Come Monday night, Peter Mansbridge will be telling me how I will feel for ohhhh, about the next two years. The most dreadful words he could say, of course, are Conservative Majority. That's when I do what I can to hit the lottery and move out of this country, one that has lost its way in casting its lot with the worst possible man to lead the nation.
Or ... we might have another Conservative-led minority with the same clown in place. But not for too long. While long on hubris, even HE couldn't stick around after failing to win a majority for three elections in a row. Politics, the Game, doesn't permit losers like that to hang around unless they are lovable losers. And nobody, upon nobody, who isn't a dyed-in-the-wool conservative beyond all intelligent analysis finds him lovable. Good at what he does, which isn't good for the country. But competently nasty.
Or ... we could have a surprise orange surge to the actual prime minister's office by Jack Layton. Amongst the three, he's obviously the man most of Canada would want in the chair. He's CANADIAN, not parochially connected to one region above all others (I'm talking to you Prairies and your support for the local lad from hell). He's also a politician and promises the moon and he won't be able to deliver. Do I have to repeat, ad nauseum, the fact that politicians lie? But you definitely get the feeling he will give it a good try, as adverse the current chief politician of Canada. Frankly, the NDP turn here in Ontario was horrible and I'd no more like an NDP majority than a Conservative one. Welllll, that's not completely true. But it would only be slightly better. Still, if you can't like Jack, you're not Canadian. See, I can demonize non-believers just as well as Harper's Junta.
Or ... we could could be in the crosshairs of a short-lived Conservative minority that might almost immediately have to give way to the oft-threatened left-oriented coalition. 'Course, I'm REALLY interested in seeing if Gilles Duceppe can get in bed with Jack Layton, given the thumping the NDP is handing the Bloc Quebecois in La Belle Province. Wouldn't surprise me at all if Duceppe props up Harper for awhile. But only for awhile. Reprehensible is, after all, reprehensible. And Harper will fall. To what kind of coalition?
And before I cogitate on that, let me point out two flaws in the Conservative bleat about coalitions. Are not the Conservatives a coalition of the old Progressive Conservatives (an almost fondly remembered group that espoused conservative views without viewing themselves above the law) and the regionally-oriented wackos, the Canadian Action Party? Plus, it was the Conservatives and the NDP that pulled the "Plurality doesn't mean Majority" non-confidence vote in the minority Liberal government of the time. Harper is so #*($#*$U two-faced I have a tough time figuring out why people think he ever doesn't lie. Plus, the Conservatives have NOT gotten support from the majority of Canadians in any election this century. And for Harper to proclaim that letting the MAJORITY of %$W)(*%WAY)$ Canadians get the government of THEIR (representative's) choice is somehow anti-democratic only serves to show how completely and utterly mentally bankrupt he and his backers are. Now back to the new coalition.
The problem with the boogie-man coalition threat that Harper has been selling for months is that he's right. Most Canadians haven't taken a liking to Michael Ignatieff. And that's despite a pretty good turn on The Rick Mercer Report. He's smarter than most people in the room, and Canadians (and Americans it seems) have a tough time with that. He's pleasant, but not neighbourly. His dunkirking of Stephane Dion and exiling (until this past week) of the little guy from Shawinigan, Jean Chretien, doesn't help. He took the shots from Harper's swiftboaters for too long and let those rabid right-wingers define him to the Canadian public. He's never strongly enough defended himself or attacked the integrity (it is supposed to exist) of the man who's been okaying these attack ads even before elections were called (law, what law?). It's time to trot out a Trudeau and get started on The Liberals: The Next Generation. The reds need a new team with modern sensibilities, fewer flaws and a willingness to get in and get dirty with the folks who have imported dirty American political tactics wholesale.
Which brings us back to why the left coalition CAN and WILL work this time around. Jack Layton will be in the hot seat. And with a little tempering from their Liberal partners and, a bit too much, in all probability, kowtowing towards Quebec, the left minority will lead until the Conservatives and whoever is leading them in the years ahead, can con Duceppe into pulling the plug. Two years? At a guess. I can dream about longer. But I don't trust Duceppe, the flow of history or Layton's health for much longer than that.
Please Mr. Mansbridge, make the Day of Change a good one for Canada.
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