Dion to quit, but stay on as leader

It's been said a good number of times that you should give your two weeks and leave. While it may seem like you just want to clean up a few times and have a chance to train the new guy it never seems to work out that way. Sometimes the best thing to do is just leave gracefully and walk away. Dion isn't doing this and it may be just so he doesn't have to deal with the infighting of whoever takes over from him before the next convention. For what ever reason he likely will leave the Liberals mired in their own navel gazing about what went wrong with the election at least until next spring.

1 Election Down, 1 To Go

Well Canada spent 270 million dollars and changed almost nothing last week. Though it will change who's leading the Liberal party. Stephan Dion was just never able to rise above the level of guy you would vote for to stop Steven Harper. It's unfortunate for the Liberals as they have been unable to really inspire any interest in their own ideas. So in the next 6 months or so they'll have another convention and try it all again hopefully with someone who will actually make people want to vote Liberal rather than just vote Liberal because they're afraid of Harper having too much power. It's expected that Dion will resign on Monday and let someone else try their hand at it.

Wanted: Charismatic Person to lead the Liberal party; must be willing to quit gracefully if they fail to become Primeminister.

On the other side of the border the Election is still in full swing with both party's driving hard into the home stretch. It looks from recent polls that Obama will win the election as he's been pulling away from McCain in the last few weeks. McCain's Choice of Sarah Palin was a risky gamble and it was looking like it would pay off for a few weeks. In the end though no one could quite get over the idea that if McCain has a heart attack a week after the inauguration Palin would have her finger on the big red button.

Wanted: Charasmatic Perons to be McCains running mate; must be non controversial.

A short digression from the Canadian election

Well while the Americans were having their election and a Canadian election just happened to break out. So I'll digress from the Canadian election which is kinda boring at the moment and look South ... look way South to the US.

Sarah Palin has been the target of much criticism from democrats, republicans, whites, blacks, well pretty much everybody over things not related to politics such as her family life. While the way you live your life can be a reflection of how you'll be as a leader it's not really that important. Though some have suggested that since McCain is pretty old she might have a pretty good shot at being leader if he doesn't make it through the term. The interesting thing though is how much attention she has managed to take away from Obama. I don't even know the name of his running mate and I can't remember hearing any major news stories about him. So whether she's good for McCain or not she's at least kept the republican campaign in the news. In the end I think that secretly alot of Americans actually recognize themselves in Sarah Palin, many of them have had teenage daughters who get pregnant and family troubles that have been embarrassing. So she might just help McCain make it to the white house, because Americans have quite a bit of the "hey they're just like me" feelings and that might just be enough.

The ancipation in the media couldn't be cut with a Chainsaw.

Well if there's one group that's excited about another election it's the Media. The joy of covering everything from debates to whistle stop tours is a joy that resounds across all the channels. Though I'll have to admit that it will be kinda nice to hear something political other than the coronation of Obama.

Of course on the bad side we'll have to sit through endless ads about what they'll claim they never really promised if actually elected. While I'm not a big fan of the US style attack ads it is kinda funny to see an ad that just says "My opponent is a terrible person who kills puppies" and never mentions anything about what the guy paying for the ad is doing or plans to do.

Of course the Greens and NDP can promise anything they like in their commercials because the chance of them forming a majority government is about the same as of John McCain being a cover model for a swimsuit issue. An energy efficient society by 2012 sure it's not like we'll ever have to weasel our way out of doing it.

As for the Liberals well it's pretty much a toss up. If they had a more dynamic leader (read anyone other than Stephan Dion) They'd probably have a good shot. But since they don't Harper would have to do something reallllllly crazy to not get back in with at least a minority government.

Let the speculation continue.....

The Media frenzy about yet another federal election is still going strong even though it has yet to be called. Apparently the Prime Minister will take the short walk to Rideau Hall on Sunday and ask the Governor General to dissolve parliament and call an election. It does seem all but a certainty, The Conservatives are running election ads including one with a girl claiming she'll be voting for Stephen Harper... unless she lives in Calgary Southwest that seems pretty unlikely she may be voting Conservative but not for the Leader himself. All the speculation and the commercials do make it pretty clear that the call is near. The other parties are also going out and announcing their plans for Canada including the Liberals announcing plans for taxes on fuel and tax cuts for energy efficiency. The Green party is planning on going to court to be included in the debate and The Conservatives have said they won't come if the Greens are there. All this over an election that so far isn't official.

Election fever: Just like dance fever but much less fun to watch or participate in

Well the campaigning has started for the non existent election. All sources point to it being held on October 14th when the Conservatives figure we'll be to drunk on Turkey, Turducken or some other equally fattening substance to vote straight. Not that i'm saying the Conservatives have done a bad job . Actually far from it, they've run the most sucessful minority governement, probably ever. Though they did say they'd wait for 4 years it seems they've grown impatient and decided that giving up the right to call elections when they want was a bad idea after all and well they'll just call them when it works for them.

We'll see if any major issues emerge or anything happens to distinguish the different parties.. but so far ... nothing.

Who will I be voting for? who knows.. We're not even having an election yet.