A Cabinet Shuffle and Fall Election?

The Hill Times is musing today that PM Harper will have cabinet shuffle and then call and election this fall.
They go on speculating what was reported in Le Devoir that Minister Jim Flaherty will be shuffled out of Finance in which I truly find that hard to believe. Minister Flaherty has done a great job steering us through a very bad recession and is well liked and has been given kudos from the international world.  The PM has full confidence in his Minister, why would he want to suffle him now?  The economy is still recovering and is still very fragile.

Secondly they are speculating that PM Harper will go the GG before the House is scheduled to return on Sept. 20 for the fall sitting, and ask for an election depending on how Iffy's desperation bus tour goes.

The Le Devoir story raised discussion not only of the government's plans for the short term, but also of the odds Prime Minister Harper may decide to ask Governor General Michäelle Jean to dissolve Parliament before it reconvenes on Sept. 20, paving the way for an election in which he would hope to capitalize on rising support his party is experiencing in public opinion polls while the fortunes of the Liberal party and Leader Michael Ignatieff (Etobicoke-Lakeshore, Ont.) continue to decline in the opposition direction. 

Joanne at BLY pointed out a particular comment of  pollster Frank Graves  in this column on her blog.

Joanne says:

July 19, 2010 at 7:05 am

Rather surprising to hear Frank Graves say this:

Ekos pollster Frank Graves said Prime Minister Harper has already benefitted from his appearances this year with Queen Elizabeth, his leadership at the G8 and G20 summits, the Vancouver Olympics and his gradual ascension on the world stage over the past four years.
“I believe that what’s happened is that Stephen Harper has gradually and slowly, almost without anybody noticing, he becomes the proxy for national pride,” Mr. Graves told The Hill Times. “This has never happened [with Prime Minister Harper] before. I think it’s a new dynamic

Methinks it’s a trap.

I happen to agree.  Frank Graves should not be trusted since he has been advising the Liberal party.
Even though the temptation might be there, the PM should refrain from calling an election this fall instead as stated by Joanne from BLY to continue governing competently.

Frmgrl – I really hope PM Harper refrains from calling an election anytime soon – no matter how tempting. He should continue to do just what he’s doing – govern competently with a view to get us back on our feet economically. He’s doing a great job.

It would be a mistake to call one this fall for three main reasons.

 1. There are municipal elections both in Alberta and Ontario this fall.  It would result in lower voter turn out because election fatigue.  It's hard enough to GOTV in the municipal ones since the turn out  is usually very low.  Voters would not be happy campers to have two elections at the same time or just weeks apart.

2.  I believe PM Harper would be seen as opportunistic and it could backfire.  He could very likely be punished at the polls.

3.  There needs to be a very good reason to drag the public to the polls and I don't see one right now.

Anyway I don’t see a Jim Flaherty being shuffled out of his Finance Ministry portfolio nor do I see  federal election until at least next spring after the budget.  Let the  media speculate all they want.  Let the opposition parties defeat the government on a bill.  They can get the flak then for an unwanted election.

I do think all this  fall election talk by the MSM is because THEY are the ones that really want one in order to send "The Visiting Professor" back to academia  so  that their favorite party can anoint their next messiah in hopes that next one will  win the big prize.


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Is the Media Turning On Iffy?

For the last week now the Liberal leader has been on a bus tour that he and his party hopes improves their numbers and possibly take them back to 24 Sussex.  Well how's it been workin' so far? The media hasn't been actually that kind to him this week for one thing.  Their reporting has been relatively critical. They have been reporting mostly the negatives. I must add he hasn't actually helped himself out here. It started even before Iffy boarded the Liberal Express. Last weekend at the Calgary Stampede, he channeled Hugo Chavez when he made a comment about "smelling sulfur" when referring to the PM.
Tuesday shortly after the bus was on the road, it broke down and "Harper Diesel" came to the rescue.That's what the story was for the day.

Yesterday he was on the defensive when Jim Travers from the Star reported that there was and exit strategy for Iffy should he lose the next election.  Iffy denied the report and dissed Travers at the same time. 

“Let’s put it this way. I was surprised,” he said. “Jim Travers is a good journalist, but he’s starting to write fiction here in his declining years. I really don’t know where he got it from.”

Oooh, that most likely didn't endear him to Travers and the Star.  When you're a politician you don't diss a journalist they can turn on you and become vicious.
Michael Den Tandt describes Iffy as vague and timid.  Calls his vision  nostalgic and could come back to hurt him.
Susan Riley is equally critical about Iffy. She is known to be more critical of Conservatives not Liberals.

The problem is not that Canadians don't know the Liberal leader, all these months later. The problem is that they know him too well.

and this zinger,

Trouble is, Canadians don't see a regular guy when they see Ignatieff, no matter what he wears. They see a man trying to be someone he isn't.

Michael Harris sums it up quite nicely.

