The Manitoba NDP and provincial election 2011: strategy - future - futility?

Perhaps he's bought into the old myth that working-class voters care only about sports.

It's kind of amazing that there hasn't been a "Dump Selinger" movement.  You'd think the Manitoba NDP would realize that the guy is roadkill and try to find somebody who would, at least, save them from total humiliation in the next election.

I'm just going to repost what I wrote in the other thread

Who might that be?

What "wing" of the party would you say Steve Ashton represents?

Steve is kind of hard to classify. He's got solid left credentials, for sure, but he also has a bit of a populist streak.  I'd say most of the MLAs who supported him in the leadership race are not particularly 'left' but are definitely more 'populist'.  Plus the chair of his leadership campaign is no leftie, backed the Tories federally and is (apparently) about to run for them provincially.

No question Swan was seen as the preferred successor of the Doer inner circle and the upper echelons of the union leadership. Selinger had a lot of backers from what I would call the River Heights / upper-crust / left-wing academic crowd, as well as people from the 'social activist' wing of the party (like Jen Howard and Rob Altemeyer). It's hard to really pigeonhole any of these guys on a left-right spectrum, except that I would say Swan was definitely more of a centrist/Third Way-type and Selinger and Ashton are somewhat more to the left of Swan.

If the NDP loses the election and Selinger calls it quits, I'm sure Swan will make another bid for the leadership. I expect we'd see someone like Kerri Irvin-Ross or Theresa Oswald run (if they are re-elected of course). Personally I'd like to see Jen Howard run for the leadership - I've been very impressed with her so far as a minister.

I never underestimate the ability of the Tories to shoot themselves in the foot.

Well, she is currently Minister of Labour and Government House Leader - not too shabby (even for someone from Brandon)

One factor that differentiates this situation from the late 1980's:

It doesn't look at all likely that the Liberals have even the potential to stage the kind of surge they had under Sharon Carstairs in 1988, a surge that destroyed a massive Tory poll lead and resulted in Filmon's party actually LOSING votes and seats from the previous campaign.  I'm not sure whether that helps the Tories or the NDP, though.

I don't think he's that hard to classify.  It's basically a case where he is set in his progressive social democratic beliefs, but while the rest of the party has been moving right, he's been operating out of his little fiefdom 8 hours north of Winnipeg for the past 30 years, so by staying still he's become probably the most left-wing MLA in caucus by default, and ran the most clearly left-wing leadership campaign in the leadership election, proposing things like anti-scab, return of the tuition freeze, a poverty strategy with more accountability, etc.  I think maybe there is a tad of populism - probably connected to his personality, being fairly isolated politically, or the material conditions of being the MLA for a remote one-industry town for 30 years - but that's not necessarily a bad thing either, although it can be a pole of attraction from all over the political spectrum.

If anything, Russ Wyatt is the one who is hard to classify - he's Transcona's answer to Kevin Lamoureux.

I think what went on there is that this crowd would have been torn between supporting a right-wing candidate (Swan) or really breaking with the party brass and going for Ashton.  So, they saw Selinger as a compromise, and when Swan dropped out, stuck with him.  Plus, apparently he has some 15 year old left cred, although I personally think that's all gone stale.

My view at the time was that it was pretty clear that the left-right spectrum went Ashton-Selinger-Swan, with Selinger being seen as the "respectable" progressive choice - even though his politics aren't noticably more progressive than Doer.

ghoris, I don't think you and genstrike are actually disagreeing with how River Heights and social-activist support tracked over the course of the race - genstrike described at least one of those groups seeing Selinger as a compromise between Ashton and Swan that they "stuck with" after Swan dropped out, and I think the specific verb that genstrike used ("stick with") implies a belief that at least that group was with Selinger from the get-go.

I agree with that analysis. Personally, I always saw the leadership race as being more about various cliques within the party squaring off rather than a true 'ideological' left vs. right fight.

Swan was the candidate of what I would call the Doerites / 'party brass'. He had all the backing of all the high-ups and the mucky-mucks in the party and labour movement - basically the people who had been running the show since the late 90s: ie your Bob Dewars, your Becky Barretts and your Darlene Dzewits.
However, the 'rank and file' of the existing membership, as you point out, wasn't prepared to go along with the leadership / 'party brass' this time and instead looked for a 'safe' alternative, someone who was sufficiently 'establishment' yet not of the existing ruling clique, and perhaps a little bit more leftish-sounding than Doer - hence Selinger was a perfect fit.

Ashton represented the anti-establishment vote, and he organized a lot of support from segments of the party that had been somewhat ignored by the leadership and the existing party 'establishment' - primarily rural areas (especially the North) and new Canadians. He also did a very effective job in bringing new people into the party.

Ghoris is referring to Winnipeg City Councilor Russ Wyatt. Wyatt has always been a maverick while on council, but as far as I know his relationship with the Conservatives began in the last campaign.

I agree with all of the foregoing. The polls in the last election showed that Tory support actually declined from the start of the campaign while NDP support increased slightly - it is virtually unheard-of for an incumbent government to *gain* support during a campaign.  It was clear from the polls that the more people saw of Hughie, the more negative their impressions became and he acted as a drag on the party.

I have a hard time believing that people are going to flock to Hugh and his amateur hour brigade. They haven't even managed to be a half-way competent Opposition - can you imagine what a disaster they would be in government?  The public doesn't seem to have any great love for Selinger and the NDP but, as I noted above, never underestimate the ability of the Tories to melt down in the glare of a campaign.

They're also not up against the charm that is Gary Doer as they were last time.

The Greens did place second in 2007, but I don't know if I'd call getting 761 votes to the NDP's 4,005 "relatively close" (particularly when there was basically a three-way tie for second with only 61 votes separating the Greens from the fourth-place Liberals). Markus Buchart had a somewhat stronger (but still not particularly close) showing in 2003 when he got 1,193 votes to Altemeyer's 3,482. Some of that can probably be chalked up to the fact that Altemeyer did not have the incumbency factor in 2003 and a lot of Wolseley-ites were mad over the mosquito-fogging controversy.

I always got the sense that, at least under Buchart's leadership, the Greens were a bit of a one-man band. In recent years they have been little more than a fringe party - getting barely more support than the Communists and Libertarians.  If they ever got their act together I think it could make things interesting.

Well are the social movements asleep or are they dead? We have little 'scenes' here in Winnipeg (ie the A-Zone or lectures at the Library from the New Socialist) but nothing else. Cho!ces died once it was pretty clear the NDP would get re-elected in 2003. The NDP is a dead-weight promise around so much of the Left's neck that it cannot smell anything else. The Left has commited suicide by embracing various dead-end diversions such as anti-civilizationism/neo-Paleothicism, wicca/New Age, and po-mo (ie Zizek) that helped the Left lobotomize itself. Anything brain-dead will eventually just die entirely.

That started catching up to the left in 2004 when the ball was dropped on the succession of Glen Murray.

According to this new poll, Selinger's personal approval numbers have soared in the past two months and he's now one of the most popular premiers in Canada. I guess he is seen as having performed well during the flood and people are in a good mood about having NHL hockey back in MB.

http://www.angus-reid.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/2011.06.07_Premiers...

The latest poll by Probe was just released and the NDP and PCs are now dead even at 44% each - a few months ago the Tories were leading by 12 points. With the NDP having a 13 point lead in Winnipeg this would almost certainly mean another NDP majority government.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/NDP-dominating-support-in-...

I don't follow.  Are you saying that the Manitoba NDP needs to lose THIS election to avoid losing the one in 2015?

The fact is that the NDP will be defeated one day. Specifically, the next four years are going to be hard for any incumbent government, so I could very easily see that circumstance, combined with a "time for change" mentality easily crushing the NDP in 2015 and we will get hard right-wing government anyways. Not to mention that if the NDP starts to sink in public opinion polling shortly after this Fall, there is very little they will be able to do and will probably be pressured into doing things the PCs would have done anyways.

Look at Saskatchewan. In 2007, the NDP reached historic lows in its popular vote, chose a leader that reminded people why they threw out the NDP in the first place, and are having a hard time gaining any traction against the current government. It probably would have been better if the Saskatchewan NDP had lost in 2003 and given the Saskatchewan Party enough room to hang itself then.

We are already in an economic downturn the scale of which we have not seen in about 80 years. The trends suggest that this will continue.

If the NDP wins, it may very well be forced into making these types of cuts anyways. Look at what is happening in Greece, where people a few years ago voted for a socialist government to clean up and build their country and how this government is now shoving round after round of austerity measures down the throats of the Greek people.

