Election Guesswork

Attempted last night to canvass the ridings over at election prediction for some insight in making the picks, but ultimately it's a crap shoot at this point. I think the NDP will end up around 30 and the Bloc around 60 - it's the fight between the Conservatives and Liberals that has really yet to be decided.

Here's how it looks to me now, for round 1 of the Bow Pool anyway. Note that this basically assumes that the desire for change trumps (slightly) other factors and that the Conservatives don't self-destruct. Three days into the campaign, those are serious assumptions. Who knows how this Parliament would function, and it probably wouldn't be conclusive enough to shake either leader, but that's another story:

CPC - 110
Libs - 107
NDP - 30
Bloc - 61

Turnout: 57% (might be slightly higher, but there's a Price-is-Right penalty for going over)

As for CalgaryGrit's "off-beat" Pool, my guesses (and boy are they guesses) as follows:

No Liberal seats in Alberta;
CPC support under 9% in Quebec;
Liberals to run the most vicious attack ad;
NDP to win Ottawa Center;
Svend over Hedy;
Bloc over 60 seats;
Garneau to Lose; Cutler to win; Chow to win; Lapierre to win;
first abortion reference on December 14th;
9 mentions of corruption by Harper in the first debate;
Martin to be "clear" 4 times in the first debate;
Layton seen as the instant poll winner;
No national Belinda ads;
Solberg over 75%;
Harper to win the gaffe poll;
Turnout 59%;
Decima as the most accurate final poll;
and Conservatives (gulp) to win the most seats.