I believe you, ozmacca.

Carol - The other parties do not necessarily have what I would call very viable candidates...but that is not the real problem here. The problem is that the Conservative Party fell apart after Mulroney, and fractured into 2 parties, neither of which is capable of winning a national election.

Since political parties are like people, and don't wish to go quietly into that good night and exit the stage, those 2 parties are each insisting on maintaining their own existence at the cost of the other...but neither one can command enough votes to defeat the ruling Liberals.

The only thing that could change this situation is if the Liberals themselves fragment into 2 separate parties...and they just might, if Chretien and Martin get in a dirty enough fight with each other.

Then it would be up for grabs.

The other thing that could be done is to unite the Conservaties and the Canadian Alliance into a single conservative party...but that has been attempted several times already, with complete failure.

At this point, only Jean Chretien can cause the Liberals to lose a national election, and only if he destroys his own ruling party some time BEFORE that election takes place.

Truly bizarre, eh? We should maybe put this on another thread, don'tcha think? :-) The anti-Shatner campaign has clearly fallen apart and retired to lick their wounds, since they have realized by now that even mentioning his name on this forum is fatal to their cause...

- LH