Two provinces, two specific examples. They are anomalies, most governments in most jurisdictions don't last that long.

I find the indignity over the CWB a little disingenuous. Not from Selinger, of course, but from all the rural MB farmers who voted Conservative federally in the first place. There's no way any invested voter in rural MB could not have known the Conservative plan regarding the wheat board. WHY WOULD THEY VOTE CONSERVATIVE IF THEY KNEW WHAT THE CONSEQUENCES WERE??

Now, I recognize that Nikki Ashton's riding comprises the northern 50% of the province, but correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think that is where the grain is grown. Anyone know the breakdown of the rural vote here with respect to CWB invested farmers?

And good on Selinger for milking that cow, pun intended. Do conservative voting farmers think Hugh would go up against Harper? Think again.

We are hitting July and we are still seeing flooding. This could be a permanent feature; there needs to be a discussion of what is to be done for more flood mitigation across the bottom half of the province.

"If the NDP wins, they will be under a great deal of pressure to deliver a rabidly rightwing government, and they may cave into that pressure, so we could very well see rightwing government no matter who wins the election anyways. Once again, look at what's happening in Greece."

Manitoba is not Greece by a long shot. In any case, IF a re-elected NDP government had to bring in some unpopular measures because they had no choice but to do so (not that i think that would happen in the first place) - it would be a lot worse if you had a rightwing PC government that actually ENJOYS destroying the social safety net and would gleefully tear things down using a recession as an excuse.

We'v been down this road before. I remember Ontario in 1995 when all these people were saying "let's 'punish Bob Rae for the social contract by electing Mike Harris and the PCs - they couldn't possibly be any worse". Well guess what, Harris was many., many, many times worse. He cut welfare by 30% and had a big smile on his face while he did it, he wreaked havoc on the education system, forcibly amalgamated municipalities and he also scrapped just about every single solitary piece of progressive legislation that had come in in Ontario in the previous generation.

What people need to understand is that rightwing politicians ENJOY taking power when the economy of going to hell in a hand basket - it gives them an opportunity to use the "shock doctrine" excuse and use the crisis as a pretext to go on an ideological war and bring in measures that the public would never stand for otherwise.

"From the start, this did not feel to me like a "run of the mill recession," there was a sense that something was seriously wrong. We have practically no manufacturing base left in this country, wages are stagnant, the cost of education is high, and there are record levels of personal debt."

All the things you list here have been going on in Canada for the past 20-odd years - the "recession" is neither here nor there. Let's go back four years to before the "recession" officially started when supposedly things were booming - guess what? we had practically no manufacturing base left in this country, wages were stagnant, the cost of education was high, and there were record levels of personal debt. That has been the standard condition of the Canadian economy for as far back as I can remember - even when the economy is supposedly booming - wages are stagnant, cost of education is high and there are record levels of personal debt. The problem with focusing so much on the "recession" is that it implies that everything was hunky dorey up until the summer of 2008 and then all of sudden we come up to all these facts. No, the recession that technically hit the world in 2008 really didn't have all that much impact in Canada. For most people the economy was shit when it was supposedly booming. What difference does it make if the headlines say that according to Statscan there is now a recession? For most people their personal economic lives have been a lifelong recession.

Finally we agree on something.

You're accusing someone else of being strident and personally unpleasant, given your posting history?

For what it's worth, I've talked to Ashton a few times and I've never found him personally unpleasant.  Of course, Stockholm clearly knows a lot more about Manitoba politics than us dumb backwater Manitobans.

I never found Steve Ashton personally unpleasant at all - in fact I quite like Steve personally even if I don't agree with him all the time. By contrast, the few times I met Selinger he seemed like a cold fish (although I'm told he's becoming a bit more charismatic in public, he's still no Doer).

I only hear these things long distance of course, but some of my friends and acquaintances who are still active in the party tell me that a lot of people are upset at Steve because some of his leadership backers are openly backing the Tories, while others have engaged in some (apparently) pretty nasty nomination challenges in places like The Maples and Concordia.  Again, this is all second-hand, but that's what I'm hearing. Even if that's the case, I'm not sure why people would be mad at Steve personally.

