Its going to be a Harper Majority

The polls open in less than 24 hours, so its time for a prediction...and sorry to say it looks to me like a Harper majority.  Based on the polls, especially those relating to the province of Ontario, I see Harper's Conservatives garnering somewhere around 160 seats nationally.

Obviously my guess is not worth much, my projection and a TTC token will get you a subway ride to downtown Toronto.  But I'll explain my rationale none the less.

The bottom line is that its going to all come down to the province of Ontario, and in my home province I see the Tories making big gains due to vote splitting between the NDP and Liberals, allowing Conservative candidates to split up the middle. 

If there's a wild card I see it resting with the number of ballots cast.  If the turnout is as abysmal as it was in 2008 it favours the Conservatives.  Conversely if turnout is a robust 70% or more, then I see that hurting the chances of Harper winning his majority.  But I'm not optimistic about heavy voter turn out, because there's no reason to be.

Jack Layton has been the star of this election, while Michael Ignatieff's energetic and earnest efforts failed to connect.  Even with Layton's performance, I don't see either leader inspiring casual followers of the campaign to get off the couch tomorrow and head to the polls.

So here are the numbers I'm predicting, and if I end up being 100% correct I'll fall off my chair.  We'll see if I'm close:

Cons 162

NDP  79

Libs    48 

Bloc   19

Sorry Liz, my call...close but no cookie.

I do hope I'm wrong, especially now that PMHarper just tweeted yesterday that a coalition government is a legitimate option.  I'll write more on that later today. 

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Harper's Conservatives - The vast left wing conspiracy trumps incompetence

Leaders of Canada's opposition Liberal, NDP, Green and Bloc parties have a monumental task ahead of them in unseating the Harper Conservatives from the seat of power in Ottawa. Monday's Globe and Mail reports that polling indicates the Tories have opened up a 5 point lead nationally on the second place Liberals. The Strategic Counsel poll pegs the Conservatives at 35% and the Liberals at 30, with the NDP and Greens at 14 and 9 respectively.

Stephen Harper has assumed the mantle of Canada's Teflon man, nothing sticks. In his first mandate the Prime Minister broke his promise to "never, NEVER" tax income trusts, still Canadians returned the Tories with an increased minority. In calling an early election last October Harper may have even broken his own law respecting fixed election dates. A judge will now decide if that election call was illegal instead of just politically self serving.

Despite such a short tenure as Canada's ruling party, the Conservatives have done plenty to raise the ire of the voting public. Promises of balanced budgets have joined the tax exempt status of Income Trusts on the trash heap. Jim Flaherty's laughingly inept budget projections should definitely give Canadians cause for concern about the running of the nation's finances.

Add to that Lisa's Raitt's salivating at the 'sexiness' of cancer patients having treatment delayed, the boondoggle of funding for GLBT events in Toronto and Montreal, Harper breaking his promise not to engage in patronage politics to become the all time patronage champion with Senate appointments...its a long list for a party with so little time in power.

And yet despite financial mismanagement and scandal after scandal....Harper's Conservatives continue to lead in the polls. Why?

Simple, Harper's socially conservative base in convinced that there has long been a conspiracy afoot to rob Canadians of certain God given rights. There is a pervasive belief that a "Liberal Elite" is bent on ramming through an agenda that extols the 'dubious' (sic) virtues of things like multiculturalism and equality of the sexes.

The challenge for the likes of Ignatieff, Layton and May is to energize the roughly ten million Canadians who didn't bother voting last time around. Shaking the Conservative tree in hopes of diminishing Harper's core base will yield slim pickings at best. Stephen Harper can run the economy into the ground, break almost every election promise and prove himself the epitome of hypocrisy...and it won't matter to roughly 25% of Canadian voters.

I do believe the Liberals are off to a decent start with their chosen theme of "We Can Do Better". But its going to take more than a catchy slogan to reverse Mr. Ignatieff's fortunes and propel him to 24 Sussex Drive.

The fact that the Liberals are finally willing to state their intention of fighting an election at a time when their polling numbers are less than robust nullifies any appearance that their strategy is opportunistic. When Harper broke his own fixed election law last summer in an attempt to garner a majority mandate, that was political opportunism at its most blatant.

Canadians do deserve better government than what we've been getting recently, but Harper's socially Conservative base will be doing its best to blur reality. Its Machiavellism at its best and worst, Harper is their lesser evil.

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Harper a Twitter heavy hitter but Facebook more Jiggy with Iggy

Barrack Obama's winning presidential campaign demonstrated the potential for the Internet and social networking sites to connect with the electorate, bypassing more traditional media and delivering the candidate's message directly to voters. Obama had more than one million fans on facebook and an equal number following his tweets on twitter.

I thought I'd check on the status of Canada's federal leaders to see how they're stacking up to one another. But with sincere apologies to Messieurs Layton and Ducette as well as to Elizabeth May, the real heavyweights are Ignatieff and Harper.

On Twitter Stephen Harper is far ahead of his rivals with over 16,000 followers. Micheal Ignatieff lags well behind with just under 10,000. Both have alternate names for tweeting in French, with Harper's having just over 500 followers and Iggy at 178. Jack Layton isn't doing too bad comparatively speaking at over 8,600, Gilles Duceppe is just shy of 2,000 (he only tweets en Francais) and Elizabeth May has almost 4,400.

It strikes me that those numbers are actually pretty reflective of the make up of our current parliament...Green leader 'Liz May's numbers notwithstanding.

Facebook, on the other hand, provides a different picture. All the party leaders have fan or supporter pages, like followers on twitter, but on Facebook its Jack Layton with a slim advantage over Harper's 27,300 supporters. The NDP leader's numbers come in slightly higher at just over 27,800. Both are well out in front of Iggy who has a bit more than 15,300. Elizabeth May has just over 6,000, while Gilles Duceppe comes it at about 3,700.

Obviously Iggy, with the least amount of time in at the helm of his party, has a bit of catching up to do in the facebook world. But where you see a real divergence is in the Groups spawned by Ignatieff as compared to those about Harper.

Facebook shows 117 groups listed for Michael Ignatieff, and while there are a few of the requisite "Michael Ignatieff Sucks" variety, the overwhelming majority are supportive. He has a group support pages for individual provinces: BC, NS, Saskatchewan, Quebec...even my own Durham Region has a support page with 65 members.

The Prime Minister by contrast has over 500 groups listed in a search of his name...with many of them strongly Anti-Harper in tone. Canadians United Against Stephen Harper has over 21,000 members, and Stephen Harper Sucks rings in at 328. There's a group of 186 that want Mr. Harper arrested, and another group of 50 highlighting the Calgary MP's lies.

Screw Stephen Harper, Stop Stephen Harper, People Against Stephen Harper...even Stephen Harper Eats Babies.

The degree of animosity generated toward Stephen Harper is off the charts compared to any of the other leaders. Jack Layton has 259 groups, almost all supportive. And the Bloc's Giles Duceppe has 44. A search of Elizabeth May forced me to add the word Green because her name is so common, it came up with 82...again mostly supportive. There is a group entitled 'Elizabeth May has got to go', but it only has 1 member.

What does all this mean? Not much really, its probably as significant as a pocketed communion wafer. The real fun will start when the next election writ is dropped.

They all blow my twitter numbers away, canukgord is followed by a paltry 33 users, and there are no fan or supporter pages for this blogger. But if anyone wants to start a 'Gordie Canuk Sucks' page on Facebook I wouldn't be upset, that's when I'll know I've truly arrived. But please no groups saying I eat babies, that would hurt.

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