Notes From The Road

I'd really intended to take a longer break from the blog while on vacation but seeing as how I find Liblogs more addictive than crack, that was probably unrealistic. Luckily, the Hungarian media here has a great fascination with Canadian politics so I've been able to stay somewhat up to date on what's been going on.


-Manning wins in a landslide! Or, should I say, a SDAndslide. Kudos to Preston on his win and thanks to everyone who voted! I'll get a proper post up at some point to recap the contest and to try and find something mildly interesting to say about his win other than "internet polls...what do you expect?".


-Saturday's Globe had a long profile on Ignatieff (and we're talking War and Peace long). So if you've got a few hours to kill and are curious how Michael Ignatieff lost his virginity, then you should definitely check out Valpy's piece. It wasn't a hatchet job and it certainly wasn't a fluff piece - and it was nice to learn about about the personal life of the Iggster. Ignatieff is also featured in MacLeans prominently this week, with several articles on his candidacy. And yeah...he's in GQ. And no, I haven't picked up that article yet.




-Speaking of profiles, the Star has one of Joe Volpe today. "All we are saying, is give Joe a chance..."


-I'm going to put up a post on Kennedy's Afghanistan speech last night since it's clearly worthy of it's own post. I will say that between this policy, his economic women's policy (including specifics on early learning spending), and hints of future policy to come, it's become abundantly clear that the "Kennedy has no substance" blanket attack has...well...no substance.


-Thanks to everyone for the feedback on my projections - I'll update in about a week when I get back to cowtown.

Democratic Space has put out his own projections, based on the numbers of donations the candidates have gotten in various regions. I think this leads to a few problems (ie. the extremely low Volpe numbers and Dryden being ahead of Rae), but I do really hope we get a bunch of different projections out there so that they can be compared.

Ignatieff 25.7%
Kennedy 17.1%
Dion 13.3%
Brison 13.0%
Rae 11.4%
Dryden 11.2%
Hall-Findlay 4.2%
Volpe 1.9%
Bennett 1.4%
Fry 0.8%


-I've been reading Jim Dinning's blog lately to train myself in the art of the platitude if I ever become a speech writer. While doing this, I did come across the following:

Building an Election Campaign Platform through a 2007 policy process--starting at each constituency and ending with a province wide Election Platform Convention late in the year. And recruiting candidates to compete for PC nominations. We want spirited and robust competitions for nominations, especially in the opposition held constituencies.

Given that timeline, it looks like Alberta is heading towards a late 2007 or early 2008 election should Dinning win.