Having the NDP in Saskatchewan is very good for Alberta. To keep Alberta healthy and prosperous VOTE NDP!

...yes, vote NDP, remember Calgary is Saskatchewan's biggest city...

Geez Kate, why is it your readers must go to a foreign country link to read your profound commentary on your home province?

Why is there no MSM in Saskatchewan or nationally in Canada, where your viewpoint material will be disseminated to all Saskatchewan and across Canada for that matter?
Granted your SDA blog is the best in Canada, yet its reach is not broad enough.

However, hopefully the Sask Party guy will get to read your screed and stiffen his backbone to take head on another Canadian closet communist, Lorne Calvert and take Saskatchewan out of the dirty thirties mentality and into the prosperity that Alberta has enjoyed for decades.
Allow the Saskatchewan voters the information needed to keep them from choosing as badly as Ontarians did on October 10.
Four years is a long time to mismanage a provincial economy.
Once again thanks for the cogent piece even if I had to go to an outside of the country link to read it.
And for Brad Wall - "Lad, get balls"

"Fast" Eddie Stelmach is in "bed" with the NDP too.
Here's hoping Sask can benefit from the Ab premier's decision to raise royalty rates.
AB has enough Rider fan residents!

Congrats on the PJM posting. Roger L Simon was the first blog I ever followed, starting after 9/11. He’s a fascinating guy and I hope his relatively new PJM competitive assault against the USA legacy media continues to hurry their needed renaissance. Ditto that you do the same here.

Pajamas Media!!!! Wow, Kate!! Quite an accomplishment. Great article, too. I agree with every word, but most especially the disappointing lie-low tactic being practiced by the SP. If and when they win, they'd better come out of their hiding place and roar like a lion.

Joe Molnar.

Awe, Joe. Don't like getting international exposure for your bankrupt ideology? Or are you just clueless about what the Pajamas Media website really is? Being an NDPer, as you seem to be, it's probably the later. Washed up and out of touch.

I think you misread Joe's post.

Geez Louise...please re-read Joe Molnar's post. I think you've read it 180 degrees from the direction it was pointed.

Oops. So I did. Sorry Joe. Thanks everyone for correcting me.

The lukewarm campaign exhibited by the SP is no doubt related to their mishandling of the crown question last time around when they snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. When ahead in the polls better to say less rather than more. Great article Kate.

Election related: I've voted in plenty of elections over the years, but I can't ever remember going this far into a campaign without hearing the results of 1 or 2 or more polls! whether they're party polls or media polls, usually somebody floating a poll! anybody have a theory about whats going on with the polling ?

"anybody have a theory about whats going on with the polling ?"

NDP are behind, party polling shows this, so the left wing people who normally pay for polls - such as Asper owned newspapers - aren't going to pay for and publish a poll that does not suit their left wing agenda.

I've been told polling looks ugly for the NDP. Really, really ugly.

Thanks Kate, that might be true, insiders may very well be aware of polling, they usually are, but there hasn't been anything discussed publicly? I would have to say that usually theres a media poll done at the election call and another done half way through to check for trends. Do you think, or would the SP think, that a positive poll for SP would rally the left and the extreme left? I would think a positive SP poll would help the left middle or center come to the SP. People often want to vote with the winner, they want to jump on that bandwagon of change. I would also think that if it looked like change might happen, Liberals may also come on board, just to make sure it did happen??

The CBC usually has lots of money for polling !

The Leader Post / Star Phoenix are supposed to have a big poll coming out on November 2nd I have heard. I too thought there would have been 2 or 3 polls by now.

Outsiders poaching on unfamiliar turf usually deserve it when the local game warden shows up to haul them away, but here goes....

I saw a couple of TV adverts a few nights ago that were bizarre enough to rouse even me out of my 1:00 AM stupor: one was an NDP ad, the punch line of which was "the Sask Party: a risk we can't afford to take," or something of that nature; and the other was a generic ad from- I think- CUPE, in which the narrator went on about "the Saskatchewan way of life" in a sentimental manner accompanied by semi-Norman Rockwell images. Right, I thought: you wouldn't want to risk the way of life on display in downtown Saskatoon every night after about 6:00 PM, or the prosperity evident in the condition of the roads and the vehicles driving on them. Hell of a thing to watch, even after Stephen Colbert.

