On Election Talk

Because I am hard-pressed today, and have a headache (maybe a cold coming?), I'll just let WK explain why all this talk of impending elections is baloney. As for the election subsidy functioning as a poison pill in the upcoming budge, well, Harper has said there won't be any, and I can't see the gov. engineering triggering a 1/2 billion dollar election over a miserable $27 million item. My guess is Jack Layton joins the CPoC's purple coalition for a few crumbs, and the rest of us sweat it out until 2012.

Been There, Done That

Abstaining, not showing up, voting with...they all amount to the same thing and you will all feel like crap in the end...as though you had betrayed an ideal for the most tawdry of reasons. So go for it.

And as for the new ad. Well, at least Iggy could afford some foliage in the background.

More NDP Weakness

From Tory whip Jay Hill:

For the second time in a year, Mr. Ignatieff has thrown Jack Layton a curve ball. First Mr. Ignatieff, who had signed-up for a Liberal-NDP-Bloc coalition just days after Canadians returned our Conservative Government to power with a stronger mandate, reneged on the deal. Now, Mr. Ignatieff has called Mr. Layton’s election bluff.

Back in June when the Liberals were ducking Parliamentary votes to avoid an election they didn’t have the money to fight, Mr. Layton could boast he would never support the Conservative Government. He even bragged that the NDP voted against us in 79 consecutive confidence motions in the House.

In August following a meeting with Prime Minister Stephen Harper, a defiant Mr. Layton declared, “The NDP would be the least likely of the political parties to support the Conservatives in office.”

Yet when Mr. Ignatieff suddenly put the election trigger in his hands in early September, Mr. Layton, who is typically the first politician to throw himself in front of a television camera, went into hiding for two days! He sent his deputy leader, Thomas Muclair to deliver an olive branch to our Conservative government, suggesting the NDP would work with us on a case-by-case basis.

On one hand, the NDP are showing poorly in the polls and in their bank balance so Mr. Layton is hedging his bets by now pretending to be conciliatory and cooperative in Parliament. On the other hand, he doesn’t want to waste a rare opportunity for himself and the NDP to be relevant in Canadian politics. So he’s also trying to play the role of ‘power-broker’ by echoing Mr. Ignatieff’s election threats.

Meanwhile, Western Arctic NDP MP Dennis Bevington is willing to don the NDP/CPoC purple sweater of alliance:

While Harper wrote off the idea of working with the NDP shortly after Ignatieff made his comments, Bevington said a coalition was "plausible."

"We didn't support them in their original budget - the Liberals did. The arrangement was between the Liberals and the Conservatives. The Liberals have abandoned that arrangement," he said. "That doesn't mean that we have to have an election now. Prime Minister Harper needs to give a little room to some of the things that we see, or the Bloc see, that are correct. Those are things that he has to do."

If Harper is willing to make compromises, his government will survive, Bevington said.

"If he simply says, 'Well, I'm going to do what I want to do,' then it will be a very difficult situation."

Ah, but difficult for whom, Mr. Bevington, difficult for whom?

Mulclair Resurrects Purple Coalition

Jack and Steve 's Campaign Sweaters
From the Canadian Press:

...MP Thomas Mulcair immediately offered a most girly form of surrender.

"What I'm saying is: the last thing Canadians want is a fourth general election in five years especially as we in the NDP would get slaughtered and we'd better have a bloody good reason for forcing a fourth general election in five years because we would get slaughtered.

"So if Mr. Harper goes about being provocative as he has been in the past, going after key things that Canadians hold dearly like women's rights and the environment, then we'll surrender most girly like because he'll have provoked it.

"If, on the other hand, Stephen Harper comes into Parliament and abuses our asses, then we're going to take it on a case-by-case basis and eventually our caucus will offer its most girly form of surrender."

Some people say when you mix NDP orange and Tory blue you get a purply pink. I say its a pinky purple. But whatever.

Jack Layton And The Purple Coalition: His Mouth Says No No No, His Tie Says Yes Yes Yes

Look at his body language; he looks sad, pensive, as though he has lost or discarded something that was once precious to him, but which now seems a pointless indulgence.

More importantly, look at his neck ware, the most expressive item of clothing on any politician and the one he is most likely to use to send coded signals to The Faithful.

Note the diagonal stripes--they're purple, what you got by mixing NDP orange with Tory blue. These are the colours of the Purple Coalition--the undemocratic NDP/CPoC Alliance that I wrote about yesterday.

Note the black stripes underneath. These represent the death of the young idealist Jack Layton used to be.

And the Message?

Fuck this principled Socialist BULLSHIT! Jack needs an office with a window. Jack is tired of hearing toilets flush next door when's he on the phone schmoozing with Castro. Jack has been squatting in this little crap-hole town nearly 10 years and he's fed up of being last in line to shake the Pope's hand when The Pope comes to town, tired of hearing "Whose the weird little guy with the gay mustache?" because The Pope thinks a union-based pol won't understand Latin. He's tired of the press laughing at him behind his back, and that Green Party chick eyeing his official third party leader stuff and looking so damned impressed. Little does she know!! The games unit is from 20 years ago and all it plays is pac-man! The TV hasn't work in forever; Jack had his staff tape that picture of Obama over the screen! That's why his lips never move! No! No! Jack deserves better. Jack deserves perqs! And Jack is going to get perqs if he has to dance with the Devil himself!

Seriously, forget stories like this. The man is ready to deal. I know neckties.