Timing is everything

Apparently there are a few Liberals who aren't all that eager for a winter election:

"Our hands are tied," one senior Liberal MP said as he and his colleagues headed into their three-day summer caucus retreat in Regina, where election-readiness will be a major component of discussions.

And MPs are grumbling, one Liberal said, about "how the hell do we campaign in the winter"...

Ontario Liberal MP Paul Macklin said there is confusion among constituents about Mr. Martin's deadline and what exactly it means -- an election immediately or a few months later.

"I don't think any of us relish the idea of a winter election," he said.

The article theorizes that the point of suggesting a delay now is to lengthen the time between the broken promise and the actual election. But I have a hard time thinking that this is anything but a PR gambit.

For all the complaints about how difficult it would be to campaign in winter, those problems would be borne by all parties, and might well favour incumbents who are more familiar to their areas. Moreover, those problems would be worse in the rural areas which the Conservatives would need to shore up. And most importantly, I can't see the Libs wanting to hold off until the 2005 budget (and fall mini-budget) are in the more distant past.

Strategically, a winter election might then be best for the Libs even if there wasn't a televised promise in play.

Even without actually planning to delay the election, however, the Libs can gain some political points out of the idea. Presumably a fresh "broken promise" to add to Harper's talking points will only make Harper seem all the more negative for the rest of the summer. And better yet, Martin can then claim that the idea was merely floated by backbenchers, that he listened in a spirit of democratic involvement, but that he displayed leadership by deciding that pushing ahead was the best course of action. (Not that many people will still be awake by the end of that, but the spin is easily seen.)

As for the NDP's response, this should be one time where the party stays out of trying to broker an agreement. Let the Liberals offer concessions if they're serious about trying to hold off on the election, and point out that the doubt now was apparently caused by a lack of consultation within the Liberals to begin with.