Stephen Harper, an official portrait.

From Yaffe’s column:

That said, Conservatives hold so many more seats than Liberals, they’d have to lose an awful lot to be defeated. Not likely, given they’re polling ahead of Liberals in seat-rich Ontario — by nine percentage points.

Conservatives, of course, start out with a robust seat advantage in Western Canada, though in B.C. they’re trailing New Democrats, possibly because of the harmonized sales tax.

Liberals know their best chance of winning government would come if Conservatives somehow besmirch the party’s brand. But given Harper’s methodical, controlling style, that prospect looks unlikely.

And so, concludes Nicholls, Liberals “simply don’t have a theory on how they can win an election.”

With the greatest of respect, I think that Barbara, Gerry and many others have misread the tea leaves, as it were, in campaigns here and South of the border.  Anger, as I’ve said a few times before, is a political commodity that’s been around since Jesus was a little feller.  Voter anger lurks behind every second door in every riding in every single campaign.  It gets a lot more ink during bad economic times, to be sure, but it ain’t anything new. In and of itself, anger isn’t what wins you a race, either.

No, what “wins” – in the Calgary and Toronto mayoralty races most particularly – is the best-run campaign.  Organization , discipline, message.

The Liberals, methinks, are underestimated on the campaign front.  Chretien was, too, as I recall, in 1993.  And we ended up doing not badly, I think.

In the campaign, everything gets equalized – most notably, the amount you have to spend and the share of media coverage you get.  With parity, Ignatieff will do a lot better than the chattering classes expect.

What do you think, folks?

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Here.

It’s a scoop because my Sun colleague has fascinating behind-the-scenes stuff on the Khadr plea deal.

It’s also a scoop because the Reformatory cabinet has been leaking – in this case, to Brian.

Believe me: when that stuff starts to happen, it’s the beginning of the end.

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And we’ll be playing our new tune about this guy, called ‘Double Bubble Trouble!’

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The future, for the foreseeable future.

As found in the Tyee and the Hill Times this morning:

When will the Liberals and the NDP get it? Without some kind of accord between these two parties, the country is locked into a kind of political version of the movie Groundhog Day — doomed to repeat the same depressing, cynical and destructive politics day-in, day-out until our democracy is so damaged that no one will bother voting.

I don’t agree with everything he says – the throwaway line on Israel rankles the most, and is inconsistent with the policies of both the Liberals and the NDP – but there’s some food for thought on the broader issue, perhaps. Comments are open.

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Don’t!

Whatever you do, don’t read what lies behind this link!

It doesn’t matter! I swear!

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Yahoooo!

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Ignatieff is right, and the unelected Senator is not.

We won the 1993 election partly on a helicopter purchase that was for a lot less money, and which had a lot more transparency.  So go right ahead, Reformatories.  Buy ’em, and see what happens to you on the campaign trail.

We’ll see how far unelected Senator few have ever heard of gets you, won’t we?

From the archives:

Chretien sets out his priority list Jobs program would come first, then cancelling 2 Tory contracts
13 October 1993
The Globe and Mail

WELLAND, Ont.

An increasingly confident Jean Chretien laid out for a student audience yesterday the first three things he will do if he becomes prime minister after Oct. 25.

His government will immediately put into place its infrastructure program so municipalities can start projects and create jobs, he said. That will be accompanied by the cancellation of the EH-101 helicopter program in order to finance the public-works program.

Next, Mr. Chretien said, he will apply the brakes to the controversial privatization of Toronto’s Pearson airport.

“Everything that we will do as a party will be in relation to job creation. That has to be the priority of the government,” he said.

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Rob Ford’s favourite.

More on this important topic, here.

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The guy who should really be Mayor and Police Chief.

David Chen – the amazing man who is being persecuted/prosecuted for catching bad guys – does it again.

Check it out:

The day before a judge is set to decide if David Chen is guilty of tying up a thief and throwing him in the back of a van, the grocer was busy thwarting another thief.

Chen, and his 55-year-old mother, spent much of Thursday keeping their eyes peeled for a woman spotted allegedly stealing shampoo on a security camera Wednesday night.

When she returned to the store on Thursday, Chen said she allegedly tried to steal some cooking oil, eggs and more shampoo from the Lucky Moose Food Market on Dundas St. W.

Chen’s mother stopped the woman as she left the store, while he called the police — and his lawyer, Peter Lindsay.

“My mom stopped her. And the police came in good time today,” he said.

During his trial Chen testified that it would take police up to five hours to respond to his calls when a thief was caught stealing from him.

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Chretien satisfied court ruled in his favour against sponsorship judge (Chretien-Sponsorship)

Source: The Canadian Press

QUEBEC –  Former prime minister Jean Chretien is expressing satisfaction after his successful legal battle against the Gomery commission.

He won a Federal Court of Appeal decision earlier this week that struck down part of the report from the inquiry into the sponsorship scandal.

“He (Gomery) made negative remarks about me and the court has decided that it was wrong and he had acted inappropriately,” Chretien told Quebec City radio station FM 93.

“I’ve been criticized by a lot of people in my life. He was not the only one. I’ve always defended myself.

“Apparently, I’m quite combative.”

The Federal Court of Appeal upheld on Tuesday a ruling which quashed Justice John Gomery’s conclusion that Chretien bore responsibility for the scandal.

Federal Court Justice Max Teitelbaum ruled in 2008 that Gomery, who headed the inquiry, was a biased attention-seeker.

He said Gomery prejudged the outcome of the investigation and trivialized proceedings through repeated inappropriate comments to the media.

The Harper government appealed that ruling but the appeal court dismissed the case and ordered the federal government to pay Chretien’s legal costs.

The sponsorship program was created to raise the profile of the federal government in Quebec after the near-loss of the 1995 referendum on the province’s independence.

But the program became a vehicle for Quebec advertising companies to receive funds for little or no work, some of which was kicked back to Liberal party operatives in the province.

Although he did not directly implicate the former prime minister in any wrongdoing, Gomery concluded that Chretien and his former chief of staff, Jean Pelletier, set up the sponsorship program without adequate safeguards against abuse.

Teitelbaum also quashed the findings against Pelletier but an appeal of that ruling was dismissed after Pelletier died early last year.

INDEX: NATIONAL JUSTICE POLITICS

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