Holy smokes.

And just wait until the Reformatories announce that part of their platform will be an elimination of the election subsidy. That’s coming, too.

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The Reformatories are getting silly, again.  They don’t mind demanding committee appearances by backroomers (like me) when they were in Opposition – but now that they are in government, it’s a different story.

Jane calls them on it, here.

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Youngest son, just now: “Daddy, have you asked Dalton McGuinty if I can be home-schooled, yet?”

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There are thoughtful Conservatives! It’s true!

One of them – a guy/gal who is a good friend and is indeed what the media call a “senior” Harper Conservative – has written to me to critique the notion of a Liberal/NDP coalition/merger/arrangement.

His/her critique is fair and well-constructed.  But what interested me wasn’t so much the substance of the analysis – it was the fact that it was offered, gratis.

I showed it to a former Ignatieff staffer yesterday afternoon.  Reaction: “The Harper guys are watching the coalition speculation because they are concerned that this might actually happen. They know it’s a threat.”

Yep.  And it’s therefore dumb to rule it out.

***

Some free political analysis and advice from a Tory…

Never assume that 1 + 1 = 2 in the world of political mergers/coalitions.

Following the merger of the CA and PC Party in 2003 the new CPC’s popular support was lower than the combined support of the two legacy parties.  In fact, the CPC’s vote share in both the 2004 and 2006 elections was lower than the combined vote share of the CA and PC Party in the 2000 election.  It wasn’t until the 2008 election that the CPC won a vote share that (approximately) equaled the 2000 CA-PC Party combined total (albeit with a very different electoral coalition).

Following the merger many former PC Party voters (Red Tories) went to the Liberals and many former Reform Party/Canadian Alliance voters went to the NDP (anti-establishment protest voters).  Similarly you should expect that a new Liberal-NDP coalition/merger/arrangement would lose the support of many “Business Liberals” as well as large numbers of current, anti-establishment NDP voters who previously voted for Preston Manning and Stockwell Day.  I also suspect that most NDP voters in QC would vote for the Bloc rather than a Liberal-NDP ticket and many radicalized, anti-establishment New Democrats in English Canada would move to the Greens.

As you can see it’s not as simple as there are “3 million” extra NDP votes on the table.  You would still need the Bloc.  (In fact you would be even more reliant on the Bloc if the new “Liberal Democrats” were less popular than the two centre-left legacy parties standing on their own).

In the end the merger gamble worked out for us.  But that doesn’t mean it will work out for you guys – particularly if there is a formalized role/process for the Bloc as there was in 2008.  And the brand legacy of Laurier, Mackenzie King, Trudeau and Chretien hangs in the balance.  Have fun.

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Ontario PC John Yakabuski, the “law and order” guy who has spent time in jail for assaulting a police officer, was upset with me last week, because I had the temerity to criticize Andre Marin’s penchant for expensing hair care products on the public dime.

Let’s see if John speedily steps up to the plate over this latest revelation!

(Don’t hit me, John!)

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At the Against Me!/Cancer Bats show in Kingston at the end of March, my buddy Richard – and, yes sir, I am PROUD AND HAPPY to call him my friend – told me he was starting a web site.  Right on, said I.

Here it be. Yay Richard!

(I, like BCL, fervently hope this statement made some far-right heads explode.)

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Here.

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…not by me, but by regular reader Tim.  What do you think of what he has to say?  After what has happened in the U.K. in recent days – and after no less than Stephen Harper did the same thing a few years back – is unity the way forward?

Feel free to comment.  I’ve been thinking about this a lot, lately.

***

Warren:

You will campaign, and fail again, to form a stand-alone Liberal government.

Until progressives arrive at the same difficult but necessary decision conservatives did in the 2000s, namely that their narcissistic small differences are less important than fielding a political force capable of winning power nationally, the Tories will win by default. You won a bunch of really easy elections in the 1990s in just the same fashion, Warren. It’s not a coincidence it took the unified right exactly one full election cycle to win power once McKay broke his promise to the PC base and allowed the once-proud party of Sir John A. to be subsumed by the radical Western right.

You just can’t have one half of the ideological spectrum divided 3 ways in English Canada and four ways – if one includes the Bloc – in Québec. Our dysfunctional electoral system simply doesn’t permit it. When you also factor in the massive, permanent cash advantage the Sorries enjoy, their complete partisan control of much of the mainstream media, and their ruthless style of politics, the picture becomes even grimmer.

I’m not even necessarily calling for a merger or formal coalition, but the mentality in both camps MUST change. This is a fundamental prerequisite for any real change in this country.

