Showdown with the Throne Speech

Well, the big question on everyone's mind this week is what will happen with the throne speech. I caught part of Question Period yesterday, and the Conservative memo was definitely, "This is either a mandate for us or an election." I thought Dion was fairly decent in his response, trying to frame it as saying whether or not Harper will go crazy or not. The problem with this is if we actually tacitly support the speech, then it does give some credence to Harper.

So, my guess for the speech is that it will be very tough to support. I don't see Harper backing down wanting this election over with soon. However, I also see him putting in enough goodies to try to paint the opposition as anti-something. Thus, it will be absolutely essential that if we are going into an election to frame the question extremely early as to why we are voting.

That's one thing that Tory did well in the Ontario election: he framed the question early. Unfortunately for him, he picked the wrong question, but he did establish the religious schools funding before anyone else started talking about anything. And that's what Hampton was so fed up about: he didn't get his election plank out early enough for anyone to talk about anything in it. He got boxed out early.

If we do go to war, which I think is actually probably more politically sound for us to do, in my opinion, then we need to be ready right off the bat. If we pick the right question, it may not be so bad for us.