Canada's coup d'etat: Opposition parties join to overthrow gov't (Part 2)

[Asher]

Which country are you guys talking about? Holy ****, are the never enough American pol threads....seriusly

[notyoueither]

I think you need Sun Tzu to begin to understand Harper.

[Asher]

I was referring to the other critters discussing the unrelated **** prior to your post

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by notyoueither
I've been thinking just that exactly.

Have you read anything that indicates a significant shift?

What your article said.

It's going to be a Liberal sweep.

People are bored with elections, and traditionally, low participation hurts the PQ.

As a sidenote, the likeliness of Charest being the next federal Conservative leader is on the rise.

[Victor Galis]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Are there better English language papers in Montreal?

They're the main English daily.

Actually now that you mention it, I did hear something else. I got an e-mail inviting me to try to join a Lib get out the vote effort in Mercier. E-mail claims that Quebec Solidaire will split the separatist vote and the riding is within reach. Not sure how accurate it is, but if so...

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
As a sidenote, the likeliness of Charest being the next federal Conservative leader is on the rise.

According to the Quebec caucus...

However, funny I've been thinking similar thoughts.

You think he'll leave power to jump back to the feds and have to cope with those nasty federal Liberals again?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
What federal deadline? Do you mean the deadline to send their electors to Washington or something, which they would be in danger of missing because of recounts etc.?

Yes.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Are there better English language papers in Montreal?

http://www.montrealgazette.com/opinion/real+Quebec+election+campaign+lasted+only+days/1040415/story.html

The real Quebec election campaign lasted only 7 days

Since the leaders' debate, the federal battle has diverted public attention

By DON MACPHERSONDecember 6, 2008

From beginning to end, it was a cynical election campaign that Jean Charest fought.

The pretext on which he called the election was a lie. Charest said he feared his Liberal minority government would be defeated. But his opposition would have been in no shape to fight an election in the foreseeable future.

Then, after claiming that the economic "tempest" would be so terrible it could be navigated only with a single, firm, pair of hands on the wheel, he proceeded to make campaign promises like a drunken sailor with somebody else's credit card.

His Liberal Party estimated the total cost of its campaign promises over the next five years at $1.5 billion - not counting another $1.6 billion to be paid for with political Monopoly money. That is, it would go directly to the public debt without passing through the budget and creating a deficit.

The Liberals promised a mountain - literally. To the hotly contested electoral battleground of Quebec City, they promised a sports-facilities plan that would include building up ski runs at the nearby Le Massif centre so it would qualify for World Cup competitions.

And they counted on the electorate being so campaign-fatigued that it would be resigned to trusting Charest with a majority just so he would leave it alone for the next four years.

And it appears as though cynicism has worked.

The final pre-election polls, including the one by Léger Marketing for The Gazette and other media, suggest that a Liberal score of 80 seats, out of 125 in the National Assembly, is not out of reach. That would be the most for any party since the Liberals took 92 in 1989.

Indeed, the polls might have underestimated the final Liberal lead, if they further demoralize already wavering Parti Québécois and Action démocratique sympathizers.

In some ridings, notably Mercier in central Montreal, some sovereignists now might turn to the small left-wing party, Québec solidaire.

"A victorious army first wins and then seeks battle," Sun Tzu wrote in The Art of War, the ancient Chinese classic on military strategy that Charest has said he consults.

And "those who know when to fight and when not to fight are victorious."

The great advantage of Quebec's parliamentary system for the incumbent head of government is that it allows him to seek battle when he believes he has already won.

And that's the real reason Charest called the election when he did.

The most reliable political indicator in the polls outside of actual election campaigns is the government's satisfaction rating. If it is positive - that is, if there are more voters satisfied with the government than dissatisfied - then the government can expect to be re-elected.

And on Nov. 5 when Charest called Monday's election, his government's satisfaction rating in the polls had been positive for at least seven months.

Also by then, support for the ADQ had collapsed, disproving the theory that its breakthrough last year signalled a permanent realignment of Quebec politics.

Political scientists such as Éric Bélanger of McGill University and Richard Nadeau of the Université de Montréal say that for every vote the ADQ took from the PQ, it took two from the Liberals. Also, ADQ voters were closer in their characteristics and attitudes to Liberals than Péquistes.

So when the ADQ lost the accommodation issue and Mario Dumont proved to be a disappointment as opposition leader, most of the ADQ's support reverted to the Liberals.

In fact, Liberal strategists worried throughout the campaign that the ADQ would lose too much support, so that the PQ would start to gain as well.

Charest also received more than one unintended gift from Stephen Harper.

First the Conservatives' cuts to cultural programs gave Charest an opportunity to strengthen his appeal as a defender of Quebec's interests and identity, to soft nationalists who had supported the ADQ.

Then the crisis in Ottawa both underscored Charest's argument for political stability and distracted voters' attention just when the PQ and the ADQ needed it most, to try to catch up to the Liberals.

The campaign will have had the voters' undivided attention only from the leaders' debate on Nov. 25 until voting day on Monday, interrupted for a week by the Ottawa crisis.

So in all, the real campaign lasted less than seven days. And by then, probably all that remained to be decided was the size of the Liberal majority.

dmacpher@ thegazette.canwest.com

© Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette

I like them. They are easy to quote.

And the column quotes Sun Tzu.

They're the only important English newspaper in Montreal. The important French ones are Le Devoir, La Presse and the Journal de Montreal (my maternal grandfather's favourite....equivalent of the NY Post)

[Asher]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
As a sidenote, the likeliness of Charest being the next federal Conservative leader is on the rise.

Again OB displays he knows nothing of what the world is like beyond Quebec's borders.

[KrazyHorse]

Why, does ROC think little of Charest?

He's actually a pretty decent guy.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by notyoueither
I think you need Sun Tzu to begin to understand Harper.

I don't think he's as bright as you're giving him credit for, unfortunately.

He's probably the smartest of the major party leaders, but that's not saying much.

[Asher]

You're surely aware what the West thinks of Frenchmen.

Add in the fact he was the lead of the Quebec Liberal Party and Canada has a better chance of electing Stephane Dion for the next 50 years as PM than we do having Charest win a Tory leadership...

[KrazyHorse]

Dude, Quebec Liberal dne Liberal everywhere else. In QC Liberal = non-separatist

[KrazyHorse]

AFAIK Jean's done nothing as Premier which would really piss off the West.

And he's perfectly bilingual, unlike Dion. His English might actually be better than his French (note that his French is better than mine so it's difficult to judge).

[Asher]

There's just no chance of it for what I'd hope to be rather obvious reasons. Especially given recent events, the West feels the Conservative party is the one which represents their views in government. Part of the reason the West was so livid with this recent turn of events was because of the renewed feeling that the rest of Canada was teaming up to yet again make the West meaningless when it comes to policy and voice.

With that in mind, how could you ever see a Quebecois representing those voices of the West? How could you ever see the Tory delegates saying "this is the man to represent us in the West?"

Won't ever happen. For the forseeable future, a Tory leader will come from the West. Because the leaders of all of the other parties come from the East.