ChuckerCanuck 2.0

Is it because he's off the carbs?
 

journos and dion having a beer?...heh heh, were they singing "There's a tear in my beer"?
 

Or a fly in Diointment?
 

We do not have long to wait to see how Harper made the blunder of his life by pulling the plug on his own government.

Talk about self immolation.

As for the "polls" the only poll that matters is the one on election day.

What I would like to see is the Governor General call upon Mr. Dion to try to form a Minority Government. He would need at least three weeks to try. If he failed, then we would have the election after the American one, and that would greatly help Canadians arrive at a sound decision. Of course, that is precisely what Harper MOST FEARS.

Bye Bye Ms. Amerikan Pie!
 

I'm starting to wonder if Harper might win a majority while Layton seizes Opposition. I really favour major change (ie "renewal") in the LPC, and so I think that might be a fantastic outcome for everyone. Layton's probably got the right stuff for Opposition by now. Who knows, this might turn out to be a really important vote.
 

Was there any popcorn at the Dion beerfest?

In all seriousness, the classic Cherniak comment of the week was his statement that the people in the by-election ridings won't know when or if to vote should the election call come this weekend.
 

Jason, you are dreaming if you think that the NDP are in a position to move up the scale, or that the Conservatives under Harper are going to form a majority government. Canada is not going to sharpen the divide between "right" and "left". Rather, we are going to see a marked movement by the Conservatives and the Liberals toward the "centre". When that happens, "strategic voting" kicks in, and in election after election, the NDP are squeezed off the play.

The Liberals are playing their hand masterfully and have things set up so that Harper will stumble, and when he does, the polls are going to shift swiftly and dramatically, like watching a stone falling in free fall.

Harper's Achilles Heel is the "trust" issue. His long list of "extremist right wing Amerikan "neocon" positions", is what will prevent him from gaining a majority. That is the first barrier that he will not crawl over. The second, is that the re-energized Liberals are very confident that they can win more seats then the Conservatives, which is the first necessary step to destroy this tumor on the Canadian body politic. When the Liberals win a minority government, that will trigger an earthquake inside the Conservative Party, and they will effectively be returned to "ground zero" where they were after Mulroney had his ass kicked by Jean Chretien.

Once that band wagon gets moving, it will be hard to stop, and if it gets moving with any momentum, it will result in Dion being the next Prime Minister with a Liberal Majority Government.

You have in Harper a leader that is sharply ideological, even as he now tries to downplay it, and in Dion, you have a leader that is pragmatic and willing to listen to the electorate and adapt to fit the wishes of Canadians.

An overwhelming number of Canadians (approaching 80%) are strongly opposed to "US Leadership" in NATO and the UN, and that is the straw that ultimately is going to break the back of the "neocons" that Harper is leading.

The best that Harper can hope for, is a very sleeply election, where no one is paying attention, with a sharp conflict he might instigate between the Liberals and the NDP, in which he can falsely take the "middle road" and appear "prime ministerial".

Canadians appreciate "smart" and "strong" leaders, but they have no use for "cunning" leaders. This ultimately is the petard that Harper will ultimately impale himself.
 

You are dead wrong joey, Canadians haven't got a hope in hell with big oil running the joint.
 

joe green: RELAX, it's in the bag!
 

The big joke in Edmonton today is that Dion is here to speak and the only place he could get is the Tory Lecture Theatre at the University.
 

if they were real journalists they'd answer the question we all want answered. does his english improve under the influence?
 

Did he drink from the bottle or from the glass. I really need to know so I can cast a meaningful vote. PMSH does not drink booze.
 

Beer with the media? Sounds like the first step to a Liberal majority gov't. If you have the media on side what could possible go wrong?

Latest Rasmussens.....

Media campaigning against Palin 51%

Favourable Ratings

Palin 58% (Ind 59%)
Obama, McCain 57%
Biden 48%.

More experienced
Obama 48 (Ind 45%)
Palin 44 (Ind 42%)


So Palin is one up on Obama and 10 up on Biden and within the polling margin of Obama on experience. Any odds on the msm going a whole month without getting partisan? Odds on that helping Dion?
 

Watching CNN this morning at work and I can see a huge problem for Obama during the next two months.

McCain was stumping in front of a diner in Wyoming (or Wisconsin or some state with a W) and gave a barn burner short version of the speech he gave last night, along with more details of how he's gonna deal with pork barrels and earmarks. He was electrifying compared to last night (where I though he was still extremely good). Small crowd stump speeches are where he excels.

Guess what? No more big stadium events are upcoming and every attempt I've seen by Obama to do small venues make him look ordinary, especially when he actually has to go and hug some farmer.

And then there is the upcoming debates where McCain and Palin are gonna field dress Obama and Biden.

The campaign has turned and the tiny O-Bump from the DNC is gonna steadily evaporate now that everyone is moving out on the campaign trail.
 

Noonan with the mike deliberately on:

No one has ever really laid a glove on Obama before, not in this campaign and maybe not in his life. But Palin really damaged him.

"A small town mayor is kind of like a community organizer only you have actual responsibilities. He wrote two memoirs but never authored a major bill. They've hauled the Styrofoam pillars back to the Hollywood lot."
 

The Liberals are playing their hand masterfully...

Congratulations, Joe.

You made me snort coffee out my nose - this is a new record, even for you. Well done.
 

So how does one drink a beer with a knife and fork?
 

Joe, I love your act but it's wearing thin. I love it, it's funny, but you need to take it to the next level, man.
 

"It is a fact that the Dion Carbon Tax is a complicated plan that takes a lot of time for non-PhD types to understand. Its not simply a sly tax hike to cover childcare and other spending initiatives - it is a massive social experiment that the good professor wants to try out on us."
..................................

No ... the Dion carbon tax is the $15 Billion he intends to collect from Canadian taxpayers to purchase Kyoto Carbon Credits from China. In 2012, and according to Dion's Green Shift page 16 one paragraph reference to GHGs, Canada must meet it's Kyoto 'obligations' as Dion puts it. In that same paragraph, he admits that Canada will not meet it's Kyoto 'obligations' and currently 30% above our 2012 target, the only way to mitigate our situation is to purchase Billion$$$ of Kyoto carbon credits from China in 2012.

Also, if you recall, the HoCs passed the Liberal MP Rodriguez' private members bill which is now law as the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act ... which mandates that Canada must comply with our Kyoto Treaty 'obligations'. A PM Dion would come back to Canadians in 2012 and say "sorry folks"... we gotta buy Billion$$$ of Kyoto carbon credits from China because you Canadians did not reduce your carbon footprint enough even though you were being carbon taxed on it ... so the money I collected from Canadian taxpayers must go into buying Chinese carbon credits so they can finance all those high sulphur coal-fired power stations being run by powercorp-CITIC and supplied by CSL coal-carrying ships(built in Chinese shipyards) ... and we Canadians must comply with our laws and our international 'obligations' under the Kyoto Treaty which Mr. Chretien signed unilaterally and committed Canada to the most onerous of GHG targets. Wonder why?!

The Dion Green Shift is designed to fail, and that's why there is only one paragraph on page 16 for GHGs in all of it's 44 pages of taxation schedules and green propaganda. Of course trying to explain these Liberal machinations to the Canadian voter is too complex.

A simpler question to Dion could be: "If past Liberal governments hadn't racked up a 30% GHG excess over our Kyoto 'obligation' targets, would we still need a carbon tax?"
 

Joe Green: get a life, or at least a dictionary. Check your spelling of "American" and maybe look up "fascist" and "neocon". As Inigo Montoya said in "The Princess Bride", you use them all the time, but they do not mean what you seem to think they mean.