... because I know you were just sitting on pins and needles waiting for it.
Greens
This was their big chance, and they blew it.
The environment is never again going to be as big a deal as it is right now. May burned a lot of political capital and goodwill to get into the debates and did okay. Things generally broke their way. They really, really needed to turn that momentum into a seat to establish themselves, and despite her flaws, May was their best bet to do that. There were ridings in Toronto or Vancouver she realistically could have won. Instead, she ran in Central Nova, in some sort of pointless, futile anti-establishment protest scene. They ended up without a single seat. And they spent eight million dollars they didn't have to do it.
The Greens need to decide whether they're a real political party or a fringe protest movement. If they're a political party, then they need to learn how to play the game.
This could well be their high water mark in terms of overall vote numbers. Since the Liberals won't be stupid enough to run on an environmental platform the next time around, given how the Green Shift worked for them this time, the Greens should have less of an overall impact in the next election, although their visibility might well continue to grow independently of their actual importance.
NDP
They did okay. Outremont isn't the big deal they seem to think it is because I don't see how it's repeatable, but they certainly achieved expectations. Since nobody credible is agitating for Jack's job and he seems content with his lot, expect him to stick around, and the NDP to do about the same next time out.
Bloc
This is the seventh time Duceppe has pulled the Bloc's chestnuts out of the fire, and almost certainly his last. Expect him to walk before the next election, leading to a short but bloody leadership fight and then a lot of recrimination and bitterness when their seat count is cut in half next time out.
Conservatives
A lot of pundits are talking about Conservative disappointment that they didn't win a majority, and speculating about when Harper will be replaced. These people clearly don't understand Harper, and they don't understand Conservatives.
We spent a long time lost in the wilderness. Twelve years is a long time to be the punchline of a joke. Harper changed that; he built a party that could win, knocked the Liberals down when they got wobbly, and has been kicking them while they're down ever since. We've been in power for two years and we're likely to be there for at least two more. Harper built this house and he'll leave when he's damn good and ready, and not before. And that's the way we like it.
Expect the Conservatives to govern in consultation with the other parties only so much as they must, which is to say, hardly at all. The governing coalition of the previous parliament will quickly be pressed into service for this one, in which the Conservatives do what they like and the Liberals knuckle under and let them do it.
Liberals
The Liberals are screwed. In their defence, it's not like they could have done anything about it.
The Liberal party got about 900,000 votes less than 2006, which adds up to a $1.6 million cut to their annual cheque from Elections Canada. That means they'll have to raise their fundraising by another 25% just to get back to where they were, and where they were wasn't a good place. That means staff reductions and less money to counter the Conservative advertising which is surely coming. For a party that just ran an eight million dollar campaign on borrowed money that they now can't pay back, which is still in debt from previous campaigns and the last leadership race, and whose half dozen biggest stars are devoted to raising money to pay off their own leadership race debts, making them unavailable to help with the party's problems, this is extraordinarily bad news. The NDP raised more money than the Liberals last year. Don't expect that to change for the party that defines itself in terms of winning but can't find a way to win.
There's really no good news here. They're down to 7 seats west of Ontario. They lost Quebec in 2006 and they've lost Ontario in 2008. Their power base is basically Toronto. As demographics and economics shift the balance of power west, they're being increasingly left behind. This will get worse in 2010 when 12 more seats are created in BC, Alberta and Ontario.
If Dion stays on, somehow, they can't expect to do any better next time out. That, however, seems unlikely; Dion was the compromise candidate, the one nobody wanted but everybody could live with, and now he's led them into a disaster that each of the Liberal party factions are convinced their favoured candidate could have avoided.
When Dion leaves then they have to have a leadership race that they can't afford, so that they can plan for an election they can't afford behind either Rae or Igantieff, either of whom will be destroyed by the Conservatives, pushing the Liberals even deeper into the hole. If Dion leaves voluntarily the deep divisions in the Liberal party will be inflamed by the leadership race. If he has to be ousted, as appears likely, those divisions will be even worse.
The Liberals need to find a candidate who can win a bitterly contested nomination, unite a party which is deeply broken, rebuild its machinery, solve its funding problems and then beat Stephen Harper, and they have eighteen months and no money to do it in.
Good luck with that.
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