Let’s just hope, for them, they can recapture the sentiment as still being relevant when the election eventually comes, whenever that may be. And for those who will be critical and ridicule being whipped into “sitting on ones hands,” it will be important to remember the rational. 

The question still remains, would it have been better (read as the right thing to do) for Liberals to have, en-masse, voted against these past few weeks knowing they would be decimated in an election?

The medicine Liberals avoid now will be just as difficult to swallow, perhaps even more so, when they do eventually take it, even if that is in 2009. Why not, therefore, get it over with and start rebuilding now, presumably under new leadership, in 2007-08, as opposed to in 2009-10?

If this analysis is wrong, if tides turn between now and whenever and Mr. Dion emerges victorious – that is, in power and as prime minister – then this analysis will be just that, wrong. It’s true that in today’s new political environment things change in an instant and anything is possible. In recent years we have observed how dramatically things change and in such shorter periods than in the past. But right today, I don’t see the future unfolding differently.

We'll have to wait and see, including what may come of Ms. May’s hope to have dinner with Mr. Layton and Mr. Dion.

Perhaps, as the Right learned it had to do, the Left will unite. An unlikely scenario given the personalities and egos involved. As of today, Mr. Layton still sees his fortunes as bright and growing from 29 to 35+ seats, but still in opposition. The NDP leader perceives 35 opposition seats occupied by the NDP as a greater victory than stomaching a merge that succeeds in defeating Mr. Harper. Similarly, the Green Party too is still mired in convoluted schemes that might see it win its first and only seat, as opposed to falling into place as the Environment Ministry.

In the meantime, Mr. Harper, against a lesser adversary, is proving to be a master strategist in the art of creating unpalatable policy in one area, with just the right amount of palatable policy in another that puts the opposition in a dammed-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t, Catch-22. The first and perfect example was a year ago. Pension splitting combined with a tax on income trusts.

The loved former served as the ideal shroud for the hated latter, but Mr. Harper succeeds by tangling the two.  Contrasting policies are deliberately intertwined for good reason having primarily to do with longer term political gain. The baby and the bathwater are disposed of, and apparently that's okay.

So far the strategy has been “bullet-proof” and so long as Mr. Harper continues to maintain a palatable mix of the palatable versus the unpalatable, he will remain in power. If Mr. Harper succeeds in keeping this strategy intact until 2009, the underlying message of the fixed-date election campaign in 2009 will be simple … “I’ve successfully governed in a Minority for 4 years – something no other Prime Minister has ever done before – so what scariness could possibly remain that prevents you from giving me a majority?”

What's ahead? An environment policy tangled with .... wait for it.  

Criticism and cynicism will be rampant in the days, weeks, and months ahead. Of that we can be certain.

Garth Turner's blog, a daily must read, offers something particularly read-worthy yesterday in No cowards here. In it, my friend outlines to near perfection the reality and the difficulties of being a choice MP.

For Garth and other MPs who  share his view, I don’t think the sentiment could be better expressed.