An election compendium

For Election Day, let's take a brief stroll through the campaign that was as documented on this blog.

Few may have seen the NDP's surge into a dead heat for first place nationally coming. But it's difficult to say the party itself wasn't prepared, as its strong ads have managed to attract attention without turning off voters, while its messages about the need for change have managed to last through the length of the campaign.

Once the NDP started to rise in the polls, it of course faced more challenges as competitors realized they couldn't simply call for strategic voting to wave away the competition. But Jack Layton offered strong responses to the challenges to its platform, and the NDP was able to defuse the trumped-up distractions that inevitably popped up. And so the NDP is in a position to rise above the trench warfare that so many expected to dominate the campaign.

But of course, that was assisted by the weak responses from the NDP's opponents to the developing orange wave.

The Bloc was the first to notice something was happening, as evidenced by Gilles Duceppe's attempts to challenge Layton during the debates. But once voters stopped believing the line that they shouldn't aspire to vote for a party which could build a better Canada, Duceppe quickly ran out of useful material. And soon, the Quebec wave started developing into a nation-wide orange crush.

The Libs were the next to react to that development, going so far as to briefly abandon their campaign plan). But the results ranged from the counterproductive to the increasingly desperate. And that has to leave plenty of Libs wondering not just about the campaign, but about their earlier mistakes which helped the NDP to build strength.

Finally, after providing a regular supply of examples of what's broken in Ottawa as matters stand now and seemingly missing what was happening from inside their partisan bubble, the Cons scrambled to incorporate the shifting electoral landscape into a campaign planned to be run without deviation. But that too didn't always turn out as expected, with the result that the NDP ends the campaign within striking distance of first place nationally.

All of which leaves us asking what comes next. So let's once again take note of the warning signs that Stephen Harper won't accept defeat either in the election results or in the House of Commons - as well as the obvious opportunities for cooperation between the NDP and the Libs if today turns out as hoped.

That said, I'll call once again for voters to vote for what they believe in rather than falling into "strategic" traps or buying the obviously-flawed argument that an unaccountable majority is somehow a desirable outcome. And hopefully we'll be well on our way to a better Canada by this time tomorrow.