Les participes passés et l'infinitif, Numure. Les participes passés et l'infinitif.
I'll write the rest of this post in English so everyone can understand.
The Libs have one advantage and one disadvantage with the ridings system : their votes are very heavily concentrated in western Montreal ridings which they simply cannot lose, so when they're getting schooled in the polls, they at least still can manage to obtain a few dozen deputies.
On the other hand, them leading in the polls isn't necessarilly as much of a good sign for them as it should be since the same phenomenom makes it harder for them to see their high popular support being translated into more seats at the Assemblée Nationale (mostly because outside of western Montreal, I believe every single riding is mostly francophone : since they strike low among francophones, the Libs have a very hard time getting seats out there).
Still, the Lib vote tends to be underrated. Liberal is almost synonimous to stability in Quebec politics, so "last-minute" undecided people tend to go towards them to have 4 years of nearly complete stability before thinking about everything all over again come the next election. Basically, the polls tend to underestimate the Lib votes.
The ADQ is strong this year, very strong. However, their voting base is extremely weak, being mostly made of protest voters, uninformed voters and people who traditionally are péquistes. Dumont's campaign has been based on vague ideas and his own good image : up to now, in the current circumstances, it seems like this was the best choice.
However, the ADQ has a glaring set of weaknesses : one, its platform is completely unrealistic, second, its constitutionnal position regarding the future of Quebec is unclear, third, its team is often dubbed as the weakest of the 3 main parties, fourth, it's starting to be blamed for high levels of demagogy and, finally, both the PLQ and PQ apparently will gun for it until the end of the campaign. Considering the ADQ's undecisive base, I wouldn't be surprised to see them crash in the polls before the end of the campaign (and even if it doesn't happen, they'll have to pull quite the performance in the house if they don't want to see their support start down the drain at the begginning of the next elections).
The PQ, on the other hand, sees the opposite phenomenom : generally speaking, if they get schooled in polls, they also get schooled when it comes to winning ridings : yet when they're leading the polls, or even if they're trailing slightly, they have very very high chances of winning.
The above dynamics may change with the rise of the ADQ, but for this election it still stands.
Now, some specific events concerning this campaign and only it :
The Libs have thus far waged a steady, calm campaign, hoping Boisclair and Dumont, who honestly are both rather unprofessional, would kill themselves off. The problem for the Libs is, neither of them crashed and Charest and his team were unable to turn their campaign on a more agressive stand : result, they have to rely on their 4 years of government to draw voters... but they arguably were the worst government ever seen in Quebec for their first 3. Their poor judgement of Dumont and Boisclair, combined with their slow campaign, causes them to slowly lose the speed they managed to build up just before the campaign.
The PQ, a year ago, scored over 50% in polls. Everyone thought it'd crush the Liberals. Yet Boisclair came on the scene, and after a very short honeymoon, everything went ballistic for the Péquistes and they dropped to a low of 29% in the early campaign. At the beggining of it, no one wanted to listen to Boisclair except his sympathizers and people who are very interested in politics : your average guy just changed channels when he saw him on TV.
Then there was his appearance on the extremely popular TV show Tout Le Monde En Parle, where most of the crew is sympathetic to his cause (not openly, but it shows). His performance there was very good, so people warmed up a bit.
At the debate, after a *terrible* start, Boisclair had the immense luck of not being targetted by either Charest or Dumont and managed to pull back a "comeback" and end on a very strong note after repeatedly sending Dumont in the cables.
Dumont had another huge advantage in that despite clearly losing the debate overall, he was the strongest player in the early stages of the debate while maintaining the best image all along : being that most of his voting base is made of protest voters and other rather indecisive people who seriously tend to only watch the start of the debate, he very possibly managed to protect his assets despite his poor showing when it came to what he had to say.
Charest had a debate similar to his campaign : slow, steady, defensive, unspectacular. One exception : unlike his campaign, it seemed it worked well for him. Sadly, Dumont's stunt (I'll explain that just below) seems to have somehow managed to hurt Charest. I blame the electors's stupidity here, because honestly we'd all have all the reasons in the world to slap Dumont in the face really hard.
There's a rule in the debate stating no one can show or quote an undeclared document of any kind. Yet, despite agreeing to the rule without questionning, around mid-debate, Dumont whipped out an (undeclared) note. This summer, in Montreal, an overpass crumbled, killing 5 people. The note was about this event and Dumont, quoting a part of the note, said it was proved the overpass was in poor shape and that the Liberal government knew it while in power. Later on, we'd learn that the note also stated NOTHING should be done about it and that the alleged damage was only superficial : the real damage, which caused the overpass to crumble, had been unnoticed through the inspection. This caused Dumont to be attacked from all angles, not only because he broke the debate's rules, but also because he only quoted the parts he needed just to hurt Charest and remained silent about the context despite its crucial importance.
Dumont's stunt worked however since it destabilized Charest during the debate, probably "scaring" him off enough to force him to remain on the defensive : this prevented Charest from getting an opportunity to finally steer away from defense and go on the offensive (and not just for the debate, but for the whole campaign, making this small event a major turnpoint). Yet, as the ADQ suffered from the move too, one must wonder if Dumont didn't just swap enemies by aiding Boisclair slightly. One thing's for certain, that's not what he intended.
Since day one we've had a 3-man dogfight between a weakening PQ and PLQ and a strenghtening ADQ. I however am positive this will not last much longer : Dumont has been unbelievably weak recently, being unable to complete his good image with valuable ideas. "Il n'a pas de contenu", as we say in French. Had the PQ and PLQ left things at it, chances are Dumont would have avoided problems, but both parties want him dead it seems so he's going to have a hard time until the end of the campaign as everyone's going to point out his unrealistic and overall poor program.
All the while, Boisclair, who honestly has been average at best, still somehow appears to finally be in position to convey his message. The public opinions still sees him as boring and uninteresting, but it warmed up juuuust enough for him to try and get the most attention in the last week. All along he's always been #3 in news reports and other medias, so that'll be new to him. Basically, it's his chance.
The extremely low expectations people have of Boisclair are almost a blessing to him : he doesn't even need to be good, he just needs to be passable and people are likely to be impressed enough to give him a chance. He seems like a bad campaigner to me, so oddly this situation helps him more than it hurts him.
Charest has one last week to turn his campaign around. If he doesn't, he'll keep slowly falling in the polls, but should manage a rather good score considering the underestimation of Liberal votes. If he however manages to do this, he might just prevent Boisclair from using the last week of the campaign to build up his battered support through increased attention as the Libs would steal the hot seat, which could give Charest the win. IMO, Charest's results will decide who wins : a good week, he wins, an average of bad week, Boisclair wins.
As for Dumont, I'd say he's close to the point of non-return, where his credibility and that of his party would be damaged so much his base would simply suddenly disintegrate and flock back to other parties, mostly the PQ. Should that happen, Charest's job would be rendered that much harder.
Wow, I can't believe I wrote so much. I basically explained the entire campaign here.
EDIT: And thank God I CPed that post in Wordpad. Obviously my browser crashed at the very moment I was posting this monster.
CKA Super Elite 
![[but]](./images/smilies/bootie.gif "Moon")
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et ça sa veux dire un gouvernement minoritaire PQ avec ADQ comme opposition officiel et le PLQ dans le dalot.