I agree with you that it does not make sense to judge Steve for the 'sins' of some of his backers (if you want to go so far as to call them 'sins'), but IMHO Russ Wyatt has not 'until only very recently been perfectly welcome' within the NDP - I would say he's actually been persona non grata for some time, going all the way back to 1998 with his abrupt last-minute departure from the Transcona council race, which pissed off a *lot* of people in the party, so much so that the NDP and the Labour Council endorsed his opponent in 2002. He was also extremely vocal in his attacks on the government over OlyWest. A lot of NDPers I have talked to also believe he was backing Thomas Steen behind the scenes in the 2008 election and I had certainly heard those rumours at the time. So I was actually quite surprised to see him taking an active role in the party by becoming Steve's campaign chair.

Again, I hear all this second-hand, but it sounds like this is about more than just Russ Wyatt.

The other reason that the NDP has been rising in the polls has to do with recent government announcements like expanding Birds Hill Park and rebuilding high school science labs, so the NDP has had more resources to this point. That advantage is now gone, considering that we are currently in a blackout period for government announcements due to the election. Once the campaign kicks into gear, that natural advantage will evapourate, and the PCs will have much more ammunition. Don't forget that the same key people working on McFadyen's campaign were also in charge of the campaigns that won Sam Katz an election he should have lost, and they are also responsible for the Conservatives picking up Winnipeg South Centre and Elmwood-Transcona. The NDP by contrast, while showing strength in Brandon, have been unable to win in Winnipeg, as evidenced by their failure to take back Winnipeg North.

Interestingly enough, that poll that places the NDP on top also has the Liberals very low. I'm not sure how it will translate, as Dr. Gerrard has the incumbency advantage in River Heights and the numbers aren't broken down geographically, but given recent federal results I think he is in great danger of losing the seat.

I would not be surprised to see Gerrard lose. The Tories are gunning hard for that seat. Apparently they had well over 500 people out to their nomination meeting.

Yep, did hear about it. Guess he figures Sam is going to stick around for a while, otherwise he'd be laying the groundwork for a mayoral bid. Should be quite the battle in Seine River. Shows you how irrelevant the Manitoba Liberals have become that a former candidate and longtime member is defecting to the Tories (although to be fair, Marcel Laurendeau has gone the opposite direction).

I saw last week that Rosann Wowchuk announced she is not running again. I expect to see Eric Robinson and maybe even Bill Blaikie calling it quits before the election as well. I'm sure they have all waited to the last minute to announce their retirements to avoid being dumped from cabinet.

Some Tories seem to think that her departure makes Swan River a swing seat. It has been in the past, to be sure - Wowchuk barely held on in 1995 and at one point on election night she had been declared defeated. That being said, I believe the boundaries have shifted quite a bit further north since the 80s and 90s, and it's hard to believe the big margins of victory Wowchuk got in the last three elections were solely because of personal popularity.  Nonetheless, the Tories seem to think they have a real shot at a pickup here.

Tory supporters like blogger Luc Lewandowski (Hacks & Wonks) are saying that the Tories can win six or new seven seats outside the Perimeter(!), meaning they only have to win as few as three in the city(!!!).  This ignores a few things: (1) the Tories lose a seat with the disappearance of Ste. Rose, (2) the Tories are vulnerable in some seats where their incumbents are retiring, namely Brandon West and Portage, and (3) it's a bit of a stretch to suggest that 20 point (or more) margins from 2007 are now going to completely evaporate in seats like Gimli, Brandon East, Dauphin, Interlake, etc. Do the Tories have a chance to win in these seats? Sure. Are they going to run the table? Doubtful. Again, at the risk of sounding like I have terminal Perimeteritis, I still firmly believe that if the Tories can't pick up more than seven seats in Winnipeg, they have no chance at forming a government.

With Both Rosann and Bill retiring, are their any strong candidates that are looking to step up?

Elmwood, from an outsiders view, looks to be pretty safe aswell, could lil'Rebecca be eyeing that seat?

And here in Ontario, all those Liberals falling is a sign that the Grits are in real trouble; do manitobans see the retirement of a number of long time incumbants as a sign the NDP is in trouble? i've seen the polls and it looks like its close, advantage NDP... while here in ontario only a miracle could give the liberals a majority.

Well, the NDP has been either the government or official opposition in Manitoba since the late 1960's.  Such an era is likely to produce a large group of extremely veteran MLA's, and what you're most likely seeing is a generational turnover occurring in conjunction with the transfer from one NDP premier to another.

