Thursday, September 18, 2008

Good Day for Progressives

The Globe says, "The Liberal campaign is starting to gain traction in key battlegrounds in Ontario and Quebec... [The Conservatives are] aiming for a majority, and it's slipping through their fingers at the moment. ...in Quebec, the Conservatives have the support of 27 per cent of the respondents in the selected ridings, compared with the Bloc and the Liberal Party at 26-per cent each."

Way to go Liberals! I was griping about the rally I went to this week, but I have to be impressed at the turnout: at least 400, I'd say, on a weekday afternoon in a suburb in the middle of nowhere.

Meanwhile, south of the border there was a huge swing in support for Barack Obama. Yesterday on my favorite tracking site, fivethirtyeight.com, McCain was forecast to win 280 electoral votes to Obama's 264. Today they flipped: Obama 285 to McCain 253. Pollster Nate Silver seemed flabbergasted that the situation could change so rapidly.

Both turnarounds may be largely due to the immense incompetence of the incumbents. In the US, the worsening financial crisis is increasingly scary given the shaky economic management of George Bush. In Canada the Tories are having blow-outs all over the place, and now are trying desperately to paint themselves as the only fiscally responsible party, when Chretien-Martin inherited a $43-billion debt from Mulroney and turned it into a decade of surpluses, squandered within two years of Harper rule.

All around, a good time for bad news.

No comments: