-- Download Prime Minister Layton, Redux as PDF --
The last time we saw a coalition possibly forming, I wrote about the unlikely but conceivable possibility of Jack Layton being prime minister since at the time there was no firm Liberal leader and no one would allow a separatist to be prime minister.
Now we have polling to show that once Canadians start thinking outside the box of majority government crutches, we can start imagining what preferable leadership could look like in Canada.
The poll also asked Canadians how they would vote if the Liberals and NDP went to the polls offering Canadians a coalition government, and here things get interesting.
…
If the coalition were to propose Jack Layton as prime minister, according to the Reid poll, it could defeat the Conservatives by 43-37 per cent.
via Prime Minister Layton? – The Globe and Mail.
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Stephen Elliott-Buckley
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FYI – the media totally misrepresented what this poll asked. They did not poll people asking about an NDP-Liberal coalition, they asked about a merger between the NDP and Liberal parties, i.e. one brand new party, no more NDP, no more Liberals, and led by either Iggy, Rae or Layton. Nothing about coalitions at all. I really wish people would get this straight – this error is being repeated all over the place.
thanks for the clarification. odd for the media to be sloppy about something like that. oh, wait. the Yes Men punked Canada in Copenhagen and CanWest killed Gordon Lightfoot accidentally.
i think though, that we can infer a few things from the poll. though a merger is more final than a coalition, i think the sentiments from the poll can be reasonably grafted onto the coalition possibility. the political sociology of it all is not airtight, but i think we’re in similar ballparks with mergers and coalitions. both are significantly outside the box of “desperate to get back to majority governments”.
one thing i’m particularly happy about is that the pollsters and their funders are finding the question significant enough to throw a poll out into the field on it.