Anyone notice the recent cover stories of the Winnipeg Sun against the provincial NDP?

A few days ago, full front page photo of Greg Selinger with piles of $100 dollar bills photoshopped coming out of all his pockets.

Today's cover was a posed photograph of a woman standing with duct tape over her mouth and holding a picture of a flood-hit home. The headline was something about someone, or apparently people, being "Gagged" from talking about how the NDP has handled the flood situation. (Um, weren't they just criticizing Selinger for spending too much??)

Talk about yellow journalism. (I don't think that's a racist term.) I don't think I've ever seen anything so blatantly and sensationally partisan attempting to pass as news by a city daily.

Uh this has been going on forever with the Sun; its just become more pronounced since the advent of the Sun Network and the Winnipeg Sun's content and cover has been more 'emotionally' consistent with what the Calgary and Toronto Sun are doing. I have noticed dozens of odious covers in the last few months. Their columnist Broadbeck is always going on about the NDP with the odd switch to saying the Tories are too soft on the NDP. All about changing the parameters of the context.

During the 90's when Cho!ces was active, most of that coalition laughed about the need for independent media save Jim Silver. Even some members of the anarko-coolist Mondragon restaurant would denounce the idea that the media had a bias. We are now dealing with the legacy of that attitude at least in part.

Well today's Winnipeg Sun has a photo of Miss Manitoba in a two-piece swimsuit and a description says she is actually at this beach location but it sure looks photoshopped.

http://www.winnipegsun.com/subscribe

I could not find a bigger picture but even with this one there seems to be a dark line around her just like you seen on green screen tv effects.

I am waiting for them to take a shot of Greg Sellinger with a gun to the head of a dog the same way and claim it is real too.

For what it's worth, if you transpose the votes from the recent federal election onto the new 57 Manitoba provincial riding boundaries, the results would be: CONS 40, NDP 12, LIB 5

