Results of By-Elections
Repentigny
No surprise here that the Bloc Quebecois massively won. This is probably the safest Bloc riding in Quebec so anything other than a massive Bloc win would have been a disappointment for the Bloc. I was a bit surprised that the Tories managed to hold their ground since January because almost every poll has shown they have fallen massively in Quebec, although no poll has been taken since Harper agreed to recognize Quebec as a nation, so I wonder what I effect that had. It will be interesting if the party chooses Kennedy, how Quebecers will react to him opposing calling Quebec a nation. I was disappointed to see the Liberals finish in fourth, but hopefully this serves as a wake up call, that we need to do more in Quebec in terms of re-building.
London North Centre
This one was less certain, but still as expected Liberal Glen Pearson was elected. Considering his work at the food bank and 29 years as a firefighter, I clearly feel he was the best choice compared to Megan Walker knowing for her smear tactics and Diane Haskett who has ties to the Republicans and religious right. The Green Party came up short, but their strong showing should no doubt be a strong message to all parties to take the environment seriously. In fact all three mainstream parties saw their share of the popular vote fall, most likely to the Green Party, which suggests they don't just appeal to left wing voters, but to voters across the political spectrum. It was certainly a big slap on the wrist for the Tories, although considering the gap between them and the Liberals was the same as last January, I don't know that it really means a huge amount. If anything the results suggest that if an election were called today, the seats won would be very similiar to last January. The big question is whether this represents a major rise for the Green Party, or was simply a by-election vote for Elizabeth May, that will disappear come next election.
On two final notes, Ralph Goodale has endorsed Bob Rae. While I have great respect for Ralph Goodale, this won't change my view one bit. I believe and continue to believe that Stephane Dion is the best choice to lead the party and tomorrow I will outline why I think all Liberals who are serious about winning the next election should go for Dion.
In Alberta Jim Dinning has upped his attacks against Morton. Although he does sound a bit like Paul Martin in his attacks, I think his attacks are bang on. A Ted Morton win would mean the end of the Progressive Conservatives and a sharp break from the centre-right policies of Lougheed, Getty, and Klein replaced by the hard-right policies advocated by the Alberta Alliance.
No surprise here that the Bloc Quebecois massively won. This is probably the safest Bloc riding in Quebec so anything other than a massive Bloc win would have been a disappointment for the Bloc. I was a bit surprised that the Tories managed to hold their ground since January because almost every poll has shown they have fallen massively in Quebec, although no poll has been taken since Harper agreed to recognize Quebec as a nation, so I wonder what I effect that had. It will be interesting if the party chooses Kennedy, how Quebecers will react to him opposing calling Quebec a nation. I was disappointed to see the Liberals finish in fourth, but hopefully this serves as a wake up call, that we need to do more in Quebec in terms of re-building.
London North Centre
This one was less certain, but still as expected Liberal Glen Pearson was elected. Considering his work at the food bank and 29 years as a firefighter, I clearly feel he was the best choice compared to Megan Walker knowing for her smear tactics and Diane Haskett who has ties to the Republicans and religious right. The Green Party came up short, but their strong showing should no doubt be a strong message to all parties to take the environment seriously. In fact all three mainstream parties saw their share of the popular vote fall, most likely to the Green Party, which suggests they don't just appeal to left wing voters, but to voters across the political spectrum. It was certainly a big slap on the wrist for the Tories, although considering the gap between them and the Liberals was the same as last January, I don't know that it really means a huge amount. If anything the results suggest that if an election were called today, the seats won would be very similiar to last January. The big question is whether this represents a major rise for the Green Party, or was simply a by-election vote for Elizabeth May, that will disappear come next election.
On two final notes, Ralph Goodale has endorsed Bob Rae. While I have great respect for Ralph Goodale, this won't change my view one bit. I believe and continue to believe that Stephane Dion is the best choice to lead the party and tomorrow I will outline why I think all Liberals who are serious about winning the next election should go for Dion.
In Alberta Jim Dinning has upped his attacks against Morton. Although he does sound a bit like Paul Martin in his attacks, I think his attacks are bang on. A Ted Morton win would mean the end of the Progressive Conservatives and a sharp break from the centre-right policies of Lougheed, Getty, and Klein replaced by the hard-right policies advocated by the Alberta Alliance.
posted by Monkey Loves to Fight at 7:14 PM
7 Comments:
If Morton loses, do you think he switches to the Alberta Alliance?
OK--I've fot to ask, and forgive me, if this is a bit Troll-ish, as I'm of änother persuausion", but isn't it just a little interesting that the LPC can run fourth in a by-election on the island of Montreal. London was in many ways unsurprising; ditto Repentigny, but for the continued moribund state of the Liberals.
