In my September 11th post I wrote: “By this time next week look for Green Party support nationally to be back in the 11-12% range, up from the current 9%. The immediate bump in the numbers will result from soft opposition voters who may now see a Green vote as less of a wasted vote. Hence, further evidence of vote-splitting among the non-Conservative parties should become more-and-more apparent as the weeks progress.”

I won’t rewrite the entire contents of that post. You can easily enough read it here.

The Green Party and its leader are trekking across the country by train trying to make a point and celebrating one aspect of the favourable change in polling numbers, while altogether missing the larger point – the figurative derailment which lies ahead. Such behaviour is not unlike the day-trader who brags about and relishes in the moment of the few stocks that turned positive, but ignores the collection agency towing away the BMW impacted by a greater number of stocks that turned deeply negative.

Notwithstanding one could just as easily point to the margin-of-error as the explanation, the Green Party did indeed gain, as predicted, two of the four percentage points that traded spaces last week. But here is the kicker, the other two points went to Mr. Layton after declaring himself priministerial, while Mr. Dion – although on a different channel – was just as incomprehensible.

Granted Mr. Harper lost one percentage point, but this is inconsequential so long as Mr. Dion loses more points to she who is on a train, or he who cozies to the Marijuana Party. Not the joint Party initiative we had in mind, but I digress.

This campaign, save for the debate over who gets to debate, has thus far been a yawn. Not unlike the 2006 campaign, which really didn’t get started until after the holidays. Look for some excitement to begin brewing during, or immediately after the English debate on October 2.

Elizabeth May has a chance to be the star performer in the English debate, so long as she remembers to speak s-l-o-w-l-y, gets her agrees and disagrees straight when speaking about “stupid Canadians,” and does not answer every question by every time finding some circuitous route back to the environment. The French debate will be painful.

So long as Mr. Harper does not have a trick up his sleeve, which it would surprise us all if he didn’t, expect to see Green Party numbers in the 14% range by October 7, nearly all of which will be at the expense of Liberals and NDP.

Admittedly, this is a National overview which is not as meaningful as the regional and swing-riding analysis. There, the impact is even more pronounced. Where the numbers are already close is where vote-splitting among the Non-Conservative parties weighs with even greater significance.

This observer still believes vote-splitting on the Left will give Mr. Harper the majority he covets. On the morning of October 15, 2008, the non-Conservative parties will have four more years in which to contemplate the issue that might better have been contemplated on the morning of January 24, 2006; continue justifying ones existence, jockeying for position, and losing, or, parking egos at the door, evolving into a single team, and winning.

Also on the morning of October 15, 2008, this blog will produce a list of ridings where even if just the Liberal vote and the Green vote had counted for one, a different election outcome would have resulted, and the closing words “happy now?”

Monday morning armchair Quaterbacks can then draw their own conclusion about which was more important; doing things the eMe way, or defeating the Harper Conservatives. The difference being, the Quarterback on the field had all the same information 18 months in advance.