Splits #Elxn42

So, here we go. Last few days of the campaign. Mulcair dropping, JT rising, Lizzie May ready to double her seat total – Victoria is in play.

Will the kids with the smartphones show up? The Lying Jackal figures that if they do JT wins. But will they?

As I drove down the highway with my buddy the Mad Monk we were talking about the election. He is NDP to the core. The question is the splits. This election has been about getting rid of Harper. The Libs and the NDP are both pitching themselves as the ABC party. But neither have closed the deal. Strategic voters, whose numbers are impossible to determine, are supposed to vote for the non-CPC candidate in their riding who has the best chance of beating the Tory. But tribes are strong. For a Dipper to vote Liberal is more than a little problematic. Perhaps the younger ones. A Liberal, carried away by Trudeau’s weird version of hope and change? Voting NDP is voting for no hope and no change. They probably get that.

The Cons have abase and then they have a halo. People who do not identify as Tory but who are not attracted to either the NDP or the Libs. They may not actively like Harper but they don’t hate him either. They are the difference between 33% and 39%. Third place or a majority. The CPC knows this.

I told the mad monk that, all things considered, the CPC have managed to keep hope alive for both the NDP and the Libs. They have to because a sudden shift to the Libs or the NDP will sink a hundred CPC seats. The media are so far in the tank for the Grits that actual information has more or less ceased to flow. They want the bandwagon effect to kick in. Will it?

I am awful at predicting elections. I am up at Kate’s prediction pool with 183 seats for the Tories. I don’t think the kids will show up and those who do will be just as likely to vote Green as make a difference. I think the niqab will win Harper seats in Quebec – and the rest of Canada. I think that the idea of JT as Prime Minister is not all that attractive to a serious fraction of the voters, even the ones who hate Harper. And I think that the NDP and the Liberals are going to come second, by a hair, in thirty to fifty seats simply because neither of them is an overwhelmingly attractive, electable, ABC choice.

Harper is not dumb. Nor is is warroom. They have kept Trudeau and Mulcair in this. The collapse of Mulcair in Quebec means seats for the Tories and, perhaps, for the BQ who will likely support Harper in Parliament.

Outside the Annex, Ontario is shifting to a two party race. Mulcair is essentially sunk beyond a few, public servant rich, ridings in Ottawa and a couple of hipster enclaves in TO. Now we see if Trudeau can break out in the burbs. If he can’t Harper has, at minimum, a minority.

Do the kids show up? The mad monk tells me that as he scrutineers the advanced poll he’s seeing lots of kids. Could happen. My bet is against.

But I am usually wrong.