Canada

Though I think the Trudeaumania effect was greater than she suggests. Honestly, do you think Bob Rae or Michael Ignatieff delivering the same lines would have pulled as many votes from the NDP? At the very least, I think some of the NDP MPs in safe ridings would have held their seats. The fact that the Liberal party had flashy new packaging went a long way.

I found this other -- much less pithy -- critique quite interesting. I don't agree with some of it, but I think the author makes good points. I particularly like these two paragraphs:

The Liberals won on the basis of an anti-austerity vote, but they are not an anti-austerity party. They will follow the tactic of the Ontario Liberals, who won by campaigning left to undercut the Ontario NDP, and now are implementing privatization and cuts. Justin’s “stimulus” is based on public-private-partnerships and privatization. He will sign the TPP, which will undermine Canadian manufacturing, and Bill C-51, which will undermine civil liberties. Sooner or later this reality will come as a shock to those who voted Liberal.

Trudeau will likely have a honeymoon period of a year or so. The reversal of the most egregious elements of the Harper regime will likely be very popular, as well as fresh faces after a decade of snarling reactionary, “old-stock”, Conservatives. But sooner or later political and economic reality will predominate. Near the end of the campaign it became clear that the old Liberal Party - the party of the sponsorship scandal and corporate lobbyists - is still alive and well. In the final days of the election Trudeau’s campaign co-chair Dan Gagnier was forced to resign after it emerged he sent a detailed email to TransCanada Corp., the organization behind the Energy East pipeline, with advice on how and when to lobby a new government. The old-boys club is now back at the public trough.

http://www.marxist.ca/canada/federal/1058-2015-canadian-election-conservative-austerity-rejected-ndp-humiliated.html