party. BC and Ontario can tighten things up, depending on today's movement.
So, personal bet? Lib: 95, Con: 126, PQ: 60, NDP: 27 if things remain stable. If there's a momenteum break today, you could see upwards of thirty Liberal seats going to the other three and a couple of Independents.
