The King Of Scorn!

Scorn!

The most impressive and commonly used weapon in the socialist shoulder bag of tricks. Scorn, collected through those teen years from Cheerleaders and Jocks can be transformed through proper education into a weapon to be hurled like Lynda Blair projectile vomit at anyone who dares to question or stand in the way of the revolution. Scorn belittles the unfaithful and amuses and rallies the revolutionaries allowing them the pleasing socialist afterglow of smugness.

NDP heaps scorn on coalition-killer Ignatieff

Women, step aside. Hell hath no fury like a political party scorned.

On Thursday, furious federal New Democrats turned their scorn on Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff, the man who to them has become The Coalition Killer.

The party quickly launched an advertising campaign that aims to vilify the Grit leader for getting into bed with Prime Minister Stephen Harper in support of Tuesday's budget.

In its first phase, the campaign consists of two 30-second English-language radio ads being broadcast in Ontario and Atlantic Canada, regions where the party elected new MPs last October or where voter support is growing.

Party rep Karl Belanger said a French-language ad is almost ready to go and, depending on donations flowing from the campaign, TV ads may follow.

The party's original intention had been to advertise in support of the Liberal-NDP coalition proposal to replace the Harperites, Belanger said.

But the coalition crashed and burned Wednesday when Ignatieff declared his party intended to vote for the budget.

For Jack Layton and his party, that coalition, slapped together in the first week of December, had been the ticket to ride.

By joining forces with Liberals, the NDP had hoped to get six MPs into a Liberal-led coalition cabinet and, for a change, make real advances for their cause.

But with the early December switch from Stephane Dion's leadership to that of Ignatieff, it gradually became clear the coalition was no more than a theoretical tool to be dangled but never deployed by Ignatieff.

Then came the Ignatieff announcement of Grit support for the Harper financial plan contingent on three monitoring reports in March, June and December, an idea Conservatives -- to secure their own survival -- promptly endorsed.

At that point Layton had little choice but to cut his losses and try to maximize his party's advantage, as the only stalwart federalist opposition to the government.

"It's official," asserts one of the ads, "Michael Ignatieff failed his first big test as Liberal leader. He's thrown his lot in with Stephen Harper, a person average families can't trust to look out for them.

"Jack Layton -- the only leader strong enough to stand up to Harper and create the change that will get us through this economic crisis."

This is good strategy for the New Democrats, who understand their party has nothing to gain and everything to lose through Ignatieff's decision to reassert a stand-alone Liberal identity in Ottawa.

If Ignatieff's plan works, a strengthened Liberal party probably would steal support from New Democrats. That's a trend New Democrats must thwart. An Angus Reid poll Thursday showed Liberals with 29-per-cent support, behind the Conservatives with 38-per-cent backing.
The NDP were well back, at 18 per cent. More worryingly, the poll found the socialist party is hanging on to only 64 per cent of its 2008 voters.

To some degree, Liberals and New Democrats fish in the same anti-Conservative pond for votes. By making Liberals appear ineffectual against the government, the NDP is hoping to attract disenchanted Grits.

But it would seem Ignatieff's strategy is more in keeping with public opinion. An Angus Reid poll earlier in the week showed Canadians would prefer to see an election rather than a coalition government if the Harper government falls.

That said, there's a great deal of truth in the NDP's ads. The NDP has fundamentally lost faith in the Conservative government and can be relied upon to vote against the Harperites in any non-confidence matter. Liberals, just starting the process of rebuilding their party, prefer to bide their time before facing another election.

Jack Layton, the only political leader strong enough to try and sniff the cave reeking bum bums of the Taliban. Jack Layton, the only political leader strong enough to make a coalition with a bunch of weenies from Quebec, whose declared agenda is to break up the same country Jack Layton would seek to lead. Lead, that is if he or his stupid party ever had a hope outside of Annex Soy Bean Cooperative of actually being elected. Jack Layton, watching the closest he will ever be to actually being part of any sort of Federal Government slip away turns to his mighty sword of scorn.

What ever works for you, Jack.

Dion Out, Mr Unpronouncable In

If Canada's current political situation isn't confusing enough with peroggies and coalitioning of the losers now the Liberals have a new leader. How will this effect the coalition? Only time will tell...

