Dippers, Grits and Tories*

Election Time!

I was going to write something about our retarded First Past Teh Post bullshit system and Proportional Representation and such. Stuff about 40% majorities and snarky comments like "if PR governments are so unstable, explain why we are going to the polls for the fifth time since 2000."

But with the new polls showing Team Orange stomping teh crap out of teh Liberals I've decided to shelve that rant and instead talk about what might be an actually interesting election.

Polls are showing that Jack Layton has a good shot at Leader of the Opposition. Some are even indicating a potential for a NDP-Liberal coalition, in which case we would be looking at Prime Minister Layton. This is a pretty big deal - it would mark the first ever non-Grit or Tory PM. Closest thing before was Meighen back in WWI winning with a Liberal splinter group (a sort of Blue Dog-Gang of n type thing).

And numbers from opinion polling for Canuckian federal elections tended to be in the neighbourhood of +/- 1% in 2006 and 2008**. Still FPTP in Canada with 4 parties at 10% or more - it does some crazy shit to number of seats won despite share of popular vote. Makes teh Electoral College look downright fair and democratic. Not to mention that Canada doesn't have a one-person-one-vote thing and rural voters often have twice as much voting power as anyone else not in Quebec.

Okay, so a couple of points. Firstly, I don't think Layton could do a worse job as PM than Harper has so far - but it ain't gonna happen. Unless the major vote splitting that occurs is that a lotta Conservative voters vote Liberal to keep Layton from becoming Leader of the Opposition and it backfires giving the NDP the plurality of seats - because there is no way that even a dying Liberal party will sign on to be second fiddle in a coalition government.

Secondly - a dying Liberal party really does make things much more interesting here in the Great White North. One of the things that has kept the NDP from gaining seats is that strategic vote-splitting group that see the Liberals as the only alternative to Canada's own Talibangelicals. But if the NDP manages to grab more seats then the primary reason to vote Liberal is gone. No longer will the Red be the logical alternative to the Blue. This changes the electoral map considerably and the reinventing/rebuilding of "Canada's Natural Governing Party" will have to be pretty darned substantial. Popcorn-a-licious-ness!

But that's for further down the road. What of the upcoming session - the one that we're voting on tomorrow? That all depends on whether Harper ekes out his 155th seat. If he does then it'll be dark times ahead. The Conservative Party doesn't give two shits about it's members, and rightly so. The guy they're running in Lethbridge has decided not to give any interviews or participate in any debates. All he does is go around knocking on doors because he is an absolute disaster of a candidate and can't be trusted in front of media. And he will still most likely hold the riding. There will be no questioning of the harper regime and party discipline will be cultishly strict. At least on the moderate end. A lot of the party discipline problems Harper's had is from the far right whackaloons that he's tried to keep reined in to improve his appeal to the mainstream - but with half a decade of majority rule, he won't have to worry as much. So yeah, Conservative majority would be seriously bad shit for Canada - so bad that I'm not going to contemplate it any further.

Here's my prediction then. Conservatives 140, NDP 80, Liberals 60, Bloc 25, Green 2, Independent 1. This is all hoping for strong voter turnout - a return to the 65% neighbourhood it should be in. Also, that the strong turnout is primarily a result of NDP momentum. We'll see tomorrow.

Post election, Iggy steps down - Bob Rae becomes the new Liberal leader. Harper pivots further to the right and portrays his party as the last bulwark against SOCIALISM! Then tries to re-pivot in two years when a looming confidence vote creeps ever nearer and he realizes that non-Albertan Canadians don't respond to SOCIALISM! the way he expects them to. Hilarity ensues.

Anyways - that is a helluva lotta rambling and blathering just to get my seat predictions in, but there's my guess for what tomorrow holds.

* To balance out teh NDP news for McGravitas, Post Title is from a Moxy Fruvous song. Here's an amateur cover version.

** Seriously. I guess Canadians don't lie to pollsters. Here's 2006 and 2008.