Amid a raft of new polls and speculation about a snap election comes this prediction from Stephen Harper’s fomer pollster, Dimitri Pantazopoulos: There will be no ballot this year and there will be no ballot next spring.
“We are not going to have an election in 2010. It will probably be the fall of 2011,” Mr. Pantazopoulos told The Globe on Thursday. “I hold on to that belief because nothing has happened.”
Mr. Pantazopoulos is no longer polling for Mr. Harper but has a good view of politics from the right; he is still well-connected among Conservatives. He sees nothing in the latest polls that would result in any change on the political landscape.
“Nobody has anything to gain from having an election right now,” he said, noting that another “status quo” vote would only lead to the usual disruption and hand-wringing over questions of leadership and policy direction within political parties.
“And, to what end?”
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Will PM Harper make it impossible for the Opposition to support his government’s agenda – who knows. I gave up a long time ago trying to figure out political calculations. This I do know, no one will push the PM to call an election unless he sees a winning issue or poll numbers. Until then, stalemate. It would appear that PM Harper is still “playing” political chess and will wait for those opposite to blink. You would think that the Opposition would take this time to develop policy and buildup the election readiness war chest. Cheers.
The lieberals have a policy ‘we’re not the conservatives’ — we’ll see how well that sells.
Yes he does have a policy, National Day Care and pretty much everything Quebec socialism offers. Iggy would make the ROC symmetrical to Quebec. The problem is who will give the ROC equalization payments? Iggy (who never owned a stock and is proud of it) has no plan for how to pay for more government programs.
It’s odd but you don’t hear much anymore about how tight Iggy was with Bo at Haavaad.
Iggy’s Ivy League credentials are actually making him look more and more out of touch with the Joe the Plumber guys who actually create jobs and pull the cart that all the CUPE apparatchiks ride in. Iggy would put even more people in the cart with his National Day Care program.
Bang on Nom but at the present time his party seems neck in neck with the Tories, although the PM is still more popular than he is and Taliban Jack is the most popular of the three main leaders.
But it is the summer time and politics is the last thing on Canadians minds.
Right UV. Plus I’m more and more convinced we need TV for images before we can get a majority.
Even though not many people watch TV, the images carry the story like pollen. Think of Climategate and the images of polar bears. People don’t listen to the facts; just the image carries the story. Those images created Climate fear not the facts.
I even think you and I could agree if we had Rick Mercer (OK, maybe just an accountant with humor; an oxymoron?) explain the HST with some images on TV.
Anyway if we can hold off until January and then get SUN News rolling for 6 months prior to an election; then I think you will agree they are not all the same and then you will be less undecieded.
I’m convinced of that because I’ll bet if you, CY and Stage all got in a room we’d agree on 70% of things (which is about the level that holds a marriage together)
I look forward to the new tv channel and hope that its part of my basic package.
The federal conservatives are in my riding dropping a load of money at Base Borden for structural improvements etc plus the PM is in Barrie tonite at the Molsen Hockey arena coaching a hockey team against Don Cherry of all people.
Certainly will help his image here, unfortunately, he and my MP Helena Geurgus have yet to kiss and make up and tragedically she was in a car accident at the Base on her way to the cash infusion announcement and rushed to an area hospital along with her aide.
I hear that she and her aide have been released and both are now at home resting. Tragically, one of Iggy’s senior political staff wasnt as fortunate being killed in a motorcycle accident. My condolences to the family.
Welcomed to the neighborhood Nom. Its a great area and provincially has been conservative for many years with Jim Wilson being our MPP and a former conservative cabinet minister. A great guy if I may say so.
I have mixed feelings about Helena but think she got the raw end of the stick with the PM.
I heard on tonites local news that the Collingwood Mayor may run as the conservative candidate in this riding.
So that next federal riding could prove very interesting in Simcoe-Grey. The LIEberals may now have a shot here, cause federally is a flip riding.
Keep up the good work!
After listening to David Aiken on Rutherford today , I don’t plan oon tuning in to the new sun tv station . Aiken is just as liberal now as when he was on ctv . His sense of self importance ids overwhelming . And his liberal bias couldn’t be much clearer . It was MR. IGNATIEF this and MR. DONELLO and PRIME MINISTER MARTIN , followed by PRIME MINISTER CHRETIEN that and harper was dumb and dumber . CTV11 , it looks like to me
Taber is just trying to stir the pot. The lamestream media must be feeling the heat from a summer slowdown as their big census controversy fails to ignite much interest beyond the political junkie cohort.
I wouldn’t put all my hopes on Sun TV either though. Prior to his meltdown, Mike Harris knew how to handle the MSM, he would just grab their microphones, stand in front of their cameras, and ignore them while he proceeded to state his case in such a way that his message could not be ignored. IMO, since the Harper Conservatives have had trouble staring down the MSM long enough to get their messages out and are therefore constantly on the defensive against an MSM/opposition tag team, they should arm themselves with the facts and prepare to be all over talk radio before they spring anything new on us that the lamestream media could attempt to turn against them, just as conservatives in the US were doing before Fox News came along. I doubt hosts like Charles Adler, with nationally-syndicated weekday talk radio show schedules to fill would turn down many chances to discuss the relevant topics of the day with Conservative Ministers such as Rob Nicholson or Tony Clement etc., and just as was the case with Mike Harris, once their clear and concise conservative messages were out there, it would no longer be so easy for the MSM/opposition to deliberately ignore and/or misinterpret them.
It seemed to me that Rutherford struck a nerve and Aiken showed what he really thought . Taber cheering him on proves Rutherfords point .
i totally agree with you Cantuc. David Akin is the liberal he always was and Sun TV will be left wing bashing Stephen Harper all the time. Fox news points out the hypocrisy of left wing journalism. David Akin is so left wing he cannot even see the pack journalism. He is so saturated in the MSM bubble he is blind to the reality. david akin is just as dumb as the rest of the lefties on the national press gallery.
just about gagged when read jane taber defending poor little David Akin from that meanie David Rutherford from that outpost alberta. Do these Ontario journalists have no idea how offensive they are!!!!!!