Winnipeg North byelection: What happened? What now?
November 30, 2010 - 2:32pm
I thought this was supposed to be a safe NDP seat?!
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Any time someone called it a safe NDP seat during discussions here, that was corrected.
It was unquestionably a seat the NDP should have won. But not a safe seat. I'm hard pressed to think of a seat anywhere, except maybe Vancouver East, that could be called a safe seat for the NDP if the incumbent has left. People can name a few others maybe, but there are few if any that are very unlikely to be lost when an MP steps down or if there is some tidal wave against the NDP, or whatever.
Here is what I alreadt said in the by-elections thread:
Lots of mitigating factors. But the NDP shouldnt even have let Lamoureux get close, let alone win.
And some of the motigating factors are organizational: the recent loss of Judy W-L, and Lamoureux's organizational depth.
But I still think this has to be chalked up as an organizational failure. Whatever lack there was locally could and should have been made up for by the party.
I dont begrudge Jack Layton's visits to Dauphin and the profile devoted to them. But the fact that there wasnt the same in Winnipeg perhaps speaks to a general underestimation of the needs there: that with Winnipeg in the bag they could afford to throw a lot into Dauphin.
That kind of second guessing is endemic. But you dont have to second guess the comparative allocation of resources to simply say that there may have been a fundamental error made in judging the WN race.
and...
Again on the organizational front:
There is a consistent pattern where the Liberals beat the NDP in places where NDP levels of support should prevent that.
Winnipeg North, Dartmouth-Cole Harbour, and Dartmouth East provincialy.
In all those cases you have not only strong NDP support, but in the area Liberal organizations that are generally weak. But if a Liberal candidate comes along who bucks that general organizational weakness, he can dislodge the NDP.
In the provincial election Andrew Younger beat the NDP incumbent despite a tidal wave sweeping the NDP to power. That was a classic case of excellent and well established personal organization up against the opposite.
In Winnipeg North, and Dartmouth-Cole Harbour when Mike Savage got in, the NDP organizations were not weak. But they were beat by organizations that were very good, and determined.
Not to mention that it looks like Lamoureux knew how to run a very good campaign, was determined, and pulled it off.
Lamoureau is a former leader of the Provincial Liberals so he could be construed a high profile candidate. Hopefully, we regain the seat at the next election.
was he ever leader of the Manitoba Liberals? I thought he ran for the leadership and lost to John Gerrard?
I also read that Lamoureux is quite "controversial" within Manitoba Liberal circles and there are reasons why they never let him have much profile outside his riding. It sounds like he is sort of a "Rob Ford minus the ultra rightwing ideology" and is a good ward-heeler who brags about phoning a thousand constituents a week and being a bit of ambulance chaser when it comes to looking for occasions to make cheap populist outbursts, but he doesn't know much about policy, and given that the Manitoba Liberals are basically now just a party of sherry-sippers in River Heights - Lamoureux is wayyy to trashy and uncouth to ever have been allowed to play a leadership role.
I have the following questions/observations:
1. Losing this seat is a blow to NDP morale in Winnipeg in the short-term - but realistically if there is a federal election in the Spring, there is a reasonable chance that we could win the seat back given a much higher turnout and the possibility of being lifted up by a strong national campaign. Also, there is little time for Lamoureux to establish himself as an incumbent if there is a general election soon and in a general election, people will be much more likely to feel that they are choosing between Jack Layton and Michael Ignatieff than between Lamoureux and Chief. Also, there is no way that Tory support will be a piddling 10% in that riding in a federal election - they could easily rebound to their traditional 20% or so.
2. Does Chief run again or failing that does Judy W-L make a comeback?
3. There will now be a provincial byelection in Inkster. Can the Manitoba Liberals win there with someone other than lamoureux running?
I think one lesson (and there are likely others) is that the Liberal brand is very durable and should never be underestimated. Give the Liberals one element for success (in this case, a strong local candidate who knows how to win elections in hostile turf) and it can be enough to beat us in one of our strongest ridings across the country.
