Harper and The Conservatives Win Week One of Elexmas 2006
Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party have all the mojo in the early stages of the Canadian election campaign. The Conservative campaign ploy of rolling out policy proposal early in the morning, has the opposition on the defensive and reactionary and has Harper looking confident all around. The boldest early campaign move was the Conservative promise to cut the GST by 2% within the next 5 years. This idea was poo pooed by most economists, but seems to have garnered a fair amount of support by the voting public.
Paul Martin for his part seemed to have been taking aback by this idea, his reaction to it was a mumbly stumbly press conference, where he simply promoted his plan to cut income taxes for the middle class. When asked if Canada could afford a GST cut, he deflected the question and returned to his talking point of how it makes more sense to cut personal income taxes for the middle class. Martin and the Liberal never recovered from the GST low blow from the Conservatives, and didn't even campaign on Saturday.... can anyone say emergency strategy secession.
Jack Layton and his Dippers came out of the box swinging, first they stood up for the beleagered auto industry in Ontario, with an automobile industry recovery proposal, long on ideas, but a little stetchy on economics. They then later in the week threw some strong words at the Bush Admin regarding the softwood lumber debacle, saying that unless the US honor the decisions of the international and even North American court decisions regarding tariffs, and pay back all the money they owe Canada, then we have no other choice then to slap our own tariffs on Canadain oil sold to the States...... big words, yes, right approach, I am not sure. I would hate to agree with the Conservative's but why help one industry at the expense of another. What is killing the dippers now and for the forseeable future is the defeatest attitude promoted by the likes of Buzz Hargrove, which would like to see Canadians vote Liberal where the NDP is weak, with soul prupose of insuring a Liberal minority, with the hope that the NDP have the balance of power. The outcome of the election may mirror what Hargrove is promoting, but if the NDP ever want to be anything other then a 3rd party, they have to campaign like a party the believes it can govern, if they continue to run with the mantra of fear of anyone but the Conservatives, they will be nothing more then the looney left lackey cousins of the Liberals, and may as well fold or try and unite the left.
Finally for the Bloc well what can you say, the whole team Quebec thing was the only thing that made any waves outside Quebec. Duceppe has it easy all he has to do is kiss a few babies, and maybe try to promote the Bloc to some Allophones in Montreal. The Bloc is a sure bet in Quebec, it is just a matter of how large their sweep might be.
So there you have it, I expect that the Liberals might come out swinging early next week... the mud might be slung a bit as well. They are gonna have to do something cuz right now they are having their ass served to them on a platter, by all the parties, and Christ the Bloc isn't even trying.
Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party have all the mojo in the early stages of the Canadian election campaign. The Conservative campaign ploy of rolling out policy proposal early in the morning, has the opposition on the defensive and reactionary and has Harper looking confident all around. The boldest early campaign move was the Conservative promise to cut the GST by 2% within the next 5 years. This idea was poo pooed by most economists, but seems to have garnered a fair amount of support by the voting public.
Paul Martin for his part seemed to have been taking aback by this idea, his reaction to it was a mumbly stumbly press conference, where he simply promoted his plan to cut income taxes for the middle class. When asked if Canada could afford a GST cut, he deflected the question and returned to his talking point of how it makes more sense to cut personal income taxes for the middle class. Martin and the Liberal never recovered from the GST low blow from the Conservatives, and didn't even campaign on Saturday.... can anyone say emergency strategy secession.
Jack Layton and his Dippers came out of the box swinging, first they stood up for the beleagered auto industry in Ontario, with an automobile industry recovery proposal, long on ideas, but a little stetchy on economics. They then later in the week threw some strong words at the Bush Admin regarding the softwood lumber debacle, saying that unless the US honor the decisions of the international and even North American court decisions regarding tariffs, and pay back all the money they owe Canada, then we have no other choice then to slap our own tariffs on Canadain oil sold to the States...... big words, yes, right approach, I am not sure. I would hate to agree with the Conservative's but why help one industry at the expense of another. What is killing the dippers now and for the forseeable future is the defeatest attitude promoted by the likes of Buzz Hargrove, which would like to see Canadians vote Liberal where the NDP is weak, with soul prupose of insuring a Liberal minority, with the hope that the NDP have the balance of power. The outcome of the election may mirror what Hargrove is promoting, but if the NDP ever want to be anything other then a 3rd party, they have to campaign like a party the believes it can govern, if they continue to run with the mantra of fear of anyone but the Conservatives, they will be nothing more then the looney left lackey cousins of the Liberals, and may as well fold or try and unite the left.
Finally for the Bloc well what can you say, the whole team Quebec thing was the only thing that made any waves outside Quebec. Duceppe has it easy all he has to do is kiss a few babies, and maybe try to promote the Bloc to some Allophones in Montreal. The Bloc is a sure bet in Quebec, it is just a matter of how large their sweep might be.
So there you have it, I expect that the Liberals might come out swinging early next week... the mud might be slung a bit as well. They are gonna have to do something cuz right now they are having their ass served to them on a platter, by all the parties, and Christ the Bloc isn't even trying.
posted by Joseph at 3:06 p.m.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home