Ahhh, my gaaaahhhhhdd, it's a name recognition poll of doooooooooooooooooommmmmm!!!!

It'd be funny. It'd be really, really funny.

Well, we'd avoid Torynomics and crush the dreams of a generation of social engineers. That's got to stand for something.

It might be worth it for pure entertainment value alone. I mean, every head on Canada's right (including mine) would explode, and an Alberta separatist movement would spring up the next day.

That's it -- the hell with my country, I want to see what it would do, in terms of creating political drama. We would get <i>decades</i> of good TV out of it.

Go Bob go!

[Seriously, though, I do think that Rae is more dangerous to Harper than Ignatieff.]

I love it when your head blows up. I make popcorn ahead of time to watch that.

Really, though, could you imagine the pure comedy gold that would come with a Prime Minister Bob Rae? (Yes, you can. Your post was about that.)

Well, I'm south of the border anyway -- our politics down here are already a laughingstock. Why not just add another country to the list? :-)

I think Bobworld is less scary than Steveworld if only for the reason that we know where Bobworld is going to go. Steveworld has this random orbit that might see eight year olds on chanin gnags and Canadian Tire money as part of an envronment protection program. I have to check on Bob and Afghanistan as that is a measure for me. I am getting concerned with some of the changes in the legal structures that Steve envisages but expect them to last 17 seconds into Bobworld. This does not mean I advocate Bobworldianism. I just think that, as this is a popularity poll, Steve may be toast. And, hence, the prospect of your head exploding. And perhaps Master Flea's, too.

There is a fair prospect of that happening, I agree.

Resilient bastards, they are. (Both the Liberal Party and Rae.)

"I think Bobworld is less scary than Steveworld if only for the reason that we know where Bobworld is going to go."

i.e. Billions of dollars into deficit after the first budget.

I think we can put the ghost of Brian Mulroney and other conservative debt-financing gurus behind us now. No one goes there anymore.

Being known for having gone billions of dollars into deficit in Ontario, in fact it being the heaviest piece of 'baggage' everyone keeps talking about, is it not more likely that Bobworldianism would avoid a deficit at all costs, even to the possible detriment of everything else?

I think the success of the Chretien-Martin defeat of deficit and the attack on debt is simply universally agreed upon to be a good thing.

"...is it not more likely that Bobworldianism would avoid a deficit at all costs, even to the possible detriment of everything else?"

Um, no.

I disagree that attacking the debt is a good thing -- it will disappear over time, both through the effects of inflation and growing GNP. Better to keep money in the hands of the people who can earn it to keep the latter going as quickly as possible.

Yuk. I just got tricked down upon. Didn't work for Reagan, Thatcher, Muroney, Trudeau, Binns, Buchanan, Rae, France, Sweden and every other debt-financing guru of the post-war to 1990s.

But does that matter to the Party of One?

_Debt_ as opposed to _deficts_. I'm very much opposed to deficits.

If you turn it around and look under the rim a debt is just a deficit generator.

I agree with Ben insofar as the comic possibility is concerned. On the other hand I would not really be that anxious to see my tax burden increase and disposable income shrink.

I like Steveworld because it appears possible for me to fund my own way to financial independence and I am not a rhetorical demon in every other stump speech. Bobworld could make it more difficult since my industry really only tends to do well when businesses as a whole do well.

Steveworld so far has raised my income tax and given David's child a 100 bucks a month out of my children's mouths (via my tax burdened wallet.) Further by giving tax credits for organized children's sport and lessons but not disorganized sport and lessons, I get not break for our secret highland scots martial arts training and again my taxes support the tax breaks of those falling into the social engineering program. Plus he is going to cost my more for asthma medications thirty years from now as the voluntary program for dealing with pollution he is about to bring in will be responded to by nature as nature will respond to it. I am quite content to see what Bob has learned from his errors as I suspect he may have learned something from them - a characteristic I do not find present in Steveworld.

Since the advent of Steveworld, my personal income tax burden has increased exactly 0.67% while my net income has increased 13.24% (not including performance-related raises, transit pass deductions, etc). It does include the maximum 18% RRSP deduction and some charitable deductions (which have been relatively static), which occurred at the same rates in both Paulworld and Steveworld. So on balance, I am happy with the Steveworld figure of 14% more green stuff to save. Obviously circumstances are different for different households, but it's all worked out well for me, even with a minor tax hike.

As a present asthma sufferer, I think I pay about 50 bucks every 2 years for two inhalers which I never use. Your mileage may vary though as the drugs, cost and usage depends on the severity of the condition. Some people can't take two steps without the stuff and that's when it all starts to add up, unfortunately.

That is good of you to share as I know we reflect different sorts of households and makes a good comparison. And I would like to make clear if I was to support any child other than my own though social engineering based tax breaks, David's is the one.

Just out of curiosity (as a presently-kidless joe), when they say "organised sports" are we talking the citywide GTHL stuff or the house league, coached-by-somebody's-dad variety? How do they determine what qualifies for deductions?

I don't know. But I understand that I would get nowhere if I was to present a stack of receipts showing I bought 500 bucks for tickets exposing the kids to new and different sports to ensure their proper training as a sports fan - despite the indirect health benefits of of how it encourages them playing lacross Sunday mornings with their old man in the school ground playground.

The sports tax hand-out was the single most ludicrous act of a largely ludicrous and incoherent governing philosophy on the part of the current lot. All part and parcel of the pandering to Quebec nationalists (Mulroney redux) and "social conservatives" amongst otherwise mutually loathing Christian and Muslim communities. It may be consistently anti-Liberal mush but if it is mush or maniacs I will stick to mush.

That said, I will consider voting for them due to the change in policy and outlook regarding THE WAR which is at the top of my list of things to be concerned about. I am delighted to say I was mistaken to underestimate Mr. Harper's resolve on that score. Mr. Ignatieff did not take long to show his true colours re. the usual academic nihilism and Jew-hatred so I can at least say I am grateful the choice to be made will be clear so far as that goes.

I am concerned by that use of a charge an anti-Semetism when when what I saw was political stupidity.

I see no contradiction between stupidity and anti-semitism. Using a phantom war-crime for political gain qualifies as the latter even if its rhetorical failure in this instance suggests the former.

I agree but the gaff of "war-crime" is not necessarily anti-semetic - especially given that his own previous position was that he was sleeping well. I see the Iggy lexicon being so whacked that I know not what it means. I watched him bumble on TVO last week through any number of issues that made him require create any number of new concepts and descriptors for everything.

Rick Mercer's transcript of Ignatieff's clarification of his clarification may help:

http://rickmercer.blogspot.com/2006/10/from-teleprompter-of-michael-ignatieff.html

There is a strong resemblance of the deer and the headlight in Iggy the last wee while. But this is why politics is good. People are put to a test before they are put to the task.

We are living in politically interesting times...