Vertigo
-You know you’re in campaign mode when innocuous comments by a communications director and critique from…Bono, become big news. It’s kind of funny, if you think about it. Paul Wells recently posted a link to the “Making History” speech and I remember the buzz at the leadership convention was of whether or not Paul could crack the 200 seat plateau, whether or not we’d win 9 Alberta seats, whether or not he’d be PM for 10 years. Looking bad, Bono’s comment that “About a year from now he’s going to regret tonight” was probably the only prediction that came to fruition.
-For anyone who missed it, Friday’s broooooooaaaaaadcast of Politics featured back to back interviews with Paul Martin and Stephen Harper. I must say that Martin looked a lot better there than on the 2004 Mad as Hell Tour. He didn’t look that desperate and seemed about 5 years younger than on Thursday night (but, I only say that because he seemed about 80 during that broadcast). He gave fairly credible answers when Don Newman sent some really hard hitting questions his way. Harper seemed defensive but he did make the valid point about Paul Martin’s offer amounting to a “10 month campaign”.
-This talk of an NDP coalition is very interesting. I would have never in a million years thought a government would completely re-write its budget two months after the fact but with the kind of desperation we’ve seen lately, you never know. And why wouldn’t the Liberals want to give the NDP whatever they want? It would push back the election and tell NDP voters who are considering voting Liberal that their own leader approves of Paul Martin. This is a very dangerous game Jack Layton is playing.
It also raises the very fun to speculate about numbers game. Mike Brock points out the obvious fact that commentators everywhere seem to be missing – there are two sick Conservative MPs. That means 151 Bloc/Con votes and 151 Lib/NDP votes. Which means the fate of the house rests with the three independents. Chuck Cadman has said he won’t bring down the government and David Kilgour has said he might. Everyone assumes Carolyn Parrish will vote with the Liberals since her political career and political paycheck both come to an end when this House dies. That means the Liberals would survive…or would they?
What if Cadman is too sick to make a vote? What if the Tories manage to fly in their two MPs? What if Carolyn Parrish is vindictive and sees this as her chance to be the person who ends Paul Martin’s political career? We might very well be heading towards one of the most exciting votes in the history of the Canadian Parliament.
-Courtesy of “Trudeau’s Children” comes this hilarious picture. Gallows humour seems to be spreading across the Liberal land, eh?