The NDP has stated that they wanted to support the government for as long as it took for the bill to wind its way through the usual process. That's several months.
The theme the Liberals want to have played in the media tonight: The NDP is foot-dragging on a bill they deemed so important to be worth propping Harper up over. Why isn't Jack immediately supporting those unemployed workers he is supposed to be champion of!?
The theme everyone else wants: The Liberals are flip-flippers. They were against the government before they were for it.
I'm not taking sides here -- I don't vote Liberal -- I'm just not seeing the shine for the NDP here, and I don't think the public will either. First, Jack won't support the government out of principle, now he will, and now he's the one holding the works up.
The Liberals can be dissected just fine. I'm not denying that. The public mostly only listens to sound bites though. Yesterday Jack was 'saving the Harper government' and did not get the best coverage out of that. Now he's going to be holding up the very bill he claims to be worth saving the government over.
Layton may be forced to speed the bill through as well, else suffer more of an image problem.
And then we are back to where the Liberals want us: On the cusp of an election.
What is Layton going to use to prop up Harper next?
Understand, the NDP don't want an election. They lack the money. That places the Liberals in a stronger position because they do.
Harper is pleased to try to give treats to the NDP so as to try to bleed votes from the Liberals and to prop himself up, but if the Liberals can play the game well enough (this is Harper's manipulations in the end -- he's playing the NDP and Liberals off of each other), they will look strong, and the NDP weak. Lefty swing voters are in play here.
The Liberals can deal with their 'flip flop' by saying "it's going through anyway, we'll improve it when we get in, and why delay it like the NDP want to do?" The shoe goes on the other foot. The NDP's insistence that this bill is so important to be worth propping up Harper is contradicted by their comparative foot dragging.
You know, if the NDP had negotiated a better bill (they didn't apparently negotiate at all), then we'd have news featuring down to the wire negotiations staring Jack Layton as the savior of the unemployed. But that's not what we have. Actually, with the Bloc supporting the bill, the only leverage left is that Harper wants to avoid the optics of being propped up by the Bloc alone.
Unless the NDP gets its thinking cap on straight, and their finances quickly in order, they are going to come out of this session in bad shape. Sadly, the only leverage they have is that Harper would prefer to have the NDP's support more than the Bloc's. Working against his strategy are the millions of dollars in ads Harper recently spent (are those out of date ads still running?) demonizing anyone who works with the NDP and the Bloc, those 'socialists' and 'separatists.'
But, hey, voters are fickle. You never know what they will think of all this. Just be clear that they often fail to keep track of events, and don't pay attention for long.
I'll throw this into the works: Harper is quite inconsistent himself on huge issues (for coalitions, then against them for example), but he gets away with it. Why is all due to image control and the psychology of voters. People can argue about what is best, what is moral and what really happened, but what goes down in the electorate's mind is often barely connected to those things.
If the Liberals can be seen to be driving Parliament, getting things done, and presenting a vision, then voters may very well take to them, regardless of the machinations. The Liberals are trying to drive the polls here, not follow them.
For the great majority of mankind are satisfied with appearances, as though they were realities, and are more often influenced by things that seem than by things that are.===
-- Niccolo Machiavelli
Update:
It seems likely now that Jack is going to fast track the EI bill as well. What choice does he have?
h/t Scott Tribe.
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Update:
Nah. The bill sucks. It'll be off to committee, by the looks of things. With the NDP not really wanting to support it in this form, suddenly the Liberals can go back to opposing it if they wish, citing everyones negative comments about it. If the Liberals do support it in first reading, I'm not so sure that's the best thing.
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