Sixty years of Fabian socialism has had the same effect on Saskatchewan that it did on twentieth century Britain between 1945 and 1979. Like Stephen Harper and unlike Margaret Thatcher, Brad Wall has no crisis he can make use of to legislate dramatic changes, so he'll have to go slow and engage in long term warfare and outmaneuver the prevailing welfare statists one policy plank at a time. His drug program is motivated by the same tactical consideration as Harper's child care program: taking the political voltage out of an even worse idea by the opposition. It's going to be a long, irritating battle with no sure victory at the end.

My own impression, for what it's worth and based on a couple of days of sticking my nose into other people's business, is that at least three Dipper ridings here on the east side of Saskatoon are set to switch: Greystone, Eastview, and Sutherland. Loreweaver over at the Atheist Conservative thinks the Dippers are worried about Nutana, too, and he may well be right.

PJM! Not too shabby, Kate!

Whenever I'm scooting around other blogs, I ALWAYS look to see if Small Dead Animals is linked in the blogroll. Writing at a place like PJM will help in that regard. Darn good synopsis, by the way; the "uninitiated" can get a pretty good idea of Saskatchewan politics by way of your article.

There won't be any sudden changes to the Backward Province, much as I would like to see them. Energy companies are going to start pouring money in on speculation that sixty years of socialism has suddenly been reversed.

Socialism in Alberta is an anomaly. In the Backward Province it's a fixture backed up by sixty years experience.

Stellar performance Catherine! I was always under the impression you were a member of the SaskParty, but you spanked 'em good and hard so hopefully they take heed of constructive critism.

I too would have thought there would have been polls released by now.

I was actually called bye angus-reid in the middle of October and was asked a ton of questions about the election. By the questions asked, I thought it was more of a media-type poll than a internal party poll. They were asking things like "Do you feel Brad Wall has a hidden agenda?" and "Which party leader would make the best premier?".

I am not sure why this wasn't in the media but I am guessing it is because the results were so overwhelmingly in favour of the Sask Party, that no one would show up to vote if they knew how bad the NDP would take a beating. :)

Damn girl, you sure rites good ;-)

Seriously, excellent write up Kate. You always seem to get to the point without wandering all over. There are more than a few MSM types that could learn a lesson or two from you.

Kate [aka Catharine]

A tremendous article, not that I'm surprised at all. I am in agreement with your comments on a promising future for Saskatchewan if Brad Wall can his finger out of the wind [and out of his a**!]

I'm very hopeful of a breakout in the election for the Sask Party but, as many commnentersn herein, the blatant vote buying and overwhelming facts of so many on the government payroll or sucking at the union teat makes any change tricky.

Good luck in getting that post in PJM distributed across the province. It'll resonate and shake up things that you've opined Stateside with such brilliance.

All the young things I see in here in Des Moines helping out the Mitt and Fred and Rudy might run up and help the Sask Party get over the top!

jrb

Kate is kool. What's this pyjamas thing, are there photos available?

Good article Kate. Well done.

Hands down the most concise interpretation of Saskatchewan politics. If the supposed "right wing" SP were south of 49 they would make the Democrats jealous. Hopefully with 20 years of continuous rule the mindset of fear loathing and envy can be disrupted.

Way to Kate.

That's just a great read on a deserving blog.
This site almost gives me optimism for Saskatchewan's future...

That is a VERY well written piece, Kate. Thank you.

Congratulations on the PJM posting Kate and kudos on the even-handed (though pointed) analysis. However, it pains me to say that (unless I was mis-reading it), your piece could have stood a bit of proof-reading. I think you missed a few words here and there and/or there were some grammatical errors.

I just thought I'd get that out of the way before SYF or Lookout got out their rulers and rapped your knuckles.

"I think you missed a few words here and there and/or there were some grammatical errors."

I know. That was after the editors were finished with it. I should have probably proof read their changes a little more closely.

Good article and congratulations on the exposure you'll get from PJM.

That was after the editors were finished with it. I should have probably proof read their changes a little more closely.

I was a little put off by those also. Hey, it's the internet and not ink-on-dead-tree; can they fix it for future readers?

Brad Wall is a really nice guy. So is Harper. WE were also told Devine and Mulroney were nice guys. What happened to all of these nice guys?

Eric Bernston was a nice guy. Colon Thatcher,Dick Culver and that Tory MLA who got caught with the 14 year old hooker. They were all nice guys. Be proud of them they are your heritage.