Antonia Zerbisias credits VRW bloggers for Conservative victory

In her latest Toronto Star column, Antonia Zerbisias says:

Four days after next Monday's federal election, Toronto's (mostly) conservative bloggers will be drinking it up at a downtown pub. Judging from the polls, it will be a celebration of victory, one in which they had no small role.

For one thing, there'll be a few non-Conservatives in attendance. Still, it's a small recognition of how much the Canadian blogging community has risen in the estimation of the press since last election.

For the past few years, they've been bashing the Liberals, for everything from not saluting U.S. President George W. Bush to the income trust scandal.

Saluting Bush? Yikes. But the income trust farce, that deserved even more government-bashing than the Canadian blogosphere delivered. That was pure buffoonery.

Oh sure, every once in a while they would take aim at columnists and pundits whom they perceived to be liberal/Liberal, but most of their fire was aimed at the government.

Why critique the cheerleaders, when you can critique the players?

So what if the Conservatives win? Will mainstream media (MSM) journos who perform their watchdog role be lined up against the virtual wall?

If so, it'd be a small gathering . . . that's one of the things that the bloggers have been complaining about for all this time: that the MSM wasn't doing the job of being watchdogs.

She also quotes Bob "Let it bleed" Tarantino on what Conservative bloggers might do if Harper wins next week:

Toronto conservative blogger Bob Tarantino [. . .] tends to agree: "Assuming the CPC wins (still a big "if'' at this point) the first few months will see something akin to drunken euphoria amongst conservatives.

"What happens after that will be a function of two things: whether it's a majority or minority government and how badly the Liberals do (in terms of seat count). If it's a majority and the Liberals are trounced, then the `coalition' that comprises the CPC will splinter, and online pundits will start sniping at the party and each other . . . If it's a majority and the Liberals still place strongly, the coalition will likely still splinter, but not as quickly and not as deeply. In a minority situation, I think the dynamic will remain the same as prior to and during the election: guns trained on the media and the Liberals."

I think Bob is probably right. I wouldn't expect the coalition to survive longer than the debate over the first budget of a new Conservative government myself.