The Big Flop

I don't know what it's going to take for these clowns to realize that talk of "force" isn't doing the trick.

The NDP/Liberal/Bloc coalition utterly failed in its attempt to gain power. They learned a painful lesson of politics: real power means something. Wanna-be power doesn't. (By the way, please don't bother me with Canadian political propaganda; only in Canada-speak can a Bloc party "support" a coalition, sign papers saying so, and then not be considered part of the coalition).

Harper proved himself to be the real power in Ottawa by taking the big PM stick, walking into the Governor-General's office and saying, "Suspend it."

She did. No letter required, no need for handshakes and backroom deals. He already had what he needed: the biggest bully pulpit in the country.

Immediately after the announcement that Parliament was closed for the season, the phony coalition of losers went before the cameras and said that Harper still had to go. When asked if anything could change their minds, Stephane Dion said it would take "monumental changes" in Harper's budget plans for Harper to keep his job. When a French reporter said, "What do you mean by monumental changes, no one knows what that means?" Dion could only repeat, "Monumental changes." In other words, even if Harper does whatever Dion wants, it won't be good enough.

Sigh. Dude, you're the one who should be monumentally worried about his job. Your party lost an election 7 weeks ago, and your most recent power play just flopped. When are you going to understand that to voters, transparent power grabs are ugly? Duceppe, the Bloc leader, said this was now about Stephen Harper, and that he should be booted out of office no matter what concessions he made to the "coalition." Harper, you see, called the Bloc "separatists," which is highly insulting even though it's exactly what the Bloc are. Well. So much for doing this coalition deal for the good of all Canadians. Now it's a personal vendetta by three party bosses against the PM. They actually said so. As if we didn't know it before.

The day after the announcement, polls show that the Conservative party would win an outright majority if an election were held today. I don't place too much faith in polls, but I know that politicos love them. This line should freak out the phony coalition:

A Strategic Counsel poll in Friday's Globe and Mail newspaper put the Conservatives ahead of the Liberals 45 to 24 percent, with the New Democrats trailing at 14 percent.

This compares with the October 14 electoral result of 37.6 percent for the Conservatives, 26.2 percent for the Liberals and 18.2 percent for the New Democrats.

Yet numbers like these still can't convince some people that threats and extortion aren't the way to go. From the CP: The [Canadian Auto Workers] union leader says there's a "battle to wage" and that he's "damned pissed off."

"The only way that we can force this government to change direction is to build a coalition."

What does the man mean by "change direction?" Why, money, of course. He wants a "stimulus package," which is a fancy way for saying "Gimme." How's he going to get it? By force.

Nobody learned anything out of this mess except the Canadian people. They now know that the Liberal and NDP parties do not have a platform outside of their desire for power and their hatred for Stephen Harper. Oh, and their contempt for the ballot box.