Ignatieff takes the prize

Michael Ignatieff has seized his long-sought prize – the Liberal leadership – raising fresh questions about the future of the opposition coalition that has vowed to defeat the minority Conservatives next month.

The fate of the coalition will be among the pressing issues facing Ignatieff as he prepares to take over the leadership of a party battered by cash woes, two lost elections and dismal poll numbers.

Heading into the caucus meeting expected to officially name Ignatieff as leader Wednesday morning, Liberal MP Ruby Dhalla said she feels relieved the "bitter" leadership contest is finally over.

As with her new leader, she left room for backing down on the coalition if the Tories propose a budget they could accept.

"I think Mr. Ignatieff said it best: a coalition if necessary but not necessarily a coalition," she said.

Liberal MP Scott Brison delivered a similar message when he used the past tense in saying "the coalition was effective" at forcing Harper "back to the drawing table."

Brison said it is clear Canadians want an alternative to Harper, but that alternative could be something other than a coalition."It’s up to Canadians to tell us what they want," he said.

He said the alternative could be "a strong Liberal party with a permanent leader in place."

LeBlanc said the Liberals should accept Harper’s invitation to give their input on the budget but also said Harper would be difficult to trust.

Late yesterday, Ignatieff paid tribute to the two candidates who had pulled out of the race and hailed the party for responding "quickly to changing circumstances to offer stability and leadership to Canadians."

The 61-year-old Liberal MP for Etobicoke—Lakeshore was assured of the leadership yesterday after Bob Rae – the last rival candidate in the race – dropped out, conceding he didn't have enough support to win in the party's stripped-down contest that left little time to sign up new backers.

Ignatieff, a runner-up in the 2006 contest that saw Stéphane Dion elected party leader, could take over as interim leader as early as today. That's when Liberal MPs and senators meet behind closed doors and are expected to make their own recommendation that Ignatieff serve as interim leader.

At the same time, the party executive were planning to conduct a hurried "consultation" with riding association presidents and various ex-officio members to solicit their confirmation of Ignatieff. He won't be ratified as full-time leader until the party's convention in May in Vancouver.

Last night, the party announced that consultations would be completed by 1 p.m. today, clearing the way for the national executive to announce Ignatieff as the interim leader by 2 p.m.

The Liberals are in a rush to have a new leader in place by the end of January, when a key budget vote could see the minority Conservatives defeated, sparking a new election or paving the way for a Liberal-led coalition to take power.

Dion's Speech Didn't Help His Cause

Stephane Dion as Mayor Tommy Shanks

Imagine... Canadians don't like the idea of the three losing parties taking over the Government. Colour me shocked. I think really the Canadian word for what the Libs, NDP and Bloc-heads are doing is pronouced "CHEATING" and the collective revulsion to it is akin to having someone score a goal while being offside and not getting called on it.

Harper has crushing poll lead on crisis

Prime Minister Harper has mounted a crushing polling lead as the result of a political crisis in which an opposition coalition sought to take power, a new survey showed on Friday.

If an election were held now, Harper's Conservatives would take a whopping 46 percent of the vote, more than enough to transform his minority in Parliament into a strong majority. In the October 14 election they received 37.6 percent of the vote.

The main opposition Liberals, the leftist New Democrats and the Bloc Quebecois, which wants to take Quebec out of Canada, signed a deal on Monday to try to replace Harper with a Liberal-NDP coalition supported by the Bloc.

They were upset with Harper's attempt, since withdrawn, to cut off direct subsidies of political parties and they also said he was not doing enough to boost the economy. During the election campaign, they had ruled out forming coalitions.

Harper mounted an attack on what he called a coalition driven by separatists and socialists, and public opinion swung his way.

Liberal support dropped to 23 percent from the 26.2 percent they won in the election and the New Democrats saw their backing fall to 13 percent from 18.2 percent.

An Ekos poll released the night before showed a lead of a similar magnitude, of 20 points, for the Conservatives.

Fifty-six percent of those polled by Ipsos Reid said they would rather go to another election, even though one was just held, rather than let the coalition govern.

Harper won seven weeks of breathing space on Thursday with the suspension of Parliament until late January, when he can present a budget with economic stimulus.

The coalition could try to bring him down then, though some Liberals are saying they should think hard before doing that.

Ipsos sampled 1,001 people, a sample which should carry a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points 19 times out of 20.