The Liberal Party of Canada that was once the party of Sir Wilfrid Laurier and Pierre Trudeau is now the party of Paul Martin and Belinda Stronach. The election of Michael Ignatieff as Liberal leader will keep this new tradition going. For those Canadians who do not endorse the Liberal PartyÂ’s philosophy (whatever that actually is) will have a lot of fun with Iggy at the helm.
And an Ignatieff-led Liberal Party will be the best case scenario for Stephen Harper and his Conservatives to form a majority government.
Now you can argue that stories like this, and like this, are all (as the dude from TDH maintains) ploys designed to manipulate the minds of Liberal delegates. But I think that the further you move from unidentified "senior government officials", like those quoted in the Canada.com story, and towards the random wingnuts that write for publications like CanadaFreePress, the less convincing this explanation becomes: the idea that the Consrvative fringe moves in lockstep with the party apparatus simply does not seem plausible.
It is equally likely, in fact more likely, that Conservatives are coming to appreciate what the rest of us already know: Iggy is both loquacious and prone to verbal gaffes.
Some snippets from today's G&M on the latest Decima poll which do not bode well for Ignatieff after the first ballot:
ReplyDelete"The data suggest that Mr. Ignatieff may have a steep hill to climb to make up 20 percentage points he needs to win, Mr. Gregg said.
For example, Mr. Gregg said that Mr. Ignatieff would barely get any of the second-choice support of those who back the also-rans, Mr. Brison, Mr. Volpe and Mr. Dryden. He would do better with Ms. Hall Findlay's supporters. "Let's say all those guys drop off, he's barely going to inch up," Mr. Gregg said."
And:
"When supporters of Mr. Dion and Mr. Rae are asked which candidate they would never vote for, 46 per cent and 43 per cent, respectively, say Mr. Ignatieff. Mr. Ignatieff does slightly better with supporters of Mr. Kennedy, among whom 34 per cent say they won't vote for him."
And:
"If Mr. Kennedy were to pip Mr. Dion for third, and force Mr. Dion off the ballot, Mr. Dion's delegates then become the sought-after group. Only 11 per cent of Mr. Dion's supporters would pick Mr. Ignatieff as their second choice, while an even number of 21 per cent would pick Mr. Kennedy or Mr. Rae."
And:
"Michael Ignatieff is the leading candidate heading into the Liberal convention, not many of the delegates supporting other candidates on the first ballot are willing to consider him on the second, a Globe and Mail/CTV poll finds".
There must be a fair degree of panic right now in Ignatieff's camp after this poll. Talk about being in a stall!