1. Congratulations on your new budget, Mr. Harper. Michael Ignatieff never supported the coalition.
Period.
He never did.
He never will.
With Ignatieff as Liberal leader, the coalition is now dead as a doornail and Stephen Harper has a green light to rule.
Your humble e-scribbler heard Ignatieff speak in St. John's the week the coalition appeared. He could not have damned it more if he had opposed it flatly and in plain English.
Too shrewd a politician, he waited to declare his concerns until after the coalition failed and he had put the conditions in place to take the leadership. [Think about it for a second. This is a guy whose spinners claim he has the support of 55 of the 77 member Liberal caucus.]
As it stands, Michael Ignatieff will be the best friend Stephen Harper ever had, at least in the short term. Harper will get his second kick at the cat in January without a problem.
The Connies are already opening the champagne. They know Ignatieff's weaknesses and they can watch his manoeuvering and understand him for exactly what he is.
They know him because they have one of their own.
At least one.
They took their first shot at him on Monday. Expect more of it. It won't get any better.
The Liberal Party did not send Bob Stanfield to defeat Bob Stanfield.
Think about it.
2. Congratulations on your long second term of office, Mr. Harper. The Liberal Party is not ready for an election and will not be ready at any time in the next two years. It needs fundamental reform at the policy level and especially at the financial level.
Those things will take longer to put in place than a handful of months and on the financial side, the reform and re-organization will take longer to implement and take firm hold.
Stephen Harper is safe in office for the balance of 2009 and likely well into 2010. His entourage may well take the party to war before that but they run the risk of crashing against some pretty hard rocks.
3. They are called the backroom boys for a reason. The backrooms line up for a candidate. That pretty much sums up the view of the party about things like new ideas and new people.
Take a look in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Multiply that by 10 provinces.
You get the point.
-srbp-