The vibrations about strategic voting are starting to pick up resonance in the land. Harper is “achingly close” to a majority with some poll and seat projector results last week. Harper’s new musing about wanting a majority was to be expected. Why is it reasonable to expect this?
Because at the beginning of the election Harper said just the opposite! He said when he called the election, breaking his own fixed date election law to do it, he said expected and would be “satisfied” with another minority government. We know from past experience that when Harper says one thing he means another…like not wanting a majority. Of course he wants a majority, and it looks like he will be getting it if current trends continue.
Get used to being afraid of your government’s power over you if Harper gets a majority. It could happen. Unless, of course Canadians wake up to that fact and realize what a mistake they would be. Harper is a one-man-band control freak and a misleading master manipulator. Canadians will have to stop him and that will take some strategic voting given the split in the Lib/NDP/Green voters.
The “appetite” for a Conservative majority is also at 40% and 51% would not be happy with a Harper majority and only 11% are not sure. This is according to a new Ipsos Reid poll released Sunday September 28. Harper is obviously a love him or hate him kind of guy. Those who love him are older and middle aged men and those who have him are younger Canadians.
This is a recipe for strategic voting, which will start in earnest after the debates this week. That same poll was showing 39% of us are in favour of strategic voting to stop Harper and 45% are against it. Some 16% are not sure what they think about strategic voting.
The strategic voters will tend to vote Liberal (44%) followed by NDP (26%) with Greens getting strategic voter support from 14%. Only 3% of strategic voters have not yet made up their minds. I expect the Green strategic voters in Ontario and Atlantic Canada will shift Liberal and the NDP vote in Quebec will shift to the Bloc.
The vote swapping websites and the anti-Harper websites and Facebook pages and anti-Harper Premier Danny Williams will all start to turn up the heat, volume and activity for strategic voting. More on how to do this will be in future posts.
Wow, pretty sad when all you can hope for is no Harper majority. I will take a strong Harper minority anyway because the liberals will be in a massive amount of death and the liberals will need a new leader. In fact, candidates are expressly supporting Iggy as the next leader.
ReplyDeleteI get a lot of pleasure watching the left split the vote. I can guarantee you that 90% of the population is not a hardcore partisan like you and will simply vote for the candidate they like (i.e., strategic voting doesn't work). Plus, Layton is the new opposition and, given the NDP's formidable election machine this time around, the Liberals will be lucky to finish second. A sad time for Dion liberals like yourself. You made a mistake in electing Dion - why not admit it?