For all the conventional wisdom about what the upcoming by-elections might mean to Stephane Dion's leadership, I'm not sure that any outcome would actually give the Libs much reason to change their apparent push toward a fall election. And what's more, the only outcome which might justify delaying the current conditions for an election would involve the Bloc backing down, rather than the Libs continuing to prop up the Cons.
Let's consider first what the Libs' results in the by-elections might indicate about the party's position. For all the talk about a loss in Westmount-Ville Marie being seen as a disaster, the reality is that the same factors which helped the NDP to win Outremont are still largely in play this time out - meaning that a loss shouldn't be seen as an unprecedented outcome for the Libs so much as the result of a support shift in a relatively distinct type of riding. And that shouldn't be the end of the world for Dion or his party, particularly since the Libs' national polling numbers seem to have bounced back since Outremont.
What about Guelph? It's true that the battle there may be more plausibly seen as a microcosm of what the Libs would face in a fall general election. But with the NDP and Cons both running seemingly strong campaigns and the Libs having fought through a contentious nomination battle, there's still reason to argue that its results wouldn't reflect national conditions. And to the extent those factors might not be in play in a general election, a strong could be made that a loss in next month's by-election wouldn't rule out the prospect that the Libs could Guelph and similar seats if they can run a strong national campaign.
As a result, the most important question for the Libs may not be whether they win any or all of the seats now in play, but whether they manage to drop off the radar entirely in one or more of the ridings. As long as they're within striking distance once the by-election ballots are counted, there may be every incentive for the Libs to figure that a successful national campaign will push these types of seats back into their column.
In contrast, if the Libs come in a distant third in both Guelph and Saint Lambert, then one could plausibly say that the party is in serious trouble. That would suggest that the NDP has managed to position itself as the main contrast to the Cons in parts of Ontario which which formerly served as the Libs' firewall, and that the Cons have fully taken over as the federalist alternative to the Bloc in ridings which were held by the Libs as recently as 2004 and which weren't yet within the Cons' area of strength. And that combination would call into doubt whether the Libs can bring enough ridings into play to have any real chance of winning a general election.
Such a result would thus give the Libs reason to think that the national conditions are such as to make a successful election difficult. But even then, delaying any further could still be seen as doing at least as much harm than good.
After all, any possibility that a scandal might explode in the meantime to improve the Libs' position would be at least counterbalanced by the Cons' certain ability to use their financial advantage to blitz the airwaves in advance of a fixed election date - particularly with the Libs demoralized enough for the financial gap to get even worse than it currently is. And a movement to push Dion out the door resulting from also-ran finishes might well see an immediate election as the best way of removing him.
From my standpoint, then, virtually all roads for the Libs lead to their having ample reason to vote down the Cons.
However, the same may not apply to the Bloc. While the Libs (and indeed all of the national parties) can point to the possibility of potential gains in other types of ridings as reason to minimize any disappointing results in these ones, a party whose focus is inherently limited to a few dozen ridings can't help but to see Saint Lambert as a relatively accurate reflection of the type of challenge it will face in seeking to defend its territory.
As a result, if any of the other parties manages to pull out a surprise win there or even make the seat competitive, then the Bloc - which has seemingly relied more on its ability to exploit the scandal of the moment than on more stable factors for its support - figures to be awfully tempted to roll the dice on the possibility that something might stoke the anger of its historical voters over the next year, rather than walking into an ambush this fall.
Which means that much of the current conventional wisdom may well be off not only in terms of how the Libs might respond to any by-election losses, but also in its assumption that the Libs control the timing of the next federal election. And it'll be interesting to see both how the parties' by-election strategies turn out, and how they react as a result.
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