Posted on 06/27/2004 10:29:00 PM PDT by conservative in nyc
Martin sprints for his political survival in final day coast-to-coast trek
Sun Jun 27, 7:33 PM ET
ALEXANDER PANETTA
CHESTER, N.S. (CP) - Paul Martin (news - web sites) yanked his socks up after dipping his toes into the ocean and embarked on a coast-to-coast, one-day sprint Sunday to save his political life.
The same man who six months ago took office on a wave of high hopes and towering popularity spent his final campaign day racing back and forth across the country, pleading for a second chance.
On Sunday morning he strolled a few metres into the sun-speckled Atlantic and then headed for the Pacific armed with one message: all left-leaning voters must save the Liberal government.
"It's a non-stop, cross-country blitz with a clear message," Martin told supporters at one of several rallies he staged throughout the day.
"The simple fact of the matter is that a vote for the NDP on Monday could easily make (Conservative) Stephen Harper prime minister on Tuesday.
"And this is a man with whom you would share very little in common as prime minister - not priorities, not values and certainly not a vision for this great nation."
Swept into office with expectations of an easy electoral romp, Martin spent a frantic final campaign day trying to scrounge up enough loose votes from the NDP and Green parties to cobble together even the slimmest of minority wins.
The election is so close that senior Martin aides say they don't even have an election-night speech ready and will only hammer out its key details when the polls results start rolling in.
Martin and his closest advisers including Terrie O'Leary, Tim Murphy, David Herle, Francis Fox and Scott Reid will take in the news while huddling in a boardroom of Montreal's Queen Elizabeth hotel.
Only then will they fine-tune his speech to suit one of several possible results.
Those include a Liberal majority, a Conservative majority, a minority from either of those parties that would rely on support from the Bloc Quebecois, or a Liberal minority that could be propped up by the NDP.
Liberal sources say their internal polls indicate they should win a minority government but it could be a fragile one, where they and the NDP combined would be just below the 155-seat threshold they would need to form a stable coalition.
It is a far cry from the Liberal predictions of 200-plus seats when Martin took office Dec. 12. That was before his party's popularity took a beating in the wake of a patronage scandal and the merger of the Progressive Conservative and Canadian Alliance parties.
In contrast to Martin, Harper spent a low-key final day in Alberta. He dismissed Martin's cross-country odyssey as an act of desperation.
But Martin slapped back, and even poked a little fun at Harper's relaxed schedule.
"I'm certainly not desperate at all. In fact, I'm really in great form," he said.
"I don't know what Mr. Harper looks like. I haven't seen him."
Martin was scheduled to travel through the crack of dawn, making stops in Winnipeg and B.C. before flying back to Montreal to arrive at his hotel around 7 a.m., sleep a few hours and head out to cast a ballot later Monday in his riding of LaSalle-Emard.
He said he believed it was the duty of a national party leader to visit every area of the country in the final days of the campaign.
But Martin also clearly hoped to settle some regional issues that could plague his Liberals on election day.
On one crucial issue in Atlantic Canada, Martin guaranteed he would offer Newfoundland and Nova Scotia a major boost in equalization payments under a new system that would not penalize provinces for offshore revenues.
The provinces' Conservative premiers - Danny (news - web sites) Williams in Newfoundland and John Hamm in Nova Scotia - had questioned the Liberals' commitment to the penalty clawback.
Martin insisted Sunday his promise was iron-clad and applied to both provinces.
The Liberal party internal polling shows them winning the most seats in a minority government. Here's hoping their polling is wrong and the Conservative Party of Canada wins the most seats today.
Good luck to our conservative friends in Canada.
If Martin and his pack of scumbag socialist liberals are anything like the scumbag Democrats in the US, then I'm sure the vote-fraud machine is getting its final tune-up right about now.
I'm inclined to believe the Liberal internal poll's spin. If Prime Minister Paul Martin had the election in the bag, he wouldn't have raced across Canada for last minute votes. What's really telling is he went to British Columbia where the Liberals don't stand a chance of major seat pick ups. Why not end the campaign in his native Quebec or for that matter Ontario, which is where the votes are? In any event, Canada's voters will deliver their verdict on his fate tomorrow.
Even if Martin gets a minority govt, he won't be able to pass a budget - Conservatives and the Bloc will vote "neigh". And then we'll have another election.
If there's a minority government, I give it six months to a year.
And quite possibly the collapse of the Liberal Party itself.
Martin seems to be mainly fighting the NDP in B.C. and a lot of the other places he visited today. He's trying to shore up those close ridings and win seats away from the NDP. Maybe he thinks he can take a majority.
I'm surprised Stephen Harper didn't make more of a last ditch effort himself, at least in Ontario.
I think Stephen Harper did his best and he's signaling Canadians, win or lose, politics is not his life. For Martin, given the history of his father's loss of the Liberal Party leadership race to Pierre Elliot Trudeau in 1968, this is his one shot at redemption.
Interesting comparison to GWB who, were he to lose, would be quite content to carry on with his life out of the national spotlight.
Not like Clinton, Gore, or Carter who cling to the memories of power with something approaching desperation.
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