View From the Hill by Keith Beardsley – Looking Ahead – 2019

It seems that everyone is producing polls while pontificating about the next election results in 2019.

I am not one to put much faith in any election polling this far out- let’s face it they are not much better than a guess and the results can be impacted by the wording, the order of the questions, the questions used and of course who is paying for the poll or even the pollsters personal political leaning. My distrust of poll numbers goes for polls that show the Conservatives out in front too.

Even a serious well thought out poll is only a snap shot in time. If there are several negative Trudeau stories this week, they might show Trudeau down a bit or up if there are a lot of good stories.

So, I may as well offer my own thoughts- they are as accurate as anyone else’s this far out from the election date.

At this point Trudeau will probably survive to fight again, but with depleted numbers. I say this based on the collapse of the NDP. A strong NDP means a split vote with the Liberals in many key ridings allowing the Conservatives to come up the middle. With their invisible leader and some screwball policies such as decimalizing all drugs, they will keep fading. Assuming Singh wins his byelection (no guarantee of that), by the end of June he will be in the house all of 69 days and that assumes he will show up every Friday for Question Period- something national leaders rarely do.  If we take out Friday sittings, he will be there for only 55 days. National leaders also skip a lot of Monday QP sessions as well which could bring his time down to as little as 42 days. This is hardly enough time to make a dent in public opinion.

Over a few decades in politics, I have heard all of the BS ideas and excuses that you don’t have to be in QP to make an impression, IE he could be crisscrossing the country which is what he just might end up doing- I simply don’t believe that will work at the Federal level especially with a leader with no significant previous name recognition at the federal level. He has wasted a lot of time since being elected leader of the NDP- time that will cost him dearly now.

The NDP’s fund raising is simply not up to par with either the Liberals or the Conservatives, plus if we see strategic voting which is a good possibility this time around, who do the so-called progressives vote for?

They won’t ever vote Conservative. At this late stage they still don’t know what the Conservative plan will be for climate change or the environment and many distrust them on social conservative issues. Nor will most vote Green. So far, the Greens are stuck with a dull leader and one who is connected in the public’s mind primarily with environmental issues. While important, this leaves them looking like a one policy party. Quick can anyone tell me the Green Party’s policies for small business or national defence!

Strategic voting will not go to the NDP this time around, but to Trudeau to stop the Conservatives.

At this point the Conservatives will come up short. They need a collapsing economy to shift votes their way and that is Trudeau’s biggest worry. They are still too heavily weighted towards rural issues. They need a major break-through in metropolitan areas. They scream that the sky is falling every day on some issue or another to the point where people tune them out.

They are easy to attack from the Liberal and NDP side with fear mongering on immigration, climate change, carbon taxes etc. and of course we all know or should know that the Liberals and NDP will try between now and the calling of the next election; to box the Conservatives in on some hot button issues such as abortion.Nor can a leader be widely accused of a lie as opposed to simply being against a policy issue and expect the public to want to vote for you.

In many cases I don’t take issue with the Conservative position on an issue, it is their messaging and the way that they present their position that often sucks. If they can’t convince one of their own political partisans; what does that say about the impression left with other voters.

You can also add in the potential of Bernier snagging a percent or two of the Conservative votes and when that happens, and it probably will; they will have a struggle.

In their favour, the Conservatives can rely on some ticked off voters if prices for gasoline, food and utility costs rise too fast. They can also rely on Trudeau doing or saying something stupid as he is prone to do. Butts and company in the PMO will have their hands full guiding their accident-prone leader in the next few months.

I know a lot of people say that Scheer is just to dull to go up against Justin Trudeau, but, let me remind all of the younger reporters out there that it was Mr. Charisma himself- Joe Clark of “Joe Who” fame who took out Justin’s father after years of Trudeaumania. Sometimes nice guys do win.

Have a Happy New Year and a great 2019!

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