And then we're going to Red Deer, and Prince George, and Moose Jaw...yeaaaaaaa!

I got the chance to listen to a good discussion on a potential "308 riding" strategy for the Liberals over the weekend at Western Caucus in Saskatchewan. This isn't a Liberal party policy - just a proposal from a member, but it's certainly worth taking a look at and discussing.


In Other News...

While his move to Europe has allowed me to learn a lot more about southwestern French municipal school board elections, it has meant less Canadian political blogging from Paul Wells. But, never fear, Hansard is still accessible from Blackberries around the globe and Paul digs up some old gems from the Alliance of days gone by in this post.


Also, I'm thinking of making up a list of reasons Ed Stelmach is my favourite Premier ever. When it's done, I'll be sure to include "muses about whatever is on his mind" to that. Back when he was Transport Minister, Ed thought it would be fun to float the idea of changing the fast lane on Alberta highways to the right lane. As you might imagine, he got a bit of flack for it. In Sunday's Rick Bell column, Ed starts musing about next year's budget (wow - even Paul Martin never leaked budget info this far in advance). While there is sometimes value to floating a trial balloon, when you do it with every thought that pops into your head, eventually you start to look like you're flip-flopping, eventually you start to look indecisive, and eventually you start to get criticized for trial balloons you rightfully realize are dumb ideas (see: highway fast lane example above).



Finally, the news is from last week, but probably worth reposting: Gary Merasty is quitting his northern Saskatchewan seat. Unlike a lot of the veteran Liberals who have announced they won't be running again, this one actually is a big loss since Merasty was more than simply the trivia answer to "who is Saskatchewan's other Liberal MP"; He was a young up-and-commer with deep connections in his riding. Expect the by election for his seat to be very hotly contested.

May I have this dance?

The big news today is the announcement that the Liberals will not run a candidate in Elizabeth May's riding which is a shocking surprise for anyone who has been living in Bolivia the past three months. Actually, calling it "Elizabeth May's riding" is charitable since it's still going to be Peter MacKay's, even with this deal.

But, regardless, it's an interesting alliance, since the Greens and Grits are giving each other some added legitimacy by doing this. From an economical sense, the Liberals stand to lose 18 grand a year from the $1.75 per vote they'd get in Central Nova (probably less since May would siphon votes off, they save the money it takes to run a campaign and they get the ginormous influx of...dozens of Green voters in Saint-Laurent–Cartierville).

So the real trade-off comes from the legitimacy aspect and I do tend to think the Liberals come out on top here, if only because it gives Dion's environmental platform an implicit vote of confidence and helps out the inevitable "vote Liberal to stop Harper" messaging we'll see the last weekend of the campaign.

The trade-off is obviously that it gives the Greens a bit more credibility. And everyone has a different opinion as to which party that hurts most.


[Coyne's got an interesting take, touching on the optics of beeing seen as moving too far left]

They'll Go Neg

The Liberals have released three new radio ads in Quebec which attack Harper for going negative. It's not quite as bizarre as the "they'll go neg" ads the Conservatives ran after Christmas last year since those ads accused the Liberals of going negative before the Liberals ran negative ads but, at the same time, those ads did get a few corruption shots in at Martin whereas these new ones come across as sounding fairly lame. Here are the translated transcripts from Antonio:

Ad Un
“If Stephen Harper is convinced his accomplishments up to now are so good, would he spend all his money on negative ads about Stephane Dion? What do you think?”

Ad Deux
“In 2007, do we really prefer a politician like Stephen Harper, who spends his time denigrating his opponent, or a passionate man like Stephane Dion, who is concerning himself with the challenges of the 21st century? Which one is making us take a step backward?”

Ad Trois
“If Stephen Harper and the Conservatives attack Stephane Dion, is it because they are afraid of something? Afraid of his ideas maybe? Afraid of his Green Plan? Afraid…to lose power?”


I guess the plan is to try and get the message across that Dion is a better person than Harper and more honourable which may not be an awful message in itself. But at the time when more and more people are whispering that the Liberals can't take a punch, there's probably a better way to emphasize Dion's character. Maybe a direct message from the guy himself.

Now, I'm not opposed to attack ads on Harper - far from it. It's just that, in Quebec, there are a lot of good issues they could be attacking Harper on rather than "he runs attack ads". The environment, foreign policy, child care, broken promises...pick a social issue and he's probably off side from most Quebecers on it.

Running a negative ad which basically says "my opponent runs negative ads because he has nothing constructive to say" kind of invites most rational radio listeners to say "aren't the Liberals running negative ads saying that the Conservatives run negative ads because they have nothing constructive to say, because the Liberals have nothing constructive to say?" [actually, screw that. I'm confused just reading that last sentence and I wrote it. Maybe radio listeners won't make that connection].

I'm sympathetic to the fact that most of the people who used to handle our Quebec ads are in jail these days but surely there's someone in the province who could have done better than this?