Saving the Country From Stephen Harper as he is Down in the Polls

Murray Dobbin, one of my favourite progressive journalists, posted on the recent merger/coalition talks.

After falling in the polls for weeks the leader of the Liberal Party seems finally to have received a reality check about his and his party’s future. He is actually talking about the possibility of a coalition. Mind you, it took a
rumour of a merger of the parties to get things really out there. Broadcaster Wendy Mesley – who announced with dead certainty that serious negotiations were underway – will now have a legacy of putting forward the most absurd political story ever featured on CBC National news. whoever suckered her into this one should get some kind of medal. I don’t usually give much credit to conspiracy theories but this smells like one.

But it doesn’t matter who did what. Something had to push Ignatieff off his delusional perch and whatever combination of factors did the trick we have now entered the next phase of saving the country from Stephen Harper.

"Saving the country from Stephen Harper" needs to be every one's goal. Whether it's allowing the Religious Right to prepare Canada for the end times, or his dangerous blind loyalty to Israel, at a time when people in their own country are speaking out against their aggression, this man and his goon squad have got to go.

How much we'll be able to selvage from his wreckage is unknown, since he's been operating in almost total secrecy, while selling us off a piece a time. But the sooner he's gone the better our chances.

There was some encouragement though as the latest EKOS poll shows that Harper's Reformers would lose 23 seats if an election were called today. But that's not yet enough.

Stephen Harper’s Conservatives would lose 23 seats - mostly from Ontario and British Columbia - and only be holding on to government by their fingernails, under new seat projections by EKOS Research. EKOS pollster Frank Graves describes the Harper government under his scenario as a “borderline legitimate government.”

At little more than 31%, and that's without any campaigning from the other parties, he's going to have trouble holding onto a minority.

Stephen Harper’s Conservatives are floundering as the Tory party moves from being “in the driver’s seat” just three weeks ago to “riding shotgun”, according to a new EKOS poll. There is “scant” difference now, says EKOS pollster Frank Graves, between the Tories and “their pursuers.” But what makes these new numbers all the more delicious is that they come amid the fierce debate in political Ottawa over mergers and coalitions on the left.

I think the media has been hard on Michael Ignatieff though. Maybe it's because they have so little to quote from Stephen Harper, that they hold onto any juicy tidbit they can from a man who will actually speak to them.