during the break of the election as politicians paused for christmas and new year's, all was quiet on the forefront except for liberal blog gaffs and a rcmp investigation whether someone in the ministry of finance tipped off the business community prior to next morning's budget announcement which plenty of activity on the stock market.

yet again, rhetoric of liberal arrogance and corruption makes its way around political circles.

let's not count out the disgusting death of a pretty 15 year old torontian girl whose story made national news and quickly made guns and crime a campaign issue. toronto's gun violence put liberals on the defensive and harper's tough on crime tone resonated among ontarians. maybe it took the death of a white girl and not the usual gang related shootings among toronto's poor black community, but liberals' past in this area came back to haunt them and at the wrong time. young girls being shot dead during christmas and an election campaign is time for incubment government's to enter damage control.

now as the election enters its second and potentially more exciting half, liberal follies o have cost them in the current polls. latest EKOS numbers show harper's conservatives flirting around 40% and the wisom of our system suggests the idea of a majority conservative government isn't as far fetched as it once was.

what?! harper having a majority government?! that cannot and must not happen and suddenly sitting-on-the-fence voters throw their weight behind liberals curbing the conservative momentum. arguably, that's what happened in 2004 when conservatives collapsed in dying days of the campaign as potential voters bought into the scare tactics of the liberal campaign.

so a single poll indicating such a surge is notoriously dubious and could have the counter effect of bringing harper's support down. and no surprise, that pro-liberal toronto star splashed that article on its homepage while rightwinged papers like national post keep it quietly tucked away. no doubt, harper has yet to fully shed his fear factor but is becoming more softer. sure, his constant fake smiling is creepy but proves he's not android, just a little socially awkward to no fault of his own. and last week's image of harper in a pub with a pint of beer watching the canadian juniors win gold was a stroke of genius. beneath it all, he seems real and image framing has worked to a pulp.

how is the image of paul martin being set up? yeah, i dont know either.

but other than clever photo ops; where's the conservative support coming from? the conservatives gains in ontario and quebec are fueling the party's latest surge. qubeckers are listening to harper's vision of a decentralized federation that would give quebec a greater international voice. the gain in quebec is surprising as going into the campaign, harper's party was nothing but a fringe organization and now about 20% popular support and ahead of the once second liberals. though of course, the anti-canadian bloc are going to elect a shitload of sovereignists and the lack of quebecer conservative MPs in parliament means harper is blowing hot air with his ambitious plan for quebec.

if conservatives form the government without a single seat in quebec, blah blah blah, decentralization, blah blah blah, i know we said but no one really likes us there anyways. the sovereignist support is unchanged and the conservatives are gaining ground at the expense of liberals. thus, the major issue in quebec and federal politics remains unchanged. battle for second place is irrelevant. yawn. conservatives have hopes for something like three seats in quebec, while the bloc is poised to collect onward of 50 sovereignists.

in the last parliament, martin did not have single quebec liberal and what good is talking about an agenda for the province going to do if you have no credible voice in the province. martin as PM did squat about the quebec issue in 2004/05 and harper's plan of decentralization will see the same fate.

whoever wins, quebec will continue to be the black hole of federal politics.