Last week Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion created a stir when he seemed to say that the Liberals would vote to bring down the Conservative government of Stephen Harper.  This is the first part of the Stephane Dion Election Cycle -- the threat of (finally) forcing an election:

It's not exactly election fever, but Canadians appear more ready this year to head to the polls than they did last fall, says Liberal Leader Stephane Dion.

"We have seen over the winter and the spring more and more interest for federal politics," Dion told reporters Wednesday at a hotel in Ottawa's west end. "And more and more appetite for an election."

"Last fall, Canadians were not expecting an election at the federal level," Dion explained after a one-hour, campaign-style stop in Kanata, Ont.

If the Bloc Quebecois and the NDP joined the Liberals in a vote against the government on a confidence issue, then we'd be in an election.

I made note of Stephane Dion's statements of a over week ago, but wrote nothing about it in the days afterward.  Why?  Because the Stephane Dion Election Cycle had only just begun.

Next in the Stephane Dion Election Cycle comes the clarification.  Stephane Dion, of course, was not committing to anything:

After triggering speculation this past week that the Liberals may be ready for a fall election, party leader Stephane Dion remains coy about when or if his party would try to topple the Conservative government.

"An election will come between now and October 2009," he said on CTV's Question Period on Sunday.

"(Calling an election) is a decision that belongs to me, that's true ... I will choose a good moment."

This isn't backtracking exactly.  This is more about outlining a big escape hatch to be used when it is time to not force an election.   But patience -- we're not at that part of the cycle yet.

Next in the Stephane Dion Election Cycle comes confusion.  Other Liberals would muddy the issue, perhaps to forward their own agendas.  In this case, it was Bob Rae.  Immediately after the "coyness", Bob Rae fanned the election flames:

The election dare that Prime Minister Stephen Harper has issued to the increasingly confident Liberals has set the stage for a fall election.

Bob Rae, the MP for Toronto Centre, said yesterday that his party believes it is in a good position to go to the polls.

"The issues are increasingly coming together and the differences between the Liberals and the Conservatives are very clear for everyone to see," said Rae, citing an earlier remark by Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion.

Of course, Bob Rae made sure no one was going to contradict him:

Dion is on vacation and was not available yesterday for comment.

Does Bob Rae think the fall is a good time for an election for the Liberals?  Maybe.  He might also think that fall is a good time for an election for Bob Rae.  If the Liberals fail to win in a fall vote, Stephane Dion would face a leadership review in December.  In all likelihood Dion would be ejected as leader, and Bob Rae could make his move to be the new leader of the Liberal Party.

If an election is put off until after December, then even in the event of an election loss, Stephane Dion could hold on to the leadership for two years.  Liberal Party conventions in which leadership reviews are held are scheduled in two year intervals, and the next one is this coming December.

Next in the Stephane Dion Election Cycle comes a dose of reality.  Some Liberals might like the idea of an election for a variety of reasons (self-serving and otherwise), but elections are expensive, and the Liberals have little money:

The results highlighted some of the financial difficulties that have bedevilled the Liberal Party of Canada for more than a year now. With the candidates in the 2006 Liberal leadership race still trying to pay off more than $2 million in campaign debt, donations to the party are drying up.

The party raised less than a million dollars in the three month period ending June 30 - or about one-fourth as much as the Conservatives were able to squirrel away.

Privately, some Liberal MPs say that until there is a clear path to retiring the debt of Dion and others, it may be difficult to force a federal election.

So we've gone from dreams to clarification to gamesmanship to obstacles.  We've nearly reached the end of the Stephane Dion Election Cycle.  This stage is self-preservation.  Faced with the reality of the situation, senior Liberal strategists worried about their own jobs should they be blamed for losing an election are telling Stephane Dion that he has picked a bad moment (yet again) to put on the Stephane Dion is a Leader Puppet Show, and that he shouldn't be listening to those Liberals who are egging Dion on:

Despite the dare and double dare election hysteria unfolding in recent weeks, Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion has been advised to cool his summertime desire for an early fall election and postpone his encounter with voters and the Conservatives believe Dion will heed the advice.

The show put on by the Conservatives last Wednesday night in Saint-Agapit, Que., with the electoral-style rally organized during the national caucus meeting has left some marks within the Liberal strategists.

One of them told The Hill Times that "the rally tells us that they are ready to go and we are not." The strategist admitted that "Mr. Harper was of course in a friendly crowd, but we have to consider that he was in Quebec. For the Conservatives to put 2,000 people in the same room in Quebec is bad news for the Liberals."

Unfortunately for Dion his problems are numerous and complicated. There is still quite a bit of disagreement on the most important part of his electoral platforms, the Green Shift, or carbon tax, and the party has financial, fundraising, and organization problems.

This is the abbreviated cycle.  When parliament is sitting, there is a final stage in the Stephane Dion Election Cycle, in which a confidence vote sets the stage for Stephane Dion to run away.  Not that it comes as a surprise by this point. 

Then, after a brief reprieve following the vote, and after the ridicule from the NDP fades away, Stephane Dion pipes up again about how the government's days are numbered, that the time for an election is soon approaching, and we start the cycle again.

Given that it might be over a month before the next confidence vote, I'm willing to declare this iteration of the Stephane Dion Election Cycle complete.  I might be wrong -- it is possible that there will be a confidence vote in the fall, one that the Liberals will flee, without a new run of Stephane Dion Election Cycle starting, completing this cycle instead.

We've seen it before, we're seeing it now, and we'll probably see it a few more times before October 2009:

One top Conservative strategist told The Hill Times last week that "now, more than ever, we believe our minority government will reach the end of the legislature."

It's hardly news, so it's not something worth writing about when it's only halfway through.