Harper's squeeze play

Following Harper's red meat speech? It's going to work like this:

1. Harper raises last year's coalition as a bogeyman
2. Harper pressures Ignatieff to publicly state that he won't be part of a coalition
3. Ignatieff will either
  a) succumb and speak out against one,
  b) waffle, or
  c) endorse a coalition

3 c) will not happen. Too bad.

3 b) is the worst. It lets the Conservatives claim whatever they want unchallenged. This won't happen. Even this current batch of  Liberals knows better.

3 a) is most likely. This matches Liberal hubris and Ignatieff ambition.

So, no coalition. Now, if the Conservatives lose the election, but we don't have a Liberal majority, and if Ignatieff has done anything except endorse a coalition, the Conservatives will rinse and repeat the performance of last year, declaring a coalition undemocratic as it was not declared during the election. Out with the red meat.

It will get nasty.

If no coalition is formed, but the Liberals form a minority government, the Conservatives will repeatedly make the coalition claim anyway.


Keep in mind this is a PM who had no qualms about abruptly proroguing Parliament. Do you not think he will fight tooth and nail with the Governor General and in our courts and in the streets over this issue? Harper has had no qualms about creating a unity crisis before. He'll do it now.

The only safe option is to form a coalition, one willing to let some ridings slide to former opponents in the name of increasing the non-Conservative seat count.

This won't happen, of course. And we'll be one step closer to a crisis because of it.

Ironically, Harper's speech making the rounds today -- courtesy of the Liberals -- is serving Harper's squeeze play by promoting the 'coalition as a bogeyman' theme.

I am looking for signs of strategic intelligence from the Liberals here. Do they have a good response? Even better, do they have a line of attack? We're already into a campaign. If the Liberals can't get an upper hand now, that'll tell us a lot of how this is all going to go down.