forcemajeure had some interesting points about the election, which I'll reproduce below for your perusal:

let me be the first to predict that not only will we have Prime Minister Harper, but he'll have a majority government. The polls tell the whole story at this point. The whole Liberal strategy depended on fearful NDP voters switching to the Liberals at the last minute, but I think soft Liberal voters are capitulating, which is why the Liberals can't even keep their heads above 30%. It's far from clear that the Liberals will even sit as the official opposition.

It seems pretty clear Harper will break 40%, and it's hard to construct a mathematical scenario in which 40% is insufficient for a Conservative majority, unless you assume all of that surge is coming from Francophone Québec, or you assume that the NDP vote collapses into the single digits.

I hope we do get a solid Tory majority, because I think we need a Tory government to establish that we aren't some third-world country where the party in power always wins no matter what misdeeds they commit, but more importantly because I don't want the BQ to have any influence or leverage. Harper has hinted at a Conservative-NDP minority government but, uh, I don't think that's happening -- if Paul Martin can't keep Jack Layton happy, no one can -- and I don't want the BQ having the balance of power. So a clear-cut majority of either the Liberals or the Conservatives would be preferable to any other outcome, in my view.

I'm a Harper optimist. I think he's got a shot at being a good PM, and I've warmed up to the guy over time, even though I'd prefer someone more like Bernard Lord. And isn't it cool that for once a western Anglophone party leader promises to improve his French and actually does it?

The time in the wilderness will be healthy for the Liberals. It's an opportunity to clear out a lot of accumulated baggage from the Chrétien era and to formulate some kind of program that consists of something more than scaring people half to death about the opposition, and offering up goodies at election time like a Carnival krewe during Mardi Gras. The Liberals need a Tony Blair, and some time on the opposition benches to contemplate the idea that the federal government is not a wholly owned subsidiary of the Parti libéral du Canada.

Because I'm only about 65% up on my Canadian politics, that only makes about 65% sense to me, but maybe you'll find it pertinent. Or not.