Liberals Find Their Big 'Mo: Day 6

Not since the weekend has there been a day so clearly won, and so clearly lost. The Liberals clearly had a good day today, buoyed by a trio of news stories which reinforces the truth that this is no longer Stephane Dion's election.

To begin with, in what has to be the first major self-inflicted wound of the campaign by a leader, Conservative leader Harper was painted as a flip-flopper on the issue of whether he would debate Liberal leader Ignatieff one-on-one. The Tories were quick to add that they never promised to do a full leaders' debate and a manno-a-manno version with the Liberal leader but the damage was already done -- regardless of who true or untrue this is, in politics image is far more important than reality and no voter or scribe has the attention span to sift through the lengthy party that the governing party provided.

To add extra sugar on the Liberal cake today, a new poll came out which put the Liberals well above the psychologically charged 30% milestone for the first time in recent memory. The Nanos poll, which can be found in full here, is interesting in that it has the Tories moving up in battleground Ontario while only losing steam in the largely irrelevant Prairies (where they'll likely win 110% of the seats anyway) and Atlantic Canada. The fact that the overall picture has the Liberals jump around 5 points at the expense of the NDP serves as a warning to Jack Layton's team that they risk becoming a side show in this election and will undoubtedly drive more Liberals to rethink sitting out this election -- a key win for the Opposition since any politically experienced person will tell you that a party which appears to be headed to destruction gets only a fraction of the volunteers while the rest sit the game out.

Finally, the Liberals released fundraising numbers that would make even the Tories blush. This will again help to motivate the Liberal base as money is a big deal; a party which has lots of it (as the Conservatives have for the last five years) will naturally be able to make the case that they are capable of fighting a top tier campaign.

Aside from the good vibes the Liberals are feeling, much of the coverage focused on the role the Green Party will (or won't) play in the upcoming debate. The Tories once again are showing signs of inability to react quickly to the campaign and have received little positive press coverage -- Liberal blogger and campaign mastermind Warren Kinsella's assessment that the Prime Minister is "phoning [the election] in" might start to resonate if the lack of Tory war room presence continues to be felt. On that note, where is the NDP today anyway?

Day 6 Winner: The Liberals