When the guys who buy ink by the barrel turn against you, the bus ride is usually one way.

Ain't that the truth! There's still a lot of touring for Iffy left to do.  Will he be able to turn it around?  Who knows.  It's still early in his tour but he surely has an uphill battle to win hearts and minds of the public especially if he doesn't have the media on his side.  Without the liberal media on their side, Liberals have a really hard time.

Is Kelly McParland Right? Maybe Ignatieff just isn’t that smart

Kelly McParland stated this just a couple of days ago that Michael Ignatieff :

 Maybe Ignatieff just isn’t that smart.  It’s hard to figure this guy. He’s made mistake after mistake after mistake. He signs the coalition pact, insists he’s on side, then repudiates the whole thing later. He stokes a phony election threat, insists he means it despite all common sense, then retreats in embarrassment when it falls flat. He raises issue after issue as a line in the sand, then does nothing when the Tories step over the line and kick sand in his face to boot. His own caucus ignores him, his supposed pal Bob Rae embarrasses him, he fires his advisers to get better advice, and then makes the same dumb mistakes under the new advisers.
He doesn’t seem to learn. He spends a deeply uncomfortable week or two insisting he’s not interested in a coalition of opposition parties, then uses a trip to Britain to confer with the junior member of Britain’s coalition party. Great optics? Um…no. He knows he has to soften his image as a pointy-headed academic, so he does it by touring Canadian campuses and holding a “thinkers conference” in Montreal. Why not just move back to Harvard and run the party from there?

Well Mr. McParland just may be right.  We have this today from John Ibbitson.  Seems like Ignatieff has trouble with knowing about the different bills that are out there. 

 Kingston voters school Ignatieff on legislation that matters
KINGSTON, ONT. – Do you know what Bill C-6 is? Or Bill C-474? Don’t worry, it would seem Michael Ignatieff doesn’t either. 

As leader of the official opposition he should have a clue about these bills. Does he not read them? Is he not at least briefed on them?  Good grief! 
PM Harper would have known what these bills were about, each clause, each paragraph and able to explain them in detail.  So would NDP Leader Jack Layton.   Maybe Iffy should spend more time at work then maybe he'd have somewhat of a clue.  It just shows he's not ready for prime time.

Iffy Should Not Count on Alberta Provincial Cousins

Oooh, our Alberta provincial Liberal leader, David Swann is not exactly enamoured by his federal cousins.

“It helps us to define ourselves as quite separate from the federal Liberals, which in Alberta is not a bad thing,” Swann said Tuesday after issuing a statement criticizing the federal Liberals. “We are standing up for Alberta, and in this case, we are not in agreement with our federal Liberal party.”

Ouch! Who can blame the provincial Libs from wanting to separate themselves from their federal cousins?  They have a hard time the way it is to make any headway, nevermind associating themselves with the federal Libs.  We Albertans have not forgotten the  NEP that the federal Liberals imposed on us that was disastrous for businesses and individuals in the eighties.  We suffered through some tough times as a result. You got that  plus all that has occurred afterward within the federal Liberal party, (adscam, internal feuds, leader problems etc.)   you can see why they don't want to be linked to the federal party. Who would want to be associated with all that?
Smart move for Mr. Swann  for not wanting to be "kissin' cousins"  It would be poison if they were.

So Iffy, don't count on  your cousins in Alberta to help you out any time soon.  Just continue on with your Express bus tour and connect with the common people.

Iffy's Common Touch

So the leader of the Liberal party is on his bus tour across the county.  He wants to connect and "build a level of trust" among Canadians.

Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff is embarking on a two-month tour to connect and "build a level of trust" with Canadians across the country.

Uh huh, good luck with that one because maybe you need to beware of Iffy's common touch.

As Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff embarks on his cross-Canada tour, vowing to shake every hand in the country, we offer this stock tip.
Buy Johnson & Johnson.
It's the maker of Purell.
In a last-ditch effort to reinvent himself yet again -- having failed at portraying himself as Philosopher King Redux, or as an aristocratic Tsarist whose lineage demands a return to rule, or through his supposedly incomparable intellectual prowess, Ignatieff now wants Canadians to believe he has the common touch.
So, in his words, he's going to shake every hand in every Tim Hortons in the country, and kiss every baby he can find.
Break out the hand sanitizer and hide your children.
Snake oil would be an easier sell for the Liberal Party than Ignatieff trying on yet another political disguise, especially one where he attempts to shift his image to one that mirrors the hoi polloi.
He's an elitist, pure and simple.

Wow, ouch!   Don't think he's going to connect with regular folk anytime soon. Yeah I know, the toughest job in politics is leader of the official opposition but  he is so out of place and out of touch.  He just looks so uncomfortable to me.  The more he's out and about, the more he goofs up with his gaffes and the more the public is turned off.  If he doesn't turn this thing around toot sweet, he's toast after the next election.