Yes, federal New Democrats have a shiny new leader in Tom Mulcair. But no, Prime Minister Stephen Harper is not shaking in his boots.
The practical realities of Canada's electoral map suggest the Mulcair-led NDP will spend a good deal of the time leading up to a 2015 vote ensnared in a pitched battle with the Liberals over Quebec's 75 seats.
On the Prairies, meanwhile, where 54 seats are on offer, New Democrats face a fight that's straight uphill as Conservatives get set to mount attacks against the official Opposition party for wanting to kill oilsands-related jobs and thwart western economic development. It's likely the Conservatives also will try to demonize the New Democrats nationally for pandering to Quebec's nationalists.
The West, with 88 Commons seats, is a crucial battleground for the NDP if it's serious in its intention to form government. The party needs to win big here because it already owns most of Quebec and has long been a third-place force in Ontario.
At present, Mulcair's party holds 12 B.C. seats and just three in the three Prairie provinces. That's 15 of 88 seats in the West.
Pathetic.
The party likes to point out, while it won only three seats on the Prairies, another 13 were lost to the Conservatives by just a few thousand votes each. It considers all 13 - seven of them in Saskatchewan - to be "winnable."
But the fact is, Mulcair probably would have to come up with new policies to coax them into the NDP fold. He sure isn't going to do it by continuing to call for stricter environmental regulation and higher corporate taxes, both measures perceived as unfriendly to the resource boom in the region.
That's not to say Westerners are hostile to green policies, only that in a fragile economy voters tend to be sensitive to gestures that might reduce economic activity.
Additionally, NDP policies on Quebec aren't going to impress Westerners who will be inclined to see a lack of principle in the party's ideological offerings.
For example, New Democrats endorse the notion Quebecers need only a 50 per cent plus one vote to separate from Canada - rather than the Supreme Court's 1998 ruling calling for a "clear majority" vote.
In Quebec, Mulcair is going to have to spend much of his time ensuring his party hangs on to its 58 seats. On that front he'll be challenging, not so much the Conservatives, but Liberals and a newly resurgent Bloc Quebecois. Conservatives, remember, do not have much at play in Quebec, holding only six seats.
By contrast, je me souviens country is a crucial electoral hunting ground for the Liberals. They desperately need to regrow support in their historic
stronghold to mount a comeback.
Mulcair, of course, will also be busy dealing with the issue of a potential merger with Bob Rae's Liberals - an idea the new leader rejected outright last weekend.
Rather than execute any sort of formal alliance with the Grits, Mulcair has indicated he'll moderate party policies so they appeal to a broader group of voters. In so doing, he is bound to lock horns with many within his own party who oppose any watering down of what the NDP stands for.
Already Mulcair is being castigated for his intentions. Critical remarks from former leader Ed Broadbent in the run-up to Saturday's leadership vote will be hard to forget as they are replayed, over and over again, in future Conservative attack ads.
Mulcair faces pitched battles on a variety of fronts, a notion that should offer considerable comfort to Harper.
