On Your Mark...

I am back from Guelph where I spent the weekend working on the Frank Valeriote by-election campaign. Or what we all believed to be a by-election campaign. It is becoming increasingly clear that a fall election is in the cards and the writ could very well be dropped in the next couple of weeks. I can only guess that Harper is not hearing good things from his by-election campaigns. I would have thought that Harper would have wanted to use any positive by-election result, even a close second, as momentum going into a general election. If, as is generally being discussed by the chattering classes, Harper is prepared to go before the three by-election results on September 8th, it means that Harper sees no benefit (I don't think he's looking to save some money here) to having those votes go ahead as planned.