Ignatieff's Election Gambit and the NDP

Right off the top, I think my problem with Ignatieff's election call was that it was so completely out of the blue. It's true Layton had recently come away from a meeting with harper saying that nothing could be worked out, but that was in the context of having a Liberal Party that's enabled the harpercons for years on end having said nothing new since their EI hypocrisy fizzled out.

I share (for instance) Alison at Creekside's desire to see the end of the harpercon misgovernment, but simply calling an election isn't going to make that happen automatically. A misjudged election call could even make things worse and give harper a majority. Now, obviously, worries about harper's potential success in any election have kept the Liberals from bringing on an election, so what's the difference here?

I think the question is building up an anti-harper momentum and timing in general. Ignatieff's election threats seem to me like a guy who has waited too long to get angry and start fighting, and chooses when everyone else is demoralized or resigned to issue a call to arms. When Layton was saying they should vote down the budget and employ the coalition, Ignatieff turned him down. The few times since coming back from prorogation that Ignatieff had an opportunity to do more than bluster he folded with the merest of concessions. Suddenly he comes out of a strategy session at the tail-end of the summer recess and starts talking about an election before Parliament's even had a chance to meet. It looks like petulance more than it looks like responsible opposition.

Another thing that's plagued the Liberals since Paul Martin's time is that they share the same economic policies as the harpercons (albeit without having an incompetent 19th-Century idiotologue like Jim Flaherty) so they don't really have anything attractive to go to the polls with. And, whereas harper has united the right-wing, the Liberals have to contend with opposition on their left-wing, which denies them the automatic votes of the sane 60% of Canadians outside of Quebec.

Two things are for certain though. This craziness has managed to make everyone (except the Bloc, I guess) look bad and everyone (except for harper) look good. harper looks bad because it's always been his stubborn arrogance that's made Parliament dysfunctional the whole time. Now, he's reduced to negotiating with the same "socialists and separatists" he hypocritically trashed the Liberals for courting. Layton looks cynical and hypocritical. Ignatieff looks like a petulant doofus.

At the same time, Layton is once again a player. If he extracts genuine concessions he can say that he knows how to bargain with harper as opposed to the Liberals' panic and embarrassed anger. Ignatieff can say that Layton wouldn't have had the opportunity without the Liberals' election threats. Personally, I'm hoping that harper's concessions won't be enough and Layton allows Ignatieff to force this election.

harper has to go. At the end of the day, the Liberal Party has more maturity and will work with other parties in a minority situation. At the very least, they've been humbled by repeated failure and indecision since 2006.

Finally, those Liberals who are snickering about Layton's predicament in having apparently lost his nerve now that voting against the government matters: If it's so revolting and cowardly when done by Layton and the NDP, it must make you guys feel pretty sick about your own record 'eh?