"The Coalition is dead." Long live the coaltion!

“The coalition is dead. It's finished. It's over,” said [Bloc Quebecois leader] Mr. Duceppe.

Just last week, Duceppe said, "The coalition is stronger than ever." What happened?

Now that the Liberals are "reluctantly" supporting the budget (as predicted), NDP Leader Jack Layton now says he can't trust Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff. (Does Layton trust anybody anymore? Sour grapes?)

Ok, so what does this mean now?

It means the Conservatives will be in power all year long, propped up by the Liberals, as Ignatieff wants regular budgetary updates from Harper.

It's too bad. I wished Harper and Flaherty would have soured the budget enough so that the Liberals couldn't support it and possibly force an election in which the Conservatives would have a better chance at winning a majority against the notion of a separatist-Coalition.

And that's why the Liberals dumped Dion so quickly and put in Ignatieff. Although they all signed that coalition promise document for the Governor General (including Ignatieff), it really wasn't binding after the prorogue anyway.

I don't think though, that Ignatieff has said anything significant to win over soft-conservatives. In fact, I think this budget really strattles the middle, forcing to push the opposition Liberals to the left more because, well, they have to oppose something!

If there weren't any middle class tax cuts, it would just be like a Liberal budget ... or heck, a coalition budget. Earlier in the month though, Ignatieff was FOR a middle class tax cut, then hearing that it would be in the budget, scrapped that idea and said he was against it.

Harper's long time goal is to replace the Liberals as the natural governing party. Every political move he's made is indicative of that strategy.

Now the question is, does Stephen Harper want to REPLACE the Liberals, or BE like them?

Except for the middle class tax cut, this budget makes me think so.

So while the old Liberal/NDP/(Bloc) coalition is dead, a new one begins, but it's really the old old one when Dion was leader of the Liberals.

So now we simply wait until Michael Ignatieff rebuilds the Liberal party until he's comfortable fighting an election .... and we'll wait ... and wait...

Long live the coalition!