Saturday, February 9, 2013

2013 The Year Of Trudeau

As the Liberal Party prepares to begin it's latest leadership race, polls show that Justin Trudeau could win a majority government in the next election if he is crowned leader. This all but guarantees his coronation this spring. The other leadership candidates would be advised not to borrow too much money in a futile race with an all but certain outcome. While I might have trouble believing these polling results, their mere existence will unquestionably be enough to put Justin over the top. He'll get the lion's share of the media spotlight for the foreseeable future, probably more than NDP leader Thomas Mulcair.

It would be interesting to know what proportion of these 40% of Canadians who would vote for a Trudeau led Liberal Party are saying so just on the nostalgia of name recognition, and how many have actually been following Justin's career in parliament? Many of us who have been following his career in the House of Commons closely have unfavourable opinions of the kid. He has a temper, a tendency to speak of himself in the third person, and he holds policy positions that are farther to the left than most viable candidates. If he had a dog named Kyoto, it wouldn't surprise me.

How will Thomas Mulcair handle a Trudeau victory? The two will never need to work together to collapse the government, since we have a majority and the next election will be on Stephen Harper's terms. There is no question that a resurgence of the Liberal Party will take a giant bite out of the NDP caucus, and one assumes that Mr. Mulcair would indeed like to become Prime Minister. Does Tommy Boy play nice, or does Tom play to win? Your guess is as good as mine.

In the meantime, I'm assigning a 95% probability that Justin Trudeau will be the next leader of the Liberal Party. Who wins the next federal election? That is still too far away to start making predictions.

13 comments:

  1. I'm a young, 20-something year old... but I just can't get the Trudeau appeal. I could understand current polling if it was at a Trudeau-led LPC was at 37% to 34% CPC or something like that. But 41% to 26%? Baffling.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  3. These poll results are as "bought and paid for" as they come. You pay your money and you get the results you want. That’s how it works.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi,I'm a nine year old girl and I just LOVE Justin,oh, and that Trudeau guy too!

    I'll "up" your ante to 99%,of Liberals who will vote for Trudeau,on name recognition and their own delusions that the name still is revered across Canada.

    Political Parties can become very insular, and none more so than the current LPC. They imagine the majority of us are as stuck in "star-struck" mode as Liberals are,and can be snowed by a pretty face and a noisy campaign,as Jack Layton did.

    But JL had a long time following and was way more charismatic and intelligent than Justin Trudeau,to give the devil his due.

    Trudeau can look good in the polls now,but when the election campaign starts,they'd better have a teleprompter ready to show him what he thinks or he'll crash and burn with his schoolboy knowledge of issues.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I am not convinced of the accuracy of Forum polls. National Post pays for the poll and runs the same story every 2 weeks or so, one has to wonder why. Could this be a push poll to aid the career of Trudeau Jr?
    Forum performed very poorly in predicting the Quebec election 2 days before, yet they can predict an election 2 years away.
    Their national poll for Feb 6 has Liberal support at 30%, whereas others have them closer to 21%, they appear to overestimate Liberal support.
    If Dion and Ignatieff, who have impressive accomplishments, saw Liberal seats disappear under their leadership, how is Jr, who has none, supposed to regain those and capture enough to be PM? I t would be a tall order for anyone, for someone with his family baggage impossible.

    ReplyDelete
  6. After the Liberal Leadership debate in Winnipeg... Trudeau was asked why aboriginal issues weren't addressed.

    He answered. " They were. We talked about poverty, crime.... "

    It was brilliant. If his party was competent enough to form a government... then perhaps there would be an incentive to vote for him.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Shiny Pony will be the final nail in the coffin of the once "natural ruling party".

    ReplyDelete
  8. Liberal word association,
    Native Issues...
    Trudeau : poverty and crime.
    PMSH: transparency and job skills

    (Most) Libs and NDP have voted against any legislation PMSH presented to 'help' Natives get out of poverty.
    The progressives like their 'special interests' to be convinced they are victims with special rights.

    When little Trudeau wins the Lib leadership, he will do and say as he is told, by the old boys.
    Dion had experience and Ignatieff had brains,
    little Trudeau has hair and twitter.

    ReplyDelete
  9. But...but...doesn't that mean 60% don't like him........

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yep, I can recall when PET and Justin visited 4 Wing in Germany in 1982. The younger Trudeau was an arrogant little ar**ole then, just like his old man. Bloody good thing that they didn't give me a SMG when he was there.

      Delete
  10. I wonder if many of the leadership hopefuls and serious people in the LPC (the ones who understand the need for party renewal and have plans to do so) are waiting patiently in the wings for the Young Dauphin to flame out?

    Lets assume for the sake of argument that the rank and file go along with the LPC brass and try yet another "shortcut" to power. Trudeau has already demonstrated he has little grasp of the issues or any real fully formed and articulated ideas on how to address various issues, so he will be essentially stepping into a wood chipper once he faces Thomas Mulcair and Prime Minister Harper and their troops in the House. The Blogosphere will also be a hostile environment and we can count on Sun News covering the media flank.

    Even with a fully supportive Legacy media and the CBC on side, the frequent gaffes and constant record of being outsmarted and outmanouevred by the Government and opposition will drag down the Young Dauphin's reputation. Couple that to the real life need to fight the NDP with all their resources to attempt to take the Opposition benches (meaning the main election battle will be in Quebec and not the rest of Canada) and the Young Dauphin will probably receive his walking papers after the 2015 election, at which point the serious members of the LPC can finally oust the current leadership and attempt to clean house.

    It may be to little, too late, but that is now about the only chance to make effective changes inside the LPC. Good luck guys, you'll need it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. As a life long Conservative, I could support a Liberal Party that truly were Conservatives In A Hurry.
      Only if they were able to jettison all of the feel good leftism that has saddled my kids with Trudeau Debt.
      And start paying it down.
      If there was no public debt then we could afford to pay for many many things.

      Delete