The Coalition is Dead in the Water
December 4, 2008 · By Greg Farries
Looking at the recent polling numbers by Ipsos-Reid it is apparent that there is little hope of this coalition lasting till the new session of Parliament in the new year. If they do manage to hold it together and defeat the government in January 2009, I truly doubt the Governor General is going to hand the reigns of government to an unpopular and unconventional coalition:
The Tories also were deemed by almost six in 10 Canadians to be the best managers of the economy in these troubling times.
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Fully 60 per cent of those interviewed said they opposed replacing the government with Liberal-NDP coalition supported by the Bloc Quebecois, compared with 37 per cent who favoured the idea.
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Bricker said the Conservatives’ spike in popularity appears to reflect a backlash against the Liberals and New Democrats whose support slid to 23 per cent and 13 per cent respectively. The Greens had eight per cent support, while the Bloc polled 37 per cent in Quebec.
The campaign for the next election began today and considering the financial state of the Liberals and the fact that they’re effectively leaderless under Dion – it doesn’t look good for them or their coalition bedfellows.
Update: According to Bourque, Ekos: CPC 44, LPC 24, NDP 15, BQ 9, GPC 8
I think you mean after 2 weeks of relentless campaigning, the conservatives will have swayed public opinion enough to get their majority.
Well, these two polls seem to indicate the a majority is probably a reality if the election were held tomorrow.
I’m not sure what you mean by 2 weeks..
Time isn’t something that is on the Liberal’s side.
In my opinion, the best thing they could have done would have been to laid low for the next five months, elect a new leader in April, and then shortly afterwards bring the government down.
Dion is nothing but dead weight – shoving him into the spotlight with Layton yipping in his ear, and the Bloc holding his feet to the fire every chance they could get would be a disaster.
Also consider that dragging the party through a shaky coalition while at the same time trying to elect a new leader has to be one of the dumbest things they could have possibly done.
Maybe he means popular majority? :p
Something like that. There’s a PR blitz going on right now which will impact public opinion.
Harper will not seriously table a new budget. It’s going to be downright ridiculous and we’ll be back at the polls in a couple months. After that, I’m thinking he’ll get his majority… Then again, the bloc vote might be even more significant this time… who knows?
There is a PR blitz going on alright. After all the cross-Canada rallies taking place over the weekend, one newspaper has one teeny article buried on flipping page 17 about one rally in Nova Scotia. Helloooooo? Media? Anybody home? No, I didn’t think so. The media is fast making themselves irrelevant with their extreme bias in favour of the libs and the dippers.
Saying the media is against you etc etc is a pretty weak excuse. It’s all about paying for your spots and the conservatives have the dough.
The problem here, and it’s quite funny is that you actually think there’s no coverage.
Every newspaper in the country has it’s editorials and letters full of ready-made talking points memos. Soon there will also be full page ads, TV comercials with friendly Harper by the fireplace, talking about stability, values and some other non-policy topics while the liberals will be putting out their handy-cam addresses ala Stephane Dion…
By the time it’s over, the conservatives media machine will have programmed enough people win the election comfortably. Enough for a majority? Nope. I used to think so but the anti-french/quebec rhetoric that came out during the coalition formation plays right into the bloc’s hands.
Gotta play nice to win over Quebecers.