Winners and Losers; the only poll that matters

Well here is a comment from Inside the Queensway, Kady O'Malley's blog. It comes from Scott Reid;

"The country is and always will be decidedly centrist. The seat totals you cite should be of at least equal concern to Conservatives as Liberals. They had the sponsorship crisis and an extraordinary RCMP intervention in 2006 -- still weren't able to consolidate. They had an opponent with constrained skills carrying an unpopular policy proposal in 2008 -- still weren't able to consolidate. If Harper was the genius he claims, or the country were listing so far to the right, they'd be winning by a mile."
-Scott Reid

The numbers- and if you can't express something in numbers it's only opinion- say that most Canadians didn't vote for the Conservatives, and that the increase in votes for the Green party and the New Democrats indicate that the country is less conservative than before. If we had a 'rep- by- pop' system, the Conservatives would have earned about 114 seats, the Liberals about 81, the NDP about 56 seats and the Greens about 20 seats. The Bloc should really have 30 seats.

So the Tories still only have a plurality, and given the low turn-out, 4o% of the electorate didn't really care. So the Conservatives only directly represent about 20% of the electorate. If the Grits fall apart, then many ridings will go to either the Greens or the NDP- or the Grits will rebound and scoop up the pragmatic majority of the Greens and 'dippers. Either way, the Conservatives should feel insecure. They may have pushed the NDP another step on the way to becoming the Natural Governing Party of Canada because progressives will see the 'Dippers as the reasonable party for a fundamentally liberal centrist society, if the Liberals do truly implode.