The days of Liberals laughably calling the NDP ‘irrelevant’ when it wins nearly 3 million votes each election and holds seats, including relatively secure bastions where strong MPs are firmly ensconced, in every single region of the country, in Montréal and Alberta and across Ontario is an offensive joke. Similarly, the days of New Democrats farcically portraying the Liberals as reactionary criminals who’ve accomplished nothing for Canada – suggesting that they’re no different from the Tories must end.

Both are crude, counter-productive and frankly, inaccurate stereotypes. Both parties have contributed in different but immeasurably valuable ways to this country and its evolution. It’s the compassionate society that our respective heroes and heroines, be it McPhail or King, Douglas or Trudeau, Broadbent or Chretien, built together which are under sustained and increasingly effective attack by this Government each and every day.

Politics is a competitive business, and when you’re fishing in the same pool there’s sure to be conflict. I for one, though I am proud of my own party, am damn sick of sniping at other progressives over petty bullshit rather than working towards a government which can actually deliver on the tremendous and enduring promise of this nation, a goal which comes to seem less attainable every day Harper remains in office.

If there’s no mandate to even talk, there should be.

Think of it this way: both Liberals and New Democrats love to secretly envision themselves as inheriting the Canadian mantle of Obama. Thusly, Grits say: ‘clearly we’re Obama. We’ve won national power and, like the Clinton democrats delivered moderate and effective progressive government which cut spending but preserved the most important social programs people need.’

New Democrats, by contrast, think: ‘clearly I am the the Obama. We’re about real change and putting ideas on the agenda which wouldn’t otherwise be there on behalf of interests which wouldn’t otherwise have a voice. We fought the great battles for health care, women’s rights, choice and secure public pensions before it was popular. We’re outsiders who promise to shake up a patently crooked system and deliver change.’

The division between experienced establishment Democrats, represented by Hillary, and outsider insurgent Democrats, represented by Obama in the 2008 nomination fight closely mirrors the divide between Liberals and New Democrats today. They fought it out on experience. They clashed on the issues. They even got personal. At its worst, it was downright nasty.

But once grassroots progressive finally endorsed President Obama’s candidacy, by democratic means, they all focused on what matters: fielding the best possible candidate and winning the national power needed to enact a progressive agenda conducive to the interests of an embattled middle class and the restoration of America’s proud voice in the world. They’re not perfect but imagine the alternative. (read: Palin)

I recognize the differences between our systems and political cultures, but the fundamental analogy holds: if Clinton and Obama, offended as their considerable sensibilities may have been after a bitter nomination fight, had committed to working at direct cross purposes throughout the actual campaign, President Obama would be unemployed and Republicans would still control the White House. No health care reform. No controls on corporate greed. No accountability for BP (debatable anyway.) But they realized the nation’s interest transcended their narrow political interests and personal vanity.

Sorry for the interminable rant, but these questions have weighed heavily on me of late. I know progressive Canadians around the country feel the same way. I close by suggesting there’s a reason Tory hysteria reaches its highest crescendo when talk of coalitions and purposeful cooperation on behalf of the Canadian people arises: it’s because this is what they fear most, and what alone can politically destroy them.

Thx, WK

UPDATE: I’m with Rae. All the way.

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You know, I’ve read this thing a number of times, and looked at it from every conceivable angle, and I still can’t see why it was necessary to add that sentence in the first bullet, the one in bold.  In fact, I don’t see why it was necessary to issue the entire document. Politics 101: don’t comment on hypotheticals.

Also: Pour faire de l’histoire, il faut savoir compter.

Talking Points:
Conservative coalition fear-mongering

ISSUE

•    The Harper Conservatives are trying to change the channel from their skyrocketing G8/G20 summit costs by resurrecting a bogus coalition boogie-man.

KEY MESSAGES

•    Liberals will campaign to form a Liberal government. We aren’t interested in coalitions.

•    This accusation is rich coming from Stephen Harper, who signed a letter with Jack Layton and Gilles Duceppe in 2004 offering to form a Conservative-Bloc-NDP coalition government.

•    As former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien confirmed yesterday, there are no coalition talks, no mandate for negotiation, and no negotiating taking place.

•    Something the Harper Conservatives just don’t understand is that parties in Parliament can work together – without forming a coalition.

•    The Conservatives have even attacked David McGuinty for suggesting that parties in Parliament “should be working together to put the interests of the Canadian people first.”

•    The Conservatives think that parties in Parliament should not work together, and would rather put Conservative Party interests before the interests of Canadians.

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A couple nice young fellows from The Mark came by to interview me a few days ago.  Their interview went up yesterday, whilst I was in Ottawa for the Chretien portrait event.

They’ve brooken it up in two segments, on “wedge politics” and the Ignatieff dinner in Toronto.

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