I know there are lots of examples across the country of Liberal vote being higher on election night than NDP campaigners thought it would be. It's a powerful brand with a lot of latent (and blatent) support.
So in otherwords, the NDP can't sit back and rely on Ignatieff screwing things in order to make gains in the next election. Not that I think the NDP is doing that as an institution, but those of us in the trenches need to guard against complacency.
Generally I agree with your point - but the "Liberal brand" has never been particularly strong in Manitoba - if it was that strong - you wouldn't have had the generic Liberal candidate winning 8% of the vote in that riding in the '08 election. Lamoureux probably could have won a very big chunk of votes just running as an independent.
No, I think there is some latent strength to the Liberal brand in almost all parts of Canada, Manitoba included.
If you look at the electoral history in Winnipeg, voters have turned to the Liberals from time to time. Under Sharon Carstairs, the Liberals won a pile of seats when voters turned on Howard Pawley. When the NDP was nearly wiped out in 1993, Winnipeg North (and perhaps other MB seats?) went Liberal. And even when the Liberals haven't won - they generally have a pretty decent showing in parts of Winnipeg.
My point is that even where the NDP are strong, the Liberals are often a second choice for many NDP voters. In some cases, the Liberals may even be the first choice of NDP voters - but because the voter believes the NDP has the better chance of winning, has a stronger candidate, or some other reason - they cast an NDP ballot.
Liberals are resilient. They are difficult to slay. Give them any small advantage (like a strong local candidate a la Lamoureux) and their odds of winning increase.
Actually believe it or not Winnipeg North first went Liberal in 1988 when Rey Paghtakhan upset David Orlikow - and that was in the contest of the NDP having its best showing ever with 44 seats nationwide - so go figure.
Point of information: is Rey Paghtakan the only Filipino-Canadian ever elected as an MP?
It's pretty clear Iggy-mania had nothing to do with it...but still, this is still not good for the NDP. Certainly there are questions to be asked. Did the NDP take this "safe seat" for granted? And is it possible that anti-Native prejudice had a role?
Point of information: is Rey Paghtakan the only Filipino-Canadian ever elected as an MP?
I'm not sure, but the discussion about Rey Paghtakan reminds me of an important point. In 2004, the ridings in Winnipeg were re-drawn and it lead to an amalgamation in the Winnipeg North area whereby both RP and Judy W-L had to run against each other as 2 incumbent MP's, with Judy W-L prevailing.
Therefore, considering that the Liberals did occupy some of the riding until RP's defeat in 2004, it's understandable in retrospect that there is still some Liberal support in the area which lead to Kevin Lamoreux re-taking the riding for the Liberals.
Vancouver East, BC's safest NDP seat, also went Liberal in 1993. Granted both happenings occurred during general elections but nobody saw this coming.
Vancouver East was lost during the Liberal sweep of 1993 and during the NDP's worst election in history when it only won 9 seats. It's not totally surprising in retrospect that it fell during that election. It was won back in 1997 and will likely stay NDP for the foreseeable future until Libby Davies retires. Libby is very popular and well-liked by her community. I don't think it's in any danger to the Liberals until it becomes vacant and/or until Liberal support goes back up to majority levels.
I don't know if there was an organizational failure or not, since I had nothing to do with the campaign. But that does need to be reviewed at the highest level by the federal and provincial NDP. Figure out what went wrong and learn from it.
Does Chief run again or failing that does Judy W-L make a comeback?
Wouldn't it be pretty much unprecedented for an MP who quit their seat one year to then run again the following year to take it back?
If Judy W-L did that she would face a lot of criticism from her political opponents and the media, as well as by some members of the public. It was her resignation that lead to the cost of a by-election in the first place, and she would need to have a good explanation as to why she was running for the seat again that she just gave up.
There was once was an MP who quit their seat one month to then run again the following month to take it back. It was her resignation that led to the cost of a by-election in the first place, and I, for one, never understood her explanation as to why she was running for the seat again that she just gave up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamilton_East_%28electoral_district%29
Sheila Copps did that so she could say she faced the electorate after flip flopping on the GST.
