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Ottawa Citizen

[quote]Ten days ago, Michael Ignatieff placed a call to an estranged friend. Ignatieff knew the campaign wasn’t going well and he needed help. “Any advice?â€

As best I can tell, the Conservatives didn't really change their voting share all that much, and the main event of this election was the NDP beating the ever-loving crap out of the Liberal party, taking all their votes, and running down the street. As I do not know Canadian politics terribly well, I do not know the policy distinctions between the Liberals and the NDP, and thus cannot determine why this has happened.

The Liberals have suffered from having three leaders in a row who are not good at winning elections. Harper is a fucking douchebag, but he is a douchebag who is fairly good at the dirty tricks part of fighting an election and has consistently succeeded in tarring the Liberals before and during each election.

The NDP's surge caught everyone by surprise. This is a party that has historically never done well in Quebec. The Bloc's collapse was a pleasant surprise, but it's a twenty year old party whose theoretical purpose is to send sovereignists to parliament. Its list of accomplishments can be best summed up in allowing Harper to be PM. It's current leader is also not captain charisma. As for Bloc policies that aren't treason they tend to be left and center left. Basically the NDP stole their base.

I'm not going to start digging a grave for the Liberals yet. This isn't going to be a fun few years from them and they need a good leader. Also, the article is utterly wrong about John Turner.

In what way are they wrong about Turner? And for that matter, why did the NDP slaughter the Liberals like that? I can't even figure out what their respective platforms are relative to one another.

When Trudeau retired Turner won the leadership race and got slaughtered by Mulroney. The Liberals had been in power for a long time and there was a "kick the bums out" mood and Turner didn't do much to help. For the next election he had the same key policies and Mulroney, thus failing to differentiate himself from his opponent. He then lost another election, but not as badly. This despite the fact that Mulroney's honeymoon was long, long over. Then he was out.

He saved nothing. He lost an election that he was likely to lose and then he failed to win an election he could have won and then he was out on his ass.