Predictable

When Stockwell Day was the leader of the Alliance he got painted as a religious right zealot by the Liberals and the press ate it up.

When Stephen Harper took over leadership of the Alliance and eventually the Conservative Party of Canada he was painted as “Scary” Stephen Harper with his Hidden Agenda by the Liberals and the press.

When Stephane Dion became leader of the Liberal Party of Canada he was painted as the incompetent professor who was the environment minister but let emissions rise by the Conservatives and somewhat by the press.

When Michael Ignatieff took over the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada, he was painted as an “Americano” who was out of the country for 3 decades and came back to be Prime Minister. He was just a visitor. This is what the Conservative advertisements told us.

So if you were the Liberals and you wanted to avoid having your leader painted for two years with Conservative advertising on some negative issue and you needed a reprieve for…oh let’s say 18 months…so your new leader could rebrand himself with the press, would it not be prudent to buy that time somehow?

Would appointing him “interim leader” and then changing your rules before convention to let him run for the official leadership be a wise thing to do? I think it would.

So my advice to the Conservative Party. Dip into that war chest you just built up with Convention attendee fees and start painting Bob Rae as Buffalo Bob. Start telling the Canadian public how his term was so bad that the NDP didn’t win a single seat in Ontario in 1993.

Because if the Liberal Party pulls a fast one and puts him in as leader in 18 months, it may be too late to brand him if he has branded himself.

I’m just sayin…

Posting red text with actual results

For the record, I will say that my numbers are educated guesses based partly on the last election, partly on the tides of change happening in this election, partly on my desire to see a stable majority government in Canada, partly on my seat by seat analysis, partly on the pollsters data and finally to throw much of this out the window, partly on my decision to move a few blocks of seats out of sheer gut instinct.

i.e. to figure out how I got these numbers, you will likely yank your hair out for hours.

In any case here they are.

Nationally:
Conservatives – 170 166
New Democrats – 61 103
Liberals – 57 33
Bloc Quebecois – 19 4
Green Party – a big fat goose egg 1
Independent – 1 (Sorry Helena, it ain’t you) 0

Provincially:
Alberta:
Conservative – 28 27
All other parties – 0
NDP – 1

BC:
Conservative – 25 21
NDP – 8 12
Liberal – 3 2
All others – 0
Green Party – 1

Manitoba:
Conservative – 10 11
NDP – 4 2
All others – 0
Liberal – 1

New Brunswick:
Conservative – 8 8
Liberal – 1 1
NDP – 1 1
All others – 0

Newfoundland and Labrador
Liberal – 3 4
Conservative – 2 1
NDP – 2 2
All others – 0

Nova Scotia:
Liberal – 5 4
Conservative – 4 4
NDP – 2 3
All others – 0

Nunavut:
Conservative – 1 1All others – 0

Ontario:
Conservative – 63 73
Liberal – 27 11
NDP – 16 22
All others – 0

PEI:
Conservative – 2 (bubbye Wayne Easter) 1
Liberal – 2 3
All others – 0

Quebec:
NDP – 27 59
Bloc – 19 4
Conservative – 14 5
Liberal – 14 7
All others – 0

Saskatchewan:
Conservative – 12 13
Liberal – 1 1
NDP – 1 0
All others – 0

Western Arctic:
Conservative – 1 0
All others – 0
NDP – 1

Yukon:
Liberal – 1 0
All Others – 0
Conservative – 1