Blogging will be light

TC is travelling over the next few weeks so blogging will be light.

I do note that the Liberals are ahead in the final Yukon election poll - voting is tomorrow.

Will Iggy Win?

It is the day after the day after and already we are into second guessing time. I continue to think that it is Ignatieff's to lose. I recommend this post by Paul Wells and this by Cerberus, an Ignatieff backer.

It ain't over til its over and other such Yogi Berra clichés but it is hard although not impossible to see a different outcome.

Liberal leadership the day after ... bloggers win

I find myself generally in agreement with most pundits who see Michael Ignatieff as likely the next leader of the Liberals. He emerged from the weekend with 30% of the elected delegates, but he already has a greater share of support among the party's ex-officio delegates such as MPs. His opposition is divided three ways and his most formidable potential opponent, Stéphane Dion, may finish fourth. Kennedy's weakness in Quebec and Rae's in Ontario doom their candidacies. There is anti-Ignatieff sentiment to be sure, and the campaigning between now and December will matter, but Michael Ignatieff is now in a very strong position.

And it was the blogger estimates that were the most accurate. The results are not all in, but the total error for Democratic Space so far is 14.6%, for Calgary Grit 17.1%. As for the pollsters, Strategic Counsel's error is 23.1%, and Ekos 23.9%.

What the Governor General Can Do

I think this column in the Saturday Star by Jim Travers is a don't miss read. Here is an excerpt:

Ottawa—It's just emerging now that the most revealing moments of Hamid Karzai's three-day visit didn't unfold on the floor of a House of Commons packed with politicians and below its galleries glittering with military brass. They came, instead, at a provocatively stage-managed dinner for 20 hosted by Canada's Governor General and Commander-in-Chief Michaëlle Jean....

On the table for nearly three hours last Friday night was exactly what the Governor General wanted: a full and frank discussion of the pros and cons of a worrying, complex campaign. What she delivered to her guests was significantly different from what Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Karzai spent the day selling to an increasingly skeptical nation.

Instead of bromides about a winning international effort wrestling terrorism to the ground, she artfully and apparently intentionally created the preconditions for a fundamentally disturbing conversation about the obstacles blocking the road between war and peace, destruction and reconstruction.

This to me is the most creative use of the potential of the position of Governor-General in the modern era that has ever come to my attention. And it was on a topic that urgently needs more debate, certainly something more than the "bromides" of Stephen Harper.