Thursday Morning Riding Links

Stephen Harper will not be taking questions about any of the below.

- For at least a couple of election cycles, one of the names floated as a possible star NDP candidate in Quebec has been Romeo Saganash. And while it's probably not ideal to only have him in place in a campaign that's already underway (particular in an immense riding), his introduction as the NDP's candidate in Abitibi-Baie-James-Nunavik-Eeyou should nonetheless make the seat into another of the NDP's top targets in the province.

- Graham Thomson tees off on the Cons' disorganization and contempt for outsiders in Edmonton Strathcona:

It's still early in the election and a lot can happen in the next month. But at this point, the Hastman campaign is behaving like a campaign in trouble. For all the talk of a new, young candidate, Hastman is right now behaving like the same old politicians we've seen so many times before -unaccountable, silent, absent.

I suppose, if nothing else, he's displaying the necessary qualifications to be another backbencher in a Conservative government.

- And Murray Mandryk notes that at least some Cons in Regina aren't standing idly by while being silenced by their party:

Former Saskatchewan Party MLA Jason Dearborn -one of those once interested in the Regina Wascana nomination -has written a commentary raising concerns about the above process and wondering if this was a "direct attempt to suppress the democratic process...perpetrated by unelected party staff intent on controlling a tight message for national consumption."

Other Conservatives are -at least privately -far more pointed, talking about the Darth Vader-like control of Harper and the nastiness of the staff that surround him. "They're just a bunch of mean buggers," said one Conservative, seeking anonymity for fear of retaliation.

- Finally, if you're looking to figure out which parties are actually involved in races in various regions of the country rather than buying into the false assumption that only the Cons and Libs matter, Alice charts the two-way races that actually took place across the country in the previous four election cycles. And perhaps the most noteworthy change is that the NDP has entirely lived up to its promise to challenge the Harper Cons at every turn: while its 2004 two-way races involved 45 against the Libs to only 24 against the Cons, by 2008 those numbers had changed to 30 and 70 respectively.