Here's my two cent's worth: I agree with Calgary Grit, who described the magic number as 35 -- that was the previous bottom in percentage of popular support for the Liberals after the sponsorship scandal first broke on Feb. 10, 2004.

When the next round of polling comes out, will they fall much below that?

If the Libs do fall much below that 35 per cent number, we could probably assume there is a fresh new gob of sponsorship bile that's risen into the throats of the Canadian electorate.

Then we'll have to watch for signs of where that bile is rising the most.

Pollster Darrell Bricker of Ipsos-Reid, talking with Mike Duffy on CTV Newsnet on Thursday, wondered if all the sponsorship anger directed at the Liberals was vented in the election concluded on June 28.

"I think we saw the effects of this in the last election campaign, principally in the province of Quebec," Bricker said, noting the seat count can't get much worse for the Liberals compared to the Bloc Quebecois (21 Liberals, 54 Bloc MPs).

And if a real nightmare scenario emerges for the Liberals in Quebec, are the Tories really going to be the beneficiaries? They polled just under nine per cent of the vote there last time.

Bricker said the place to really watch for signs of sponsorship anger is Ontario (75 Liberals,  24 Conservatives, 7 NDP).

The Conservatives currently have 99 seats, and the Liberals have 133. A 20-seat shift in Ontario means a change in government -- albiet from one minority to another.

David Akin, a colleague at CTV, pointed out the thoughts of a blogger named Tim Bray of Ongoing, who said:

One the one hand, you’ve got a minority government that’s just been caught laundering a million bucks through corrupt ad agencies back into its own coffers. On the other hand, you’ve got a weak and divided opposition; I for one am unconvinced they’d govern better. Doesn’t matter; when a government acts this badly it just has to be spanked, pour encourager les autres. Go on Stephen, Jack, and Gilles, pull the damn trigger already and let’s have an election and give the Liberals a dose of opposition. It’ll make us all feel better, and our politics are strongly enough centre-loaded that it’ll be hard for the next government to do too much damage.

To me, the interesting phrase there is "you've got a minority government that's just been caught ..."

The Liberals have been trying to spin this as the act of a "parallel operation" (Jean Lapierre's words in a Tuesday Globe article) up to no good within the Quebec federal Liberals.

Lapierre has constantly used the example of the poor state of the Quebec wing's poor finances; he says it was $3 million in the red when the Martinites took over.

But that in itself doesn't prove there weren't any kickbacks, just that the Quebec wing might be poor money managers (I believe one operative phrase could be: "It doesn't matter if you make $60,000 if you're spending $61,000"). However, it could also mean some bagmen were shaking down businessmen for kickbacks and keeping the loot for themselves.

In the House of Commons Thursday, Deputy PM Anne McLellan said it was PM PM who called the Gomery Inquiry so Canadians could know the truth about what happened to the sponsorship scandal.

For the sake of argument, let's assume Lapierre and McLelland are right: It was the act of a small band of corrupt rogues and the New Liberals under Paul Martin have been exemplary boy scouts in all of this. The next logical question is, will it matter?

If people are in a mood to blast a party, any political party, over corruption because what they've learned from the Gomery inquiry, which one is most likely to be in the crosshairs -- the Tories, the NDP, the Bloc ... or the Liberals?

However, another interesting fact -- one seized on with gusto by columnist Lawrence Martin in Thursday's Globe and Mail -- was that the provincial Liberals and Parti Quebecois had made much the same type of demands on businesses, according to former Groupaction ad executive Alain Renaud.

"It raises an obvious question. How can Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe parade around now with beet-faced indignation condemning the government if his own secessionist tribe were tarred with the same brush themselves?" Martin wrote.

If Martin's analysis is correct, maybe the Liberals aren't facing a total collapse in Quebec.

(Note: Total collapses are possible in these situations. In Saskatchewan, the small-scale stupidities and large-scale skimming of public funds into the party purse essentially destroyed the Tory party there. The right had to regroup around a new entity, the Saskatchewan Party).

Time for a change?

One of the great tipping point questions in politics is usually, Is it time for a change? The Liberals have had their hand on the tiller of power since 1993.

And according to some political scientists quoted in a CP story carried on CTV.ca Thursday, the public is much less tolerant of patronage and corruption-related scandals than it was in days gone by.

If Bray and those political scientists do speak for a lot of Canadians, the Grits might well be relegated to the backbenches after the next vote for a period of cleansing and reflection.

Actually, it might have happened last time. But what likely pulled that last campaign out of the fire for Martin was the fact the Conservatives managed to make themselves look scary and right-wing -- again. Stephen Harper made everyone queasy, for example, by accusing the Liberals of being soft on child pornography.

A wildcard is whether the moderately more moderate face adopted by the party at its policy convention will be accepted by Canadians.

A second wildcard is Harper himself. Is he seen as PM material by Canadians? During the last round of polling by Ipsos-Reid for CTV and The Globe and Mail, Canadians liked Martin a lot better.

Almost half polled at that time thought the Liberals deserved to be re-elected, which was an 18 percentage point rise over the June election.

The federal budget was well-received, and PM PM's decision to not sign onto the U.S. ballistic missile defence program was popularly received (the Tories said they would re-open negotiations with Washington).

If the opposition triggers an election based on a single issue -- in this case, sponsorship corruption -- they have to be sure the voters will stay angry about it throughout the campaign period. Otherwise, their gamble for power might end in failure.

This is what Deputy Conservative Leader Peter MacKay told a news conference Thursday: "We in the Conservative Party believe that more testimony must be heard, and we believe that the Canadian public deserves a chance to hear, understand and evaluate this evidence."

To me, that suggests the Tories think it might get even worse for the Liberals.

The CTV.ca story also contained these passages:

In the days before Gomery eased his publication ban, there was widespread speculation the detailed nature of Brault's testimony could bring down the government.

Despite the potential for electoral gains, however, no party wants to be seen as responsible for sending Canadians back to the polls so soon after the last vote.

In his comments, MacKay made it clear that public reaction is weighing heavily on plans for his party's next move.

"The Canadian people will decide the timing of the next election," he said.

Or Tory pollsters. :)

Addendum:

The Toronto Star's Jim Travers thinks the Liberal goose will finally be cooked by the electorate.

An excerpt from his Thursday column:

By the fall, when Gomery reports, it should be compelling enough for voters to finally vent the fury that faded just enough at the last election's 11th hour for Martin to salvage a minority. Worse for Liberals, this government's performance is weak while the Conservatives are gaining strength everywhere except in opinion polls.

Along with doing what once seemed impossible by erecting a single conservative tent, Harper continues to neutralize the scary social issues Liberals use as clubs.

Yes, opposition to same-sex marriage is still there, but gone, now, are two-tier medicine as well as pro-life activism and soon to follow are many of the dinosaurs whose campaign roaring hurt Harper so badly.

Harper is also advancing by other routes.

Significantly, he is forging common cause with the premiers, most notably Dalton McGuinty, over the alleged imbalance between federal revenues and provincial program costs.

As it now stands, Canadians, still more comfortable with the traditional definition of marriage, will have to choose between upholding the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and beating the electoral stuffing out of a party that filled its pockets with tax money. It's a tough decision, but it will only be perplexing if Martin manages to find a miracle issue that reframes his leadership, party and the ballot box question voters must ultimately answer.

Still didn't get enough? :)

If the answer is 'no,' read Sponsorship/Liberal survival afterthoughts.