The latest musings of the BlackBerry Roundtable …

prig
–noun
a person who displays or demands of others pointlessly precise conformity, fussiness about trivialities, or exaggerated propriety, esp. in a self-righteous or irritating manner.

ABC = Anyone but conservative, pioneered by Nfld Premier Danny Williams who has had issues with Stephen Harper over the Atlantic Accord.

Ryan – I think the timing of the *next* election (oh man, did I really type that? Are we really about to return to constant election speculation mode for the next who knows how many weeks/months/years?) will depend on how many leaders will be able to hold on in the aftermath of the vote.

It may seem unlikely, given the (non-Nanos) numbers, but if the Liberals are able to maintain like, between 95-105 seats, there may not be quite as much pressure on him to step aside — at least, not immediately. Remember, a lot of the leadership candidates from the last race have only just paid off their respective debts, which might stave off a coup for a few months while they survey the extent of the damage to the party.

If the NDP were to end up with a disappointing finish — fundamentally the same as, or even slightly less than what they had going into the election — there may be some grumbling over not having been able to carry his momentum to actual seat gains, especially in Quebec. If, on the other hand, the NDP ends up with 10-15 more seats, not only will Layton be safe, but he’ll have an incentive to keep the House going for a while, if only to provide a showcase for the newly revitalized Team Orange.

As for the PM, I’ve often wondered what it would take for *his* party to come to the conclusion that, for whatever reason, even with all the advertising, message control and strategic genius that money can buy, he simply can’t deliver a majority. If he comes back with – oh, let’s go with 140 seats, since that’s the number onto which I seem to have glommed in recent days – he should be safe for the moment. But if the votesplitting gods don’t smile upon him, and Quebec remains unmoved – thus requiring him to make up those hoped-for 15-20 seats elsewhere in the country – he could end up with only modest gains, or even the same number of seats that he has now. At that point, I have to wonder if we might start to hear the unmistakable swish of unsheathing swords at Conservative headquarters, even if he *does* win a second term.

Kady- Interesting. I hadn’t really given much thought to the stability of Harper’s position. I’ll add Harper getting gutted by his own party (a nice turn around after what he has done to so many underlings) to my list of things to pray to God for (along with winning the lotto and the Habs winning the Cup).
As for the Libs, I think it would be foolish of them to dump Dion right away no matter what the result. I think their weakness this last parliament was due to them trying to get enough confidence after the leadership shake up. Doing it again would be suicide! Also, I remember a guy named McGuinty who had similar criticisms (weak, “not a leader”) made against him after an election loss. Now he’s on his second term as Premier of Ontario.

People tend to criticize other people’s grammar when they don’t like what’s being said, but can’t figure out any reasonable argument against it. The exception, of course, is when the subject of a person’s message is grammar.

On to topic.

An interesting question I saw raised on somebody’s blog, since, supposedly, the point of this election was that Mr. Harper is unable to work with people who don’t agree with him, would his winning a minority mean he should immediately wander over to the Governor General’s house and call yet another election?

If he doesn’t, then is he going to pay back the 300 million he needlessly charged this country for an election which doesn’t change anything?

Okay, thanks for the info RE: the ABC movement. I thought it had something to do with strategic voting, but I wasn’t 100% sure.

jwl,

I take away the notion that some of America’s neighbours (Venezuela, Bolivia, etc.) see other models as more attractive. The statement immediately following the one you cited seems to me to bear that out.

I don’t for a moment believe Fukuyama is suggesting Russia or China become models for
governance.

The substance of the piece seems to be summarized in the closing paragraph:

“Restoring our good name and reviving the appeal of our brand is in many ways as great a challenge as stabilizing the financial sector. Barack Obama and John McCain would each bring different strengths to the task. But for either it will be an uphill, years-long struggle. And we cannot even begin until we clearly understand what went wrong—which aspects of the American model are sound, which were poorly implemented, and which need to be discarded altogether.”

He is not arguing party politics, he is arguing policy–and what he says seems sensible.