Reply #13: This is a pretty cryptic question

[V. Kid]

It's hard to say it depends upon your perspective. Liberals on this site (and I mean capital L or hard core Liberal Party supporters) will tell you that Martin is great and that everyone loves him, and that they just wanted to keep him honest for a little bit. But I doubt this.

On the left he's unpopular because he's quite right wing economically anyways. He was sort of conservative too, but he has decided to go along with the court rulings that said denying gays and lesbians the right to marry was unconstitutional -- so he's sort of dodged that a bit. All in all though when one looks at his record in government as finance minister it's unlikely intelligent lefties will vote for his Liberals. They will continue to claim they support health care and what not, yet if there continues to be big problems with it the lefties will simply be able to say that it was his cuts that caused the problem in the first place.

In the centre, the place the Liberals try to occupy, Martin is somewhat popular. But should the Conservatives actually manage to present themselves as moderate he could be threatened here. The 'Sponsorship' scandal or 'Adscam' is still going to be investigated somemore so this could hurt him amongst middle of the road swing voters that would normally vote Liberal but would occasionally consider the Conservatives.

That being said the Liberals have the highest 'bottom' of the three parties, the NDP is around 10%, the Conservatives around 20%, and the Liberals around 30% anything less than that for any of them is rare. So he has to do a lot of work to make that happen, but for much of the previous election campaign he was hovering at around 30, neck and neck with the Conservatives until they let their crazies out, so he could end up around there.

On the right he's popular with the business liberal variety, and not so popular with the social conservative variety. Like I said earlier he has decided to go along with Gay Marriage, and even marijuana decriminalization so that hurts him amongst more conservative people who occasionally vote Liberal. But if one looks at his caucus there are quite a few conservative Liberals that got re-elected even with the new united Conservative Party. With the business liberals he is popular because as finance minister he cut taxes and social spending, a popular thing amongst that sort -- besides they don't really care about moral issues -- it's about the money with them. He will always be popular amongst that crowd.

So all in all it's hard to say what will happen and if he's truly popular. Unluckily for him the other party leaders come across as younger because they are, and the Liberals have been in power since 1993. But if he can come across as a statesman, avoid negative social spending issues and come out of the Adscam related stuff fairly unscathed he should be able to win another strong minority or even a majority. But it's very important that he hold what he has in Ontario and regains strength in Quebec. The only other place that has growth potential for him (realistically) is BC -- but all three parties see openings there so it won't be easy going for anyone.