What's Iggy Thinking?

The Liberal leader says he'll call an election early next year. Surely, he doth jest.

Michael Ignatieff’s announcement last week that he will likely trigger an election early next year has the pundits wondering if the Liberal leader got into the eggnog a little early this season.

The Liberals are “so not ready for an election it's not funny,” writes the Montreal Gazette’s L. Ian MacDonald. The Grits trail the Tories in every poll, are cash poor, and still don’t have a well-defined platform. MacDonald speculates Ignatieff’s probably secretly hoping one of the other opposition parties will prop up the government so he can avoid what would be a disastrous election.

The wags over at the Winnipeg Free Press opine that since Ignatieff has repeatedly said the Tories can only win by pretending to be Liberals, he might be counting on the fact that “it will be more difficult for the Tories to do that this time, since Liberal policies are even tougher to identify now.” The only reason the Press can see for Ignatieff’s election warning is to head off a Conservative-triggered election.

The National Post’s Rex Murphy says that Ignatieff “just doesn’t seem to have the ‘tune’ of Canadian politics yet” and so his election threat must be music to Stephen Harper’s ears. Murphy says that the depth of Ignatieff’s ineptitude is evident in that he’s been unable to unseat the Conservatives even though many voters view Harper as “some kind of grim Sauron, subtly and not no subtly bleeding off Canadian democracy.” Look for Iggy to target the orc vote in 2011, perhaps.

While the odds look stacked against him, we at The Mark Newsroom can see some logic in Iggy’s tough talk. The Tories only need the support of one party to keep afloat, but should either the NDP or the Bloc back Harper, the Liberals will come out looking like the only party committed to providing an alternative to the Conservatives. And if the NDP and Bloc decide to cooperate with the Liberals to bring down the government, it could be the basis for a coalition that would see Iggy sipping his ‘nog at 24 Sussex this time next year.