The language of desperation

Danny's Minions, up to and including Danny himself, have spent the last ten days or so of By-Election 2007 (Part I of III) spouting a bizarre argument: Vote for Danny or you weaken Danny's ability to Blame Canada.

Maybe that's not it exactly, but its' close. There are various iterations of it: "vote for Danny or you weaken our hand with the oil companies", "vote for Danny or Stephen Harper will know we are weak", or, as a local satirical blog has crudely put it "vote for Danny, equalization and bunnies".

This is a desperation argument.

There should be many, better, arguments for voting for Danny Williams.

Even this corner will concede that there are many such better arguments.

That Danny and his Minions resorted to this, really, pathetic argument, when the Premier is supposedly running sky-high in the polls, raises some interesting questions.

Is Danny really running sky-high in the polls?

Are Danny's Minions just really stupid campaigners?

Or are they really that desperate?

There is something creepy about a democratic leader in a democratic society openly campaigning on an argument calling for the opposition to be wiped out. We haven't seen that since, well, since the days of Joey Smallwood. Which wasn't that long ago.

Has the provincial political culture evolved that little since the 1960s?

(Yeah, yeah, the MHA slush fund scandal renders that question rhetorical.)

Either way, Danny's call for all opposition to be elminated from his realm is either a bold move, or a desperation one.

This time tomorrow night, 3/5 of the answer will have been revealed.

And it's a CRA polling period too.