Tuesday, January 24, 2006

A Little Story about Jack & Olivia

The John Mellencamp tune "Jack & Diane" has been popping into my head all day.

I made up some new lyrics:

A little story 'bout Jack and Olivia
Two Canadian kids on the edge of political oblivion.
Jackie says he's gonna be a parliamentary star.
Olivia says without two more seats babe we won't get too far.

Oh yeah, life goes on
Long after the balance of power is gone.
Oh yeah baby, life goes on,
Long after Lorne, Sid and Svend are all done.

Twenty years ago Ed was a big left-wing badass.
Nowadays we're happy with official party status.
We've had to learn to try to set modest goals.
Woopee freakin doo we're up two points in the polls.

Oh yeah, life goes on,
Long after that guy from Barenaked Ladies has gone.
Oh yeah baby life goes on,
Long after the dream of a third place finish is done.

Rock on!

Postmortem

So here I sit at 2am. I should go to bed, since I'm working tomorrow, but I just can't stop clicking on the refresh button in the CBC internet window, hoping that last Liberal leading seat will go NDP so we can hit 30. Yeah, dream on.

Mixed feelings.

I'm glad we didn't get squeezed like last time, but really bummed to miss out on balance of power. I admit I had dared to dream a little bigger than this. I'm glad Harper was held to a minority, but at the same time a bit chagrinned that the Liberals did so respectably well. Without balance of power it's going to be pretty hard for the NDP to do much over the next year or two, and red vs. blue will still be the main story for the forseeable future. I had hoped they would get humiliated, not just slapped.

I am happy to see the Bloc lose support. Let's hope that continues next time.

I was stunned that our local candidate, Gord Perks, lost so badly here in Davenport. It was supposed to be close. It wasn't. Gord was a higher profile candidate than Rui Pires last time, so we should have made gains if not win. It makes me realize that ethnicity matters a lot here. Either that or Mario Silva is a cheater. Probably both. I was scrutineering today and when Mario came in to vote his own scrutineers didn't even recognize him. It kind of makes you think some mob boss ordered his goon squad out to work for Mario. OK, OK, I'm just bitter. Also very sad to see Churley, Nystrom and Sid Ryan lose.

Still, some good and some bad for everyone.

Harper won but with a pretty weak minority.

Martin lost, but not as bad as expected. He gets to leave with his dignity. Pity, that.

Jack didn't get squeezed again, but the gains were modest and he didn't get balance of power.

Duceppe doesn't really have much to be happy about, which makes ME happy.

Let's do it again in about a year and a half!

(Next time I'm not bothering to volunteer in Davenport though. What a waste of time!)

Friday, January 13, 2006

seat predictions

Still over a week to go, but what the hell. Here are my seat predictions:

NDP 30
BQ 55
CPC 140
Liberals, uh, what's left? 83

I think we'll pick up a couple in Toronto, and possibly, possibly even here in Davenport. (Although if that happens we'll be bound to get more than 30!)

Still, I long for the day that the NDP has more to celebrate than not doing as badly as predicted. Really, the number of MPs matters far less than whether we get the balance of power. 22 seats with the BofP would be far better in the long run than 30 MPs sitting off in the political wilderness.

Monday, January 09, 2006

Gr8 Db8

I'm watching the debate rerun and it's pretty entertaining television. What a difference Steve Paiken makes. The slight change in format works better too, letting the moderator steer things a bit more at his discretion.

Layton's doing fine. I already know from the other blogs there are no knockouts coming. Harper is doing really well too. Duceppe, surprisingly, is stinking up the joint and flailing away semi-coherently. Dithers is speeding through his answers and comes off as a bit desperate. Not good. I contributed the phrase "the fact is" to the NDP debate bingo card, and he's using it constantly, as always. I think the Liberal's just lost their last chance to turn this thing around.

Sunday, January 08, 2006

Episode IV: A New Hope

It is a dark time for the rebellion...no, wait, that's Star Wars.

It's actually a good time for the rebellion, at least here in Davenport. I gleaned 2 good pieces of info off the web yesterday for Gord Perks. First, he's just opened up a second campaign office up on St. Clair, which is right in the heart of Mario Silva territory. Hopefully that will be effective in taking some support form Silva's strongholds.
Secondly, democraticSPACE.com has some very detailed seat projections for this election, and as of yesterday they were calling for an NDP win here in Davenport! It CAN happen here people! Ya gotta believe!