[URBAN NOTE] "Tories prepare for siege on Liberals' GTA holdings"

[rfmcdonald]

it's not inaccurate to say that, federally, the Liberal Party of Canada is concentrated in the largest cities: Toronto, Montréal, Vancouver. That's why Brett Popplewell's article in the Toronto Star is so relevant: Toronto could win the Conservatives a majority. (robertprior was quite right.)

[The Conservatives] need to break the Liberal lines here if they are to hand Stephen Harper what he covets: a majority government. He is just 12 seats shy of the goal.

Harper’s strategy for a Conservative assault on the GTA is a classic one that has worked countless times in history.

“It’s like Mao Zedong’s strategy of war,” explains Tom Flanagan, a former top Harper adviser.

Encircle the city from the countryside. Then watch it fall.

With 40 per cent of the Liberals’ federal seats located within a 40 km radius of Toronto City Hall, their holdings are surrounded by territories ceded to the Conservative Party in the last three elections.

Pundits and polls agree that in this fight, the Liberals are weak and parts of their fortress might soon fall. Harper’s forces are already inside.

“I can smell a Conservative staffer six blocks away,” says Liberal MP Rob Oliphant, whose Don Valley West riding is in the heart of the Alamo.

“Everywhere I looked (in 2008) I saw Conservative young staffers in their little blue T-shirts and their Gap pants running around my riding.”

Oliphant expects more of the same in the coming weeks as the Conservatives pour resources into the region.

The Tories have already targeted five ridings along the periphery of the Liberal stronghold and have declared their intent to pinch the Grits from the North, East and West.

Popplewell concludes on a note with implications for my riding of Davenport.

The NDP has set up a dedicated war room at the foot of Yonge St. From there, the party plans to orchestrate an expansion that, if successful, will take three seats from the Liberals.

At the top of that list is Parkdale-High Park, which the NDP’s Peggy Nash lost to Gerard Kennedy in 2008.

Nash is back. She’s already attacking Kennedy for having one of the worst attendance records in the House of Commons.

The NDP are also targeting Mario Silva (Davenport) and Maria Minna (Beaches East-York).