4th Party NDP, Urban Conservatives and the Big Liberal Victory™

March 18, 2008 · Posted in Conservatism.ca

Notwithstanding the love-in with the shoe-in candidates in Toronto, there are a few other stories here that I think are far more substantial.

A week before e-day, I was on the phone with a well-connected Conservative strategist who, in my opinion, knows everything. I asked that person, point blank, “what’s going to happen in Vancouver and Saskatchewan?” The answer: “we will lose by a wide margin in Vancouver and Saskatchewan is too close to call.”

What a difference a week makes: Vancouver-Quadra was a genuine nail-biter (a few times showing the Conservative candidate ahead, at one time showing the Liberals ahead by over a thousand, then finishing 151 votes ahead).

Vancouver-Quadra? Isn’t this the same riding we lost last election by over 20 points? No story here! Trailing 20% and 0.6% are pretty much one and the same.

And Desnethé-Missinippi-Churchill River went from a 67 vote lead by the Liberals to a 1700ish vote lead for the Conservatives (who were almost at the half-the-vote mark).

And this was a big night for Dion and the Liberals because his shoe-ins sailed in as expected!? Come on Dion — time to call an election!

Wasn’t it telling when Dion strode up to the stage with Bob Rae, riding his coat-tails the whole way. And who gave the better speech? Seriously. What sort of Liberal Party do we have now that the leader is riding the coat-tails of Bob Rae?!

But let’s not try to embarrass Dion too much (he’s perfectly capable of doing this himself). Let’s switch to the NDP for a second.

Why did CTV have an NDP strategist on their panel? Maybe they should have included a Green Party strategist instead (if there are such people).

The Green Party beat the NDP in one riding by 241 votes, was only 36 votes behind in another and 272 votes behind in a third.

The interesting thing about the NDP and the Green Party is that they always claim (correctly) that they get votes from almost every region of the country, and that the “spread-out” nature of this prevents them from getting elected in alot of seats.

The difference is that the NDP used to always be the clear third-party, and the Green Party was barely more than fringe. Maybe not anymore? Was this a one-time protest vote for the Greens, or is there something more at work here?

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Comments

Swift

DMCR was an obvious easy CPC win. Quadra was going to be a lot closer than the last election. It's misjudgements like these (and many others) that are part of the reason that the Liberals have won so many elections.
DJeffery

I expect there's a grudging respect among a large pocket of progressives that by and large Harper's a straight shooter-honest and since there isn't an opposite respect for Dion their default vote goes Green. Ironically, Conservatives default vote goes Green too, for who isn't for the environment. It's a motherhood issue.