The big question of the day has to be: Is the Opposition crazy?
I mean, it makes total sense for the Conservatives to want an election this spring. The polls look good, the country is in no mood to change governments, the Liberals are weak. It all adds up to a Tory majority.
But why are the NDP and Liberals so eager to pull the plug? Yes, they look and sound confident, but General Custer probably looked and sounded confident before he took on Sitting Bull.
The answer, I think is the Opposition parties are victims of their own over-heated partisan rhetoric. For two years, they have been telling Canadians the Harper government was pushing a reckless "right wing agenda", that it was trampling our democratic institutions, that it was ethically challenged, etc.
In the process, they revved up their base, made them eager to take down the big bad Tories.
In other words, they painted themselves into a corner with their own words. Had NDP leader Jack Layton or Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff failed to oppose the budget after all their tough talk, they would have come across as wimps, undermined their credibility and angered their own supporters.
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