• Agassiz (CONS +59%): CONS-74%, NDP-15%, LIB-7%, GRN-3%
• Arthur-Virden (CONS +55%): CONS-72%, NDP-17%, LIB-5%, GRN-5%
• Assiniboia (CONS +31%): CONS-57%, NDP-26%, LIB-14%, GRN-3%
• Brandon East (CONS +16%): CONS-52%, NDP-36%, LIB-6%, GRN-6%
• Brandon West (CONS +26%): CONS-57%, NDP-31%, LIB-6%, GRN-6%
• Burrows (NDP +6%): CONS-30%, NDP-37%, LIB-31%, GRN-2%
• Charleswood (CONS +39%): CONS-58%, NDP-17%, LIB-20%, GRN-5%
• Concordia (NDP +8%): CONS-42%, NDP-50%, LIB-6%, GRN-3%
• Dauphin (CONS +30%): CONS-59%, NDP-30%, LIB-6%, GRN-5%
• Dawson Trail (CONS +37%): CONS-62%, NDP-25%, LIB-8%, GRN-3%
• Elmwood (NDP +10%): CONS-40%, NDP-50%, LIB-6%, GRN-4%
• Emerson (CONS +63%): CONS-75%, NDP-12%, LIB-6%, GRN-5%
• Flin Flon (NDP +11%): CONS-35%, NDP-46%, LIB-16%, GRN-3%
• Fort Garry-Riverview (CONS +7%): CONS-37%, NDP-27%, LIB-31%, GRN-4%
• Fort Richmond (CONS +10%): CONS-45%, NDP-17%, LIB-35%, GRN-2%
• Fort Rouge (LIB +10%): CONS-28%, NDP-28%, LIB-38%, GRN-5%
• Fort Whyte (CONS +26%): CONS-57%, NDP-9%, LIB-32%, GRN-2%
• Gimli (CONS +35%): CONS-63%, NDP-29%, LIB-4%, GRN-4%
• Interlake (CONS +27%): CONS-59%, NDP-32%, LIB-7%, GRN-2%
• Kewatinook (NDP +33%): CONS-10%, NDP-61%, LIB-27%, GRN-2%
• Kildonan (CONS +20%): CONS-54%, NDP-34%, LIB-9%, GRN-3%
• Kirkfield Park (CONS +35%): CONS-56%, NDP-21%, LIB-19%, GRN-4%
• La Verendrye (CONS +51%): CONS-70%, NDP-19%, LIB-6%, GRN-3%
• Lac du Bonnet (CONS +38%): CONS-64%, NDP-26%, LIB-6%, GRN-3%
• Lakeside (CONS +53%): CONS-73%, NDP-20%, LIB-4%, GRN-4%
• Logan (NDP +26%): CONS-27%, NDP-53%, LIB-14%, GRN-5%
• Midland (CONS +62%): CONS-72%, NDP-10%, LIB-9%, GRN-6%
• Minto (NDP +28%): CONS-28%, NDP-56%, LIB-10%, GRN-6%
• Morden-Winkler (CONS +76%): CONS-82%, NDP-6%, LIB-3%, GRN-6%
• Morris (CONS +60%): CONS-74%, NDP-14%, LIB-7%, GRN-4%
• Point Douglas (NDP +28%): CONS-23%, NDP-52%, LIB-21%, GRN-3%
• Portage la Prairie (CONS +53%): CONS-70%, NDP-17%, LIB-7%, GRN-5%
• Radisson (CONS +28%): CONS-55%, NDP-26%, LIB-17%, GRN-2%
• Riding Mountain (CONS +43%): CONS-65%, NDP-23%, LIB-7%, GRN-5%
• Riel (CONS +22%): CONS-50%, NDP-18%, LIB-28%, GRN-3%
• River East (CONS +29%): CONS-59%, NDP-30%, LIB-7%, GRN-2%
• River Heights (LIB +1%): CONS-40%, NDP-16%, LIB-41%, GRN-3%
• Rossmere (CONS +16%): CONS-54%, NDP-37%, LIB-6%, GRN-3%
• Seine River (CONS +27%): CONS-54%, NDP-17%, LIB-27%, GRN-2%
• Selkirk (CONS +28%): CONS-60%, NDP-32%, LIB-4%, GRN-4%
• Southdale (CONS +34%): CONS-60%, NDP-12%, LIB-26%, GRN-2%
• Spruce Woods (CONS +50%): CONS-71%, NDP-20%, LIB-4%, GRN-5%
• St. Boniface (LIB +6%): CONS-36%, NDP-19%, LIB-42%, GRN-4%
• St. James (CONS +11%): CONS-46%, NDP-35%, LIB-14%, GRN-5%
• St. Johns (NDP +8%): CONS-38%, NDP-47%, LIB-10%, GRN-4%
• St. Norbert (CONS +19%): CONS-51%, NDP-14%, LIB-33%, GRN-2%
• St. Paul (CONS +44%): CONS-67%, NDP-23%, LIB-6%, GRN-3%
• St. Vital (CONS +25%): CONS-50%, NDP-22%, LIB-24%, GRN-3%
• Steinbach (CONS +73%): CONS-82%, NDP-9%, LIB-4%, GRN-2%
• Swan River (CONS +25%): CONS-58%, NDP-34%, LIB-5%, GRN-3%
• The Maples (LIB +5%): CONS-33%, NDP-29%, LIB-37%, GRN-1%
• The Pas (NDP +33%): CONS-22%, NDP-55%, LIB-22%, GRN-2%
• Thompson (NDP +12%): CONS-36%, NDP-48%, LIB-14%, GRN-2%
• Transcona (CONS +5%): CONS-49%, NDP-45%, LIB-4%, GRN-3%
• Tuxedo (CONS +26%): CONS-54%, NDP-15%, LIB-28%, GRN-3%
• Tyndall Park (LIB +5%): CONS-29%, NDP-32%, LIB-37%, GRN-2%
• Wolseley (NDP +42%): CONS-18%, NDP-60%, LIB-10%, GRN-11%

I don't disagree AT ALL ... but i am excited to see Jamie Garcia in Reginga Coronation Park, but i don't know if Cathy Sproule would be considered "New Blood" in Saskatoon Nutana?

What I would really like to know is what the results of the 2007 Manitoba election would have been on the new map to be used this year!

This is great - can you do these "before and after" maps for the rest of the province as well?

Krago, you're a machine. Again, thanks for these maps!

I lived in Thompson for a few years and generally found Steve Ashton to be quite affable.

