Voting in the Great White North

You're so warm
Oh, the ritual
When i lay down your crooked arm
Spin, spin
Spin the black circle
--Pearl Jam

The election is off and running and Dion makes a ridiculous statement right off the bat and right on queue:

Liberal Leader Stephane Dion called the election a "stark choice" between his party and "most Conservative government in our history"

Really? Does 5 minutes of research even need to be done here?

If he was using "conservative" as some pejorative attack, he could have easily looked to Robert Borden's administration, which interned Europeans, introduced the draft, instituted the War Measures Act, and used troops to put down a strike.

Anyways, this is going to be an incredibly boring election. On the left, there is a feeding frenzy for leftwing votes, which means the left wing parties will out green each other to the max, while the Conservatives will be sitting on a smaller but unchallenged patch of voters, namely from the White Hinterland. And Alberta.

And while the world changes, in this election not much will change.

The economy and the War, yes that means Afghanistan, are going to get worse before they get better.

Probably few would make the connection, but the power vacuum in Pakistan probably helped push Harper to make a move.

The resignation of Musharraf meant that Pakistan will not have a strong hand in the border regions and Benazir's husband Zadari was vying for votes in Waziristan. With a near clean sweep of that region, there was and will be deal to stay out of the tribal region for the time being, meaning the Taliban has free reign in the border area again. Couple that with a lame duck US president, with little authority to go traipsing around the Hindu Kush, and you have an increasingly dangerous situation in the Northwest Frontier Area.

That means that Canadians will be in harms way and there will be a surge in future military deaths.

Domestically, the economy is going to stay stagnant for the time being, and probably not look up until the end of 2009, which means the opposition would feast off the Conservatives economic record for the future, whether it is deserved or not.

Essentially, the Conservatives are not operating from a position of strength, but are in an effort to simply lock in their gains for the time being and batten down the hatches. Harper will probably come out as PM, and Dion will be axed as opposition leader to make way for Ignatieff.

The greens will make a strong showing, and will undercut NDP and Liberal support, clearing the way for Conservatives in certain suburban areas.

I would have a tough time voting for the conservatives in this election.

I voted for them in the last election because there needed to be a general clean up of Ottawa. They did that and cheers to them for doing it.

But their record in the aftermath has been driven by ideology as opposed to getting results.

Rona Ambrose's disasterous stint at Environment.

Tony Clement's demented rants and policies regarding Insite.

This is not acceptable. When they came in, they had a tight focus that ordinary Canadians could get behind.

Let me ask Conservatives: What policies are you proposing now? What are the substantive economic policies that you are enacting? What goals do you propose in the economic downturn?

I am not saying that I would vote for the Liberals, becauase I think Dion is part of the same talent pool we have been milking for ages, and his approach to counter Alberta separatism was ridiculous and condescending. He is piss poor leader and should have stuck to being a policy wonk, as opposed to Liberal leader.

I predict that the Conservatives will win, but without a majority.

Stephane Dion loses badly and is replaced as leader in the new year.

Greens take the eco-left, while the NDP is relegated to the labour/poverty votes.

The Bloc will keep its place in Quebec, but only outdated politics will keep them from moving up. They really should be trounced and reduced to a rump movement, but they won't because of the alternatives.

It's a shite state of affairs.