Political Leaderhship Campaign 2011

There are any number of reasons why our betters didn't want this election, but one over-arching reason keeps rising to the surface like an indomitable lump of guano ... this could very well be the last election campaign for Mr. Layton, Mr. Ignatieff, and, Mr. Harper.

If Mr. Ignatieff can't manage to overcome the massive deficit his party holds in the polls ... it's back to Harvard for the lad.

If Mr. Layton doesn't experience some sort of marvelous recovery from his physical ills ... he'll be leaving politics after this latest battle.

If Mr. Harper fails to get a majority,he will, step down ... either that or civil war will explode within the CPC.

Rex Murphy, having already shown utter displeasure with the current crop of politicians who infest The House, takes the sanguine view that no matter what happens ... this election will provide a much needed flushing of the system ... consider it a long overdue enema:

Well, the majestic stewards of our glorious destiny — by which I mean the Ottawa politicians — have got the election horse to water; and I do believe the old nag is actually going to drink. A Canadian election — unwanted, unwarranted and unwelcome — is almost certainly upon us.

Elections change things; and while this one may not change the partisan composition of the House of Commons, the odds of another Harper minority are good. This result would change, and change for good, the cast of characters who have become as familiar to us and as loveable as the Jersey Shore crowd — at the top of every party in Ottawa.

Tis is a leadership election in every sense of that phrase. Stephen Harper survives only if he wins, finally, the majority that has stayed out of his grasp since his 2006 victory over Paul Martin. If the result is yet another fractious minority, Mr. Harper can hang in for another year or two, but the Conservatives — already a little thin on the imperious Mr. Harper — will be looking for someone to lead them — someone less brittle, less polarizing and maybe someone who can smile in public without giving the impression he’s doing so while reading a ransom note.

For disgruntled Conservatives like me, the flushing will come with much satisfaction. If Mr. Harper gets a majority we'll find out once and for all if he is indeed a conservative, or just another big government Tory ... more "progressive" than anything else. So far, that's been the deal, as Mr. Harper has shed just about every vestige of his former self ... reading his speeches from Pre-PM days makes one ache ... makes one wonder ... who stole Mr. Harper.

To be fair, he has been shackled by minority government realities and by a character that is ... how can we put it delicately ... drab. It's tough to sell conservative ideals to cautious centrists when you've got the charisma of an amoeba ... but fortunately his competitors have equally as icky public characteristics ... one, all the gloss of a wet muskrat (and appearance too), the other the ear-drum splitting attraction of a yapping poodle.

What this means is that the coming election will either be an election fought over ideas ... or simply a food fight. Given that all of Canada's main political parties are now "big government." parties ... I'm betting on the food fight.

Terence Corcoran writes a thoughtful piece for the Financial Post, in which he considers that there is, No Harper Nation:

Shortly after his government’s defeat, Prime Minister Stephen Harper attempted to deflect focus back to Tuesday’s budget. The economy, he said, is the number one priority of Canadians and the budget was the key to the country’s economic future. Then he said: “There was nothing in the budget that the opposition could not or should not have supported.” True enough — but what does that say to Canada’s conservatives? Based on the budget, they are now called on to support a Conservative party that has presided over an extravagant full-scale national revival of big government by fiscal expansion.