I am trying to imagine a minority Conservative government after the election on October 19. I am trying to imagine Harper, after conducting a snide, condescending campaign, reaching out to Mr. Trudeau or Mr. Mulcair and attempting to negotiate passage of a major bill.
Harper is very shrewd and it is not unimaginable that he would offer a budget, say, that includes parts of either the Liberal or NDP election platform, and then defies them to vote it down. He’ll be thinking triangulation, of course, and contemplating a theme for the next election campaign, something along the line of, “I know you hate another election so quickly but I tried to be reasonable and, well, the other parties are just greedy for power and wouldn’t do what Canadians wanted them to do”. It is not unthinkable. He might count on the electorate to think, “well, the Conservatives were arrogant but now they’ve been chastened so maybe I should give them another chance at a majority.” If it looks like Trudeau has been out-maneuvered, well, after all, we want our leaders to out-maneuver other governments too.”
The Liberals would be more vulnerable than the NDP because they support some of Harper’s major, politically sensitive initiatives like Bill C-51 and the Trans Pacific Partnership. They might also be most inclined to believe they would win a second, quick election.
The Conservatives better be careful, but nobody would be shocked, either, if the electorate suddenly reached Harper-fatigue and decided to make a decisive change.
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