Rob:
If he loses to Dinning, "Small Martin,"as they're calling him out inthe "bad boy"of Confederation, then he well might, but the way I see it, Dinning's toast now, and it's down to a race between Morton and Stelmach and therefore a potential shake-up of the AB one-party state, or at least of a monied and cliquish Calgary ownership (just think, Desmarais) of the PC party. FWIW.
Rob Edger - Considering Morton's support comes almost all from the Alberta Alliance, I would suspect so.
dmd - Even if Stelmach wins, I think Morton would have a tough time accepting his moderate policies. He has always been an Alberta Alliancer and only ran under the PC banner since it was the best way to impose his right wing agenda in Alberta.
If the Liberal Party were to ever choose Mr. Kennedy as leader they would kiss Quebec goodbye until he was gone.
His rejection of the Nation motion, his lack of French and his almost utter lack of support from Quebec Liberals would make him electoral poison in that province.
The result is the Liberals would be sitting on the opposition benches for as long as he was the leader.
Despite all of the talk about reaching out to the West there is no electoral breakthrough there in the short to medium term. With the Conservatives lead by an Albertan and with the Liberals sticking to their social liberal policies it just will not happen. If they are lucky, Liberals will hang on to the seats they already have and it they are really lucky they will pick up a half-a-dozen more.
So in the short and medium term the Liberal fortunes will be decided in Central Canada and a Kennedy win will virtually guarantee a loss there.
Ottlib - You have some valid points, but I respectfully disagree. While the Liberals future in the short-term in Alberta may be dim, we cannot continue to write off the province as it grows. But more importantly the West is not monolithic politically. In fact British Columbia is in many ways more liberal than even Ontario. The West also includes BC, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan where I think we have a very good shot at making gains. In addition being socially liberal is probably an asset in BC as outside the Interior and Fraser Valley, BC is one of most socially liberal areas. Also I would say Alberta is more libertarian than so-con. They want smaller government, but is only in Rural Alberta they get riled up over gay marriage and Abortion. If you look at the Alberta PC race, almost all of Morton's support comes from Rural Southern Alberta. In addition Kennedy could gain us seats in Ontario. Now Dion is my first choice, but I don't think Kennedy is as big liability as you think. In fact if we just won back the Ontario seats we lost in 2006 and nothing else we would be in government.
For the last three election I have been hearing that we will make a breakthrough in BC and it never comes to pass.
Alberta is a wasteland for the Liberals and they are only successful in small concentrated pockets of the other Prairie Provinces.
The last time the Liberals won more seats in the west was during the Liberal sweep of 1993. Of course at the time they were pissed at Brian Mulroney and all but Alberta were still a little wary of the Reform Party. Needless to say those same conditions are not going to materialize again any time soon.
I agree that Liberals are going to have to find a way to reach out to the Western provinces but it is not going to happen any time soon so we are going to have to look at Central Canada if we want to win the next election, which means we need to do better in both Ontario and Quebec.
Thus Mr. Kennedy's lack of electability in Quebec becomes a big issue.
For the last three election I have been hearing that we will make a breakthrough in BC and it never comes to pass.
The Liberals won 9 seats out of 36 which is a huge improvement over historically winning only one. In addition during the 90s, the only won in Vancouver proper, while now they are winning in the suburbs such as North Vancouver, Surrey, and Richmond. In addition there are three seats in Winnipeg that could go Liberal. In the case of Saskatchewan, the problem is the way the ridings are drawn up since all are either rural or mixed urban/rural. Had the Rest of Canada been drawn up this way we would probably a have a Tory majority right now. Hopefully the next re-distribution will result in some entirely urban ridings, which I believe we can win, since if you look at the poll by poll breakdowns we took both Regina and Saskatoon in 2004, but lost those ridings due to the poor showing in the rural sections.
I agree we need to look to Central Canada, but that includes Ontario and right now there are 52 seats we don't have. Even if we only picked up 20 seats, which is probably the most we could realistically do, that would put us in government.
In the case of Quebec, we will at the very least hold the ridings we currently have and in terms of our prospects, I don't think they are as great as some think. With the exception of Alberta, Quebec was our second worse province, and if you take out the heavily populated Anglophone and Allophone ridings, we did worse in Francophone Quebec than Alberta. I personally think we should follow a similiar strategy whoever we choose to Dean's 50 state strategy. Had the Democrats taken your advice, they wouldn't have won states like Virginia or Montana which were seen as safe Republican ones, yet they did manage to take them in the last midterm elections. We should try and do the same. At the very least going after Harper in safe Conservative ridings will tie him down in his own turf, much like the Dems tied Bush down in his own turf.
That being said Dion is still my first choice and he can win in Quebec, in Ontario, and yes even the West. In addition I should add the Conservatives got roughly the same share of the popular vote in BC as they did in Ontario, the difference was the NDP was much stronger in BC than Ontario, so BC isn't more conservative so much as there are more socialist than Ontario.
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