What about voter suppression? There was an article somewhere either here or Canadian Dimension about voter suppression in the last federal election; I remember  that locally we were getting calls from somewhere in North Dakota and I wonder if that will happen again in the provinicial election. Stuff recently happened in Wisconsin and it might be the same group. What will the local unions do to prevent that? They have been advertising more heavily lately but will they develop a strategy to counter whatever dirty tricks are upcoming? Better yet hire some private detectives to track down the stuff and videotape for ads warning of what is going on.

Interesting. Cris Aglugub, former NDP MLA for The Maples (1999-2007) has been nominated by the Tories to run in Tyndall Park. Aglugub was defeated for the nomination in 2007 by the sitting MLA, Mohinder Saran. More interestingly, the man that Aglugub beat to win the nomination in The Maples in 1999, Kaur Sidhu, is also running for the Tories in Rossmere. Sidhu attempted a comeback in 2007 but complained he was 'muscled out' by the chief of staff to then-Premier Doer, Michael Balagus. Even more interestingly, Balagus was accused of having pressured Mangat to drop out of the St. Norbert race too.

(ETA: Lest I sound like I am ragging on the 'party brass' here, I will just say this - there is always a lot more to these riding nomination shenanigans than meets the eye.)

Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb. Plays right into the NDP's "Hugh has a hidden agenda to sell Hydro" line. What's more, it's just plain dumb from both a policy and political perspective. We can have an argument about the merits of privatizing MTS, hell someone could probably even make a case for privatizing Hydro that might persuade a few people. But I'll guarantee you there is not a single solitary Manitoban who actually believes their insurance rates wouldn't skyrocket if we got rid of Autopac.

I don't, but that's a decision for the NDP members in the local communities to make, and I'd like to have a bit more confidence in local associations than what you have displayed.

But it's funny, because in Brandon, the opposite has happened. The NDP was looking for someone to run in Brandon West. Several names were floated as possibilities, including former school trustee George Buri. Instead, the party brass packed the process so that Jim Murray would be acclaimed. Who is Jim Murray? He is a right-wing school trustee who almost everyone in Brandon would say would be a better fit with the PCs, and now Buri is running for the Liberals. So you can't have it both ways.

The brass really needs to trust the local members a great deal more. The party deserves a rebuke for these shenanigans.

What are you saying? There's no way to tell what someone may do in the future, so I don't know how anybody could have known that.

Absolutely. The truth is, all the parties could do much better at being representative of the population than they are currently, and an open seat in Elmwood was a great opportunity to renew the organization and move fresh faces up through the ranks. Now that Maloway is back, I wouldn't be surprised to see Elmwood fall out of the NDP column, even though it was the Elmwood area that voted for Jim in the federal election.

Espeically since the Tory candidate in Elmwood played a key role in taking the federal seat from the NDP.

First off, how was that post a contradiction of my preference that local ridings be allowed to choose their own candidates?

Secondly, if there is anything the federal election taught us, it's that there is no such thing as a "safe seat." Elmwood-Transcona, held by the NDP in 1993, was a "safe NDP seat." If you go a couple hours down the road to Brandon East, that seat was also held by the NDP in 1988, but there is a realistic chance that it could fall out of the NDP column this time around. Besides, maybe Elmwood residents will get tired of Maloway (nobody on the public news boards seems to like him, if that is any indication) but at the same time, maybe some of the southern MLAs, like Kerri Irvin-Ross and Erin Selby have worked hard enough that they will win their seats. Who knows?

How about putting resources into Brandon West, Portage, and Lac du Bonnet as well? All 3 of those seats were represented by incumbent PCs who would have been in Cabinet if McFadyen won, and all 3 MLAs are not running again.

Honestly, what a friggin clusterf*ck!

For months, Hugh McFadyen took a moralistic stance against deficit spending. Sure, given the weakness of the macroeconomy it was stupid policy, but he nailed it into the heads of Manitobans that the NDP were "spendthrift". Winnipeg's Trash Tabloid, the Winnipeg Sun, had column after column about the provincial deficit, transfer payments, evil bureaucrats, and other hot air from Tom Brodbeck. And now, the PCs are saying they really weren't serious about that whole "balance the budget in a year" proposal, but will wait several to do so? Longer than the NDP Government proposes to wait! WTF??!!!

While I'd agree that it's good policy given the high chance of a second dip in the world economy, it's bad politics and they certainly aren't going to keep that promise.

Continued here.