Crunch Time, Liberals

D'you want to endure this man smiling for the rest of your natural life?

And, oh yeah, there's the leadership question, too. If Iggy can't hold the troops in line here there will be immediate and intense speculation as to his continued viability as Liberal Leader, which he may not survive. Imagine the painstaking work of the last three months strangled in its crib, clubbed with a brick, and then spit upon.

h/t

NDP Double Game?

Rob Silver ponders the significance of this bit of muttering from Brad Lavigne:

"Far too often, Eastern-based reporters say it¹s the Liberals and the Tories who are neck-and-neck and fighting it out for government," Lavigne said from Regina Sunday. "In fact, in Western Canada and now we believe with the gun registry, it¹s the NDP not the Liberals who are the competition in out here.

His conclusion, which sounds plausible to me, is that while Jack Layton is telling the East he's doing all he can to save the registry, he's telling the West that he's willing to see the thing dead. The problem is, the gun-registry votes are fast approaching: at some point Jack has to open the box, and Schrödinger's cat will decohere.

PS. At this point the numbers on C-391 are very close, perhaps tied. If one or two more NDP MPS switch, then the ball will be back in the LPoC court, and the test will be how effectively Iggy can whip his own people. Should he fail, all the good work of this past summer will have been for nothing.