Plotting the death of the Liberal beast?
He's playing chess my friends... playing chess indeed.
In my opinion, it's the only sort of electoral reform that will work in this country, and will allow for coalition governments of various stripes, which will allow Canadians voices to be better heard in Ottawa, and better reflected in the House of Commons.
Who knows... it may even allow the NDP (or it's lefist sucessor) to one day form Government.
h/t to Warren
A former chief of staff to Harper suggests there's more to this seemingly self-evident, benign response than meets the eye.I've long said that Canada won't be able to reach it's full potential until the Liberal Party of Canada is either ripped appart, or is forced into realignment. Once that occurs, there will be a realignment within all the other parties as well, potentially carving them up into three main players, each with more or less equaul support levels, along with two or three other smaller parties who will hold the balance of power in a minority situation.
Tom Flanagan, a political scientist at the University of Calgary, believes Harper would be satisfied to return with a strengthened minority -- a result that would throw the Liberals into chaos, thereby advancing the prime minister's longterm strategy of destroying Canada's so-called natural governing party.
"I don't think Harper has to be thinking about a majority at all," Flanagan said in an interview.
"Strategically, this is sort of a prolonged war of attrition."
As Flanagan sees it, the first major battle in this incremental war occurred in 2004, when Harper managed to reduce Paul Martin's Liberals to a minority. In the second clash in 2006, Harper won his own Conservative minority.
The third skirmish, which Harper appears set to launch next week, likely won't kill what Flanagan jokingly refers to as "the evil empire." But, if the Tories can win a few more seats at the Liberals' expense -- an outcome Flanagan considers realistic given Harper's superior campaign skills and the Tories' fatter war chest -- he predicted that would be enough to throw the Grits into a longterm tailspin that could eventually lead to their demise.
"You can fight a war with some objective less than total victory," he said of the coming campaign.
In my opinion, it's the only sort of electoral reform that will work in this country, and will allow for coalition governments of various stripes, which will allow Canadians voices to be better heard in Ottawa, and better reflected in the House of Commons.
Who knows... it may even allow the NDP (or it's lefist sucessor) to one day form Government.
h/t to Warren
Labels: Liberalism
5 Comments:
At Thu Aug 28, 02:15:00 PM EDT,
Roy Eappen said…
Professor Flanagan has been saying this for some time. The grits are virtually broke. They took out a $2million loan at 9% last year. This election would come before their quarterly installment of elctoral wlefare. Almost all the funds raised recently has gone off to pay off leadership debt.
Unless they find more adscam loot. the libranos are in a real pickle.
At Thu Aug 28, 02:33:00 PM EDT,
MichaelCC said…
If everything goes well there could be a conservative majority government, they polled close to it for some time during the 2006 election. As I said in my post on the possible outcomes of a fall election, if the NDP remoulded itself into a populist protest vote party, they could inflict serious damage on the Liberals.
At Thu Aug 28, 05:19:00 PM EDT,
Don said…
Everyone here seems to be talking "election!".
However, I've just read something over on Bourque ( http://www.bourque.org/ ) that scared me.
Is it possible for Dion to become PM without holding an election???
Yes.
If Harper asks the GC to dissolve parliament and call an election, the GC doesn't have to do as requested. She (a Liberal appointee) could ask Dion if he could line up enough votes to form a governing party.
There, now everyone can be as scared as I am! *grin*
At Thu Aug 28, 06:40:00 PM EDT,
Alan said…
Oh yeah, I totally agree. Harper is not calling an election because he can't govern. He's calling it as part of this long conspiracy war against the Liberals. This isn't about the Canadian people, it's all about HIM.
Go ahead, prove me wrong!
At Fri Aug 29, 05:33:00 PM EDT,
Don said…
Alan, the sooner we have an election the better. Harper with a majority, right on! And the Li(e)berals... I imagine they'll be declaring bankruptcy pretty soon. Unless they still have a few million tucked away in undeclared brown paper bags...
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