In what has got to be [Ed.: oxymoron alert!] the most excruciatingly boring Canadian election ever, it is nice to realize that today is the last working Monday left before the vote. Yes, the days have dwindled down to a precious few and the only recent trend I can see is that steady slipping of the Conservative's national average. So until something really changes, I am now accepting no more than 35% polling for them at this point. Are they in free fall? As Ben micro-notes, Coyne thinks they may be. If they reverse things and pop up to 37% (which they well may) they'll govern with a stronger minority. But if they continue to slow drip drip drip of the melt and hit, say, 32% (which they also well may) well, the arse may be truly out of it for the next 18 months. The more I think of that possible universe, the more I realize I don't like it.

Why? Because enough three-way splits-ville ridings come the 14th of October could lead to any sort of result. We could very well have something like a 100Con-85Lib-65NDP-55Bloq kind of Parliament, what with regional as well as ideological splits further discombobulated by a credit default swap speculation bubble bursting...even all around us up in the Great White North. Think about it. Credit dries up. Or a $1.55 Canadian dollar. Every night on the news in January 2009 we would hear about another Canadian firm going sideways as US clients fail to pay their bills due to disappearing operating lines of credit. Then multinationals' payrolls going unpaid without the backing of the multinationals' banks. Then there would be another story about reporter asking Harper and Flaherty why they promised the problems in the US wouldn't spread north and how Conservative polling had fallen in the tank, all under the headline "Tory Times, Hard Times." Add to that lame duck or leaderless Grits without their own operating line of credit and who is going to trigger the next election? Why would you? Is that good for the nation? No. Fearmongery? Maybe.

I understand that it would be best to have a strong leader in these circumstances, these troubled times. But in this five-party universe, with each leader now offering a niche vote, can you ever get to such leadership even if their leader was strong? If people only get to choose libertarian/property rights ideology (whatever that really is), green shift (whatever that really is), union rights (whatever that really is), Quebec rights (whatever that really is) or pure green (whatever that really is) - can anyone vote for the national good? Could the light in the tunnel be another train coming...or even that other sort of light you can find yourself being moved towards? Being in the tunnel sure can be disconcerting with just eight days until the vote. Remember how little we knew eight days ago?

Other news for Day 30:

• No Sox sweep.
• If you do not know what credit default swap speculation bubble means, listen to yesterday's episode of the ever fantastic radio program This American Life called "Another Frightening Show About the Economy."
• The Globe on Harper on taxation as a fiscal tool: "...he doesn't want any actions that put Canadian taxpayers on the hook." So, does this mean in the Harper universe that taxation can never be used? Because if we did have a risk of economic meltdown that would hurt my family more than taxation, please tax me. Park the second-rate ideology and tax me.
• eBay fires 1,000. Gen X at 40 staff gather in the lunch room but stay rather quiet.
• Bank of Nova Scotia chief economist Warren Jestin: "You have to invent a new word to describe what we’re in now..."