And yet, they're doing a great job of sabotaging their own efforts these days.  The new prime minister, who was actively destabilizing the former government while the architect of deficit reduction in a bald-faced grasp at power, has had great difficulty resolving the internal strife that he created.  A blatant conflict of interest scandal within the party has also engendered a lot of frustration.

The Conservative alternative, however, is very scary indeed, especially since they've mastered a way to hold on to extreme positions without formally doing so.  The Conservative platform smacks of compassionate conservativism - on social issues, allowing wingnuts free reign to informally dictate policy on abortion, the death penalty, same-sex marriage and decriminalization of pot without being formally dogmatic about it.  And on economic issues, they're playing the standard hallucination of cutting taxes and increasing spending - to the tune of twice the expected future budget surplus over five years - and expecting things to somehow work by finding $50 billion to pay for it.  Coupled with similar vagueness on privatization of health care, increased economic integration with the USA, and vacilliations on the proper role of the military in US-led campaigns like Iraq, and we might be asking for a boatload of trouble here.

Hopefully people can figure this out, hold their nose and vote Liberal again, even though frankly they're started to get tired and it shows.  It's a difficult choice - I've worked for provincial and federal Liberals in the past, and I'm having difficulty signing on to this group.  But the electable alternative is odious, and the left-wing parties (the NDP and Greens) aren't really capable of forming a balanced government, and really aren't trying for more than a kingmaker role in a minority situation, which we'll inevitably have.

A Conservative minority for a couple of years might be inevitable, and at least a minority will be contained, since none of the other parties will buy into their platform.  The Bloc Quebecois, a separatists Quebec-only party, is to the left of the Liberals on most social and economic issues, and can really only agree with Conservatives on devolution of powers to the provinces and any other issue that directly affects Quebec's interests.  

The whole thing smells of hubris, with the Liberal Party calling an early election, and having it thrown back in their faces.

There is a pretty big undecided factor, and like you hinted at, it will likely break to the Liberals, and perpahs they are showing their disgust by holding out in the polls, but showing up in the votes.

So, when are they?  Two days, two weeks, two months?

"A survey done for Canada's Political Channel (CPAC) by SES Canada Research Inc. put the Conservatives at 34 per cent and the Liberals at 32. The rolling poll of 600 people has a large margin of error, 4.1 percentage points in either direction."

Recently, Cheryl Gallant, a Conservative Ottawa Valley MP saying that abortion is pretty much the same as the beheading of Nick Berg in Iraq and that the integration of sexual orientation into hate crime legislation should be repealed because it'll frustrate attempts at going after pedophiles.  

She's a bit of a fucktard.