She had enough support that it was grandstanding. It would have been more interesting if the entire party did it.
Well, there used to be the custom that, after a new Canadian prime minister picked his Cabinet, ALL the newly-appointed ministers resigned and fought by-elections in their ridings, thus giving the electorate, in theory, a chance to directly ratify the new government.
Anybody know when and why that practice was abandoned?
What happened? The Conservative vote collapsed and went Liberal.
Scott, you are in part right. But the other thing that happened in Winnipeg North last night is simply that NDP vote did not come out. Lameroux did not win the election last night, the NDP lost it.
I worked as a volunteer for Chief almost from the start of his campaign. I think it was a very strong campaign, but when you don't get out the vote, you lose. I can tell you that the bad weather really played significantly against the NDP. The NDP won more then 50% of the polls, but not by wide enough margins. If the vote had come out, Chief would have won. Lameroux's base came out in significant numbers. But he can't win the riding in a general when the likelihood of normal turnout is both not only likely, but very probable.
As for the General, Lamoureux doesn't have a chance.
The Conservative candidate had a couple of big billboards but otherwise did not campaign and only gave one very brief media interview on a weekend broadcast. As previously stated, many NDP'ers stayed home, and Lameroux's pull with Sikh voting blocs paid off. Not likely to be repeated in a general election. Many Liberal party members will whisper stuff about him to other Liberal party members but not say anything public about him. He must have some serious skeletion in his closet because many in the local party will not talk to him. Just to the west side of the Osborne village, Liberal Senator Rod Zimmer and former Liberal MP, former Lt Governor John Harvard live right beside each other and they often have dueling faction Liberal party parties where certain people will go to Zimmer's house and others will go to the other, later event at Harvard's but they do not go to the each other 's vent (weird as the policy differences are pretty minute - Zimmer a Paul Martin Liberal, Harvard a Chretien Liberal); Lameroux will not get into either.
It isn't Iggymania, everyone still thinks he sucks but I think a tipping point has been reached which will work against the Cons and probably the NDP. There is going to be a pretty clear ballot question-the fact is the only way we see any change in the next election is if Harper is defeated.
Obviously this won't usher in an ultra-progressive Iggy government but it'll have some important effects on the political landscape and the framing of debate in this country. Harper will step down and his party will start bickering again, the NDP will probably get new leadership as well and since they tend to be far more progressive when the Liberals are in power we might see them turn back into an effective opposition. Layton's leadership and record was better when Martin was in power than during the Harper years. The only issue the NDP currently has as an effective wedge against the Liberals is Afghanistan and they've become increasingly less effective at using it. Ignatieff certainly could manage to fuck it all up but I think there has been a little improvement in his understanding of how to attack the Cons and really the bar isn't that high any more.
There's serious anxiety, a lot of it seems to exist outside of the mainstream babyboomer echo chamber, but it's there amongst the great undervoting demographics that the future of the country looks increasingly shaky and that there needs to be a political shift. It's been slow to happen in Canada but I think the point has been reached, although our political class has an inspired ability to make people tune out completely from electoral politics.
The PCs' Roch La Salle quit in 1981 to lead the provincial Union Nationale--upon losing, he ran for his federal seat again and won...
I don't think W-L has any intention to do that. Why is there this speculation?
Maybe because she's out of a job?
Maybe. Maybe she has other things to do, too.
This blogger has a really good interpretation of the byelection spin
http://tcnorris.blogspot.com/2010/11/by-election-post-mortem.html
"A small lesson from history. In the autumn of 1978 Prime Minister Trudeau deferred a federal election call and instead fifteen by-elections were held on October 16. Some called it a mini-general election at the time. It was a low point in Liberal popularity and the outcome was a Liberal disaster. While the results did tell us the Trudeau government would lose the next election, at the time it appeared as if the outcome would be an unprecedented Liberal disaster on the order of a 1958. Instead, Joe Clark's PC's won a minority that lasted less than a year before giving way again to the Trudeau Liberals. Less well-remembered is that two of the constituencies that switched from Liberal to PC that night in October 1978, one in Winnipeg (St. Boniface) and one in Toronto (Parkdale), went back to the Liberals just six months later in the 1979 general election.
By-elections in particular can be influenced by local circumstances and events as well as broader trends. One should be cautious in drawing overly broad conclusions from them."
EDIT - actually I checked and FOUR of the ridings the Tories won in byelections in 1978 went back to the Liberals six months later - the blogger forgot Eglinton and Ottawa Centre.
As some journalists pointed out today, one of the ironies of last night's results was that a few days ago Jack Layton and Brad Lavigne had said that these by-elections would send an important message to the parties and that whoever lost a by-election would have trouble building momentum before the Spring.
Some people show class when their opponents lose, and then there are Liberals.
The PCs' Roch La Salle quit in 1981 to lead the provincial Union Nationale--upon losing, he ran for his federal seat again and won...
Thanks for the info.
It looks like the examples of it happening are pretty few and far between over the years.
Some people show class when their opponents lose, and then there are Liberals.
You should read what you write.
And if you dont see the irony, keep reading.
From the previous thread:
Manitoba/Saskatchewan only has 2 Liberal MP's between them - Anita Neville and Ralph Goodale. The Liberal performance in that region has been very poor in the past several federal elections and if they are going re-build in that area a 3rd MP could be a help.
That news comes in a slightly downbeat manner. D-SR-M is a much more likely indicator of how the Liberals will do on the prairies outside of Winnipeg come the next federal election. Sarna struggled to remain in double-digits all evening, and it`s hard not to see even more Liberal votes drifting to the NDP next election. D-SR-M was never going to be likely for the NDP, but now the party has emerged as the clear opposition to the Tories. This can only mean good things next time around.
Actually, when I suggested the possibility of the Liberals picking up new seats in Manitoba next time I wasn't referring to Dauphin or the other rural ridings - I was only thinking of the Winnipeg and urban ridings that the Liberals have held in recent years such as Saint Boniface and Winnipeg South.
I agree that for the immediate future the NDP will be the main opposition to the Conservatives in the rural ridings, and hopefully the NDP will be able to defeat the Conservatives there down the road. Before the Liberals can even begin to be competitive in places outside the Winnipeg region they would have to be much higher in the polls and beat the Conservatives by becoming the next government.
I have to agree. While Lamoureux is a unique situation in many ways - since he wins by running as a virtual independent - I think that the Tory vote crashing to 10% in Winnipeg North ought to be a sign that other marginal seats in Winnipeg like the ones you mention could be at risk.
In order for the Liberals to carry through with picking up other seats they will have to learn the lessons from this campaign though. That means having strong local campaigns and well-known names who are able to get out the vote and take advantage over their opponents.
Former MP Raymond Simard is running again in Saint Boniface. Not sure who the Liberal in Winnipeg South is yet. Kildonan-St. Paul is also something the Liberals should think about for the future, and they should also do some rebuilding in Winnipeg Centre.
I don't see many opportunities next door in Saskatchewan for the Liberals for awhile, but there are 1 or 2 for the NDP if the Conservative vote drops in the next election.
Terry Duguid
Terry Duguid
Thanks for the info. I think he ran in Kildonan-St.Paul a couple of times and almost won. I guess now he's moved over to Winnipeg South.
As I've said in the past, all parties are guilty of having candidates who play musical chairs.
"Former MP Raymond Simard is running again in Saint Boniface."
If that's the case, I'm not optimistic about their chances. I heard that Simard was widely regarded as lazy and low profile and he lost last time because he refused to do any campaigning.
"Former MP Raymond Simard is running again in Saint Boniface."
If that's the case, I'm not optimistic about their chances. I heard that Simard was widely regarded as lazy and low profile and he lost last time because he refused to do any campaigning.
He's not my favorite person either. Too socially conservative as well.
EDIT - actually I checked and FOUR of the ridings the Tories won in byelections in 1978 went back to the Liberals six months later - the blogger forgot Eglington and Ottawa Centre.
The 1978 byelection was the last time Eglinton was contested. Eglinton-Lawrence is the closest approximation, given redistribution.
A quick question to rabblers...
Does anyone recall the parliamentary careers of Liberal M.P.s Christian Jobin (LEVIS-et-CHUTE-de la CHAUDIERE) or Gilbert Barrette (TEMISCAMINGUE), who were elected to Parliament in by-elections on June 26, 2003?
I didn't think so.
Why?
Because they were both defeated in the election of June 28, 2004, and haven't been seen around Ottawa again.
Kevin Lamoureux will be another parliamentary foot-note (trivia question?) after the next federal election.
I live in Winnipeg, and I would not count on that. Here's why:
Lameroux now has the advantage of incumbency. It is easier to hold a seat than to challenge for one.
Lameroux is a formidable campaigner and has a solid backing behind him.
The NDP in Manitoba is a mess. People are starting to feel it's "time for a change," and this is the second election in as many months (the other being the recent civic election) that the NDP machinery lost when it should have won.
If we're going to talk NDP in Manitoba, I would not be surprised if after the next federal election no NDP MPs are elected from Winnipeg. I've already discussed Lameroux. Pat Martin has alienated some people, and a strong challenge from the Liberals could knock him off, especially if this challenge combines with another candidate challenging Martin from the left. Over in Elmwood, Jim Maloway has not really distinguished himself in any great way, and the Conservatives came close to taking the seat last go around. He clearly relies on the NDP machinery to win, and that machinery may not be enough to hold off a Conservative challenge, especially when traditional voting patterns can no longer be relied upon.
I'm sure someone, somewhere has invoked "Sorry about that, Chief"
duplicate
There was once was an MP who quit their seat one month to then run again the following month to take it back. It was her resignation that led to the cost of a by-election in the first place, and I, for one, never understood her explanation as to why she was running for the seat again that she just gave up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamilton_East_%28electoral_district%29
In 1996, Sheila Copps promised to resign her seat if the Liberals didn't scrap the GST. She kept her promise, and won the by-election.
I live in Winnipeg, and I would not count on that. Here's why:
Lameroux now has the advantage of incumbency. It is easier to hold a seat than to challenge for one.
Lameroux is a formidable campaigner and has a solid backing behind him.
The NDP in Manitoba is a mess. People are starting to feel it's "time for a change," and this is the second election in as many months (the other being the recent civic election) that the NDP machinery lost when it should have won.
I'm not sure about all that.
*First of all three months (i.e. the likely amount of time between now and the next federal election) is very little time to establish much of an incumbency factor.
*Second of all, in a byelection its easy to totally localize the race and have the 29% of people who vote see it as being all about "who will be my best ward-heeler" and to even think that its all about provincial politics. But in the context of a federal election - suddenly 95% of people are voting based on national leaders and national politics and a vote for Lamoureux will be a vote for Ignatieff and a vote for Chief will be a vote for Layton and a vote for the next Tory sacrificial lamb will be a vote for Harper.
*Third of all, after a 35 day (or more) federal election campaign - I think that provincial politics will totally recede from peoples' minds and it will be all federal all the time. In any case, if the Manitoba NDP were to lose the provincial ridings that make up Winnipeg North - it would mean that they were going to be reduced to ZERO seats in the Manitoba legislature. I have not seen any evidence that they are even remotely that unpopular - at worst they might be one or two points behind the Tories across the province).
*Fourth of all, since when was the Winnipeg municipal election one that the NDP "should have won"?? Did they have a shot - yes. But from what I can tell, Katz was not all especially unpopular, polls taken over the course of the year gave him relatively healthy approval ratings. I don't live in Winnipeg, but from what i had read and heard - it seemed to me that defeating Katz was always going to be a bit of a longshot and if anything Judy W-L came closer to winning