Hell hath frozen over

The Toronto Star just published a story that.... Aghast!.... doesn't take a single cheap shot at the Prime Minister. Ok, one small one about election timing, but I'll make a post about that tomorrow.

After the debate, the math is still on Harper side

Oct 02, 2008 11:26 PM
James Travers

OTTAWA – Two nights of debate and another day of market turmoil are turning an election about the economy and Stéphane Dion into one that's still about the economy but also about Stephen Harper. For the first time since he prematurely killed the last Parliament, partly to avoid campaigning in hard times, the Prime Minister and his fiscal policies are emerging as ballot questions.

Four-against-one debates with the economy as the focus are driving that change. So, too, is the Liberal leader's belated shift from the environmental "e", his personal passion, to the economic "e", the national preoccupation.

...

While watched across the country, the first debate was primarily a battle for Quebec with Harper and Gilles Duceppe the principal combatants. The second was loaded with broader implications and higher stakes – a possible Conservative majority and the determined NDP run at the Liberals for second place.

Tonight those two struggles centred on the economy and Harper's claim that Canada's fundamentals are so strong that the safe course is to stay the Conservative course. As he has done since the campaign began, Layton chipped at that proposition, effectively recasting extraordinary economic events as kitchen table concerns. Dion's attacks are more abstract but effective enough to force Harper to pre-emptively distance his policies from the laissez-faire U.S. mess blamed, a little unfairly, on George W. Bush. [Note from Glen: Emphasis added. And don't take this to mean that I don't blame Bush]

...

Ganging four against one is good way to win a debate...Harper knows this, just as he knows that being pounded in the debates won't crack his core support.

What's less certain is how undecided voters will react to the cumulative opposition criticism and their own rising financial fears. However they ultimately cast their ballots, the Prime Minister and his policies are now an election issue and that is as it should be.

Golly. Ok, I realize I took the "math" part out. It basically says that the Left is split, which is going to result in a stronger minority (most likely). Maybe the Left should coalesce. With Layton as PM.... right.... hell hath indeed frozen over.

Please refer to Capital One tv ad.