A little back and forth this morning with NDP campaign guru Brian Topp.
DB: So Brian, from where you're sitting, do I need to get my laptop fixed or is Ig just blowing smoke?
BT: The Liberals can't call an election on their own. It takes all three opposition parties to do that -- unless the Conservatives repeat their stunt from last year and do it themselves. So the Liberals are indeed blowing smoke... depending on what happens next.
DB: That said, it's hard to imagine a scenario in which you guys decide to support the government and the Grits don't. Which leaves the Bloc. Again, pretty difficult to imagine a scenario where the Tories actively seek their support to maintain their status in parliament. So doesn't that pretty much guarantee we're looking at an election somewhere around November 1st? And short of a catastrophic collapse in somebody's vote, won't we end up in exactly the same situation we were in last fall? Will events prove Robin Sears something of a prophet?
BT: Quite conceivably, Robin Sears is going to be right again. But some water went under the bridge last winter:
-The Liberals replaced a relatively progressive leader with a conservative one; a signed agreement with us was reneged on, on national television, without the courtesy of a telephone call; and now the country is being maneuvered into an possible election based purely on micro-political calculations by a faction of the red team -- who would govern essentially identically to Mr. Harper if given the opportunity.
This being so, NDP Deputy Leader Tom Mulcair is speaking credibly when he says we'll take things day-by-day this fall. We'll focus on substance, and see if this tiff between red and blue conservatives can be converted into real gains for Canadians, one way or another.
Another twist on this: It would seem that Mr. Ignatieff has decided to vote against the government's measures this fall without reading them first. Based on the conventional wisdom of last January, I guess that now makes his team "irrelevant."
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UPDATE A note from Robin Sears in response to my back and forth with Brian Topp:
May I only observe that even my old friend Simpson - a sworn foe of PR, of the NDP, and the December coalition - is now so committed to a coalition government rather than another [expletive deleted]unstable minority that he has proposed a grand 'red-blue' coalition government. Now we only differ on whether red and orange is more likely than purple.