Watching the election: Assessing Liberal Party Losses

On Monday night/Tuesday morning, I watched the Canadian Federal election, covered as it was non-stop on CBC Newsworld. I was assessing Liberal Party losses. I watched history unfold; how the NDP’s Jack Layton will occupy Stornaway as the leader of the opposition; how the Liberals are in third place, at about the level of Ed Broadbent in his mediocre days; or how the BQ is wiped off the map but for one candidate (which under our rules robs them of official party status, effectively wiping them off the map). As Chantal Hebert said on CBC, we are witnessing the “Social Creditization” of the Bloc Quebequois. All of this is historic (except for the part about the PC victory).

And, didn’t Osama bin Laden die earlier that Monday or something? Oh, whatever.

The “Orange wave” was impressive. I was listening to a CBC reporter take one NDP campaign organizer to task for the idea that the NDP split the vote. They did, too. In riding after riding, we were shown how the Conservatives won a riding where there was an even battle for second place between the NDP and Liberals.

The debate went in circles, and frankly, the organizer should have borrowed the line from Ralph Nader’s book: Screw the Liberal Party. Igantieff’s loss is Igantieff’s fault. Ignatieff seemed to work with diligence to make absolutely sure to ignore every one of Harper’s gaffes, or to under-react to Harper’s attempts to subvert parliamentary protocol as he had done several times in the past 3 years; and to not react to attack ads attacking his ethnicity, all while Harper canvassed the “very ethnic” ridings of Toronto picking up Conservative converts in traditional Liberal ridings. It takes a disciplined mind to miss stuff like that. You really have to work very hard to not see the Republicn-style double dealing that is inherent in attacking ethnicity on the one hand and courting it with the other, whenever it suits you. You can’t blame the Conservative’s publicity machine for this; the fault lies squarely on Liberal turf.

It satisfies my pet political theory that the two best things to happen to the Conservatives are: Stephane Dion, and Michael Ignatieff after him. They helped Harper attain power for the longest-running minority government on record, followed by handing him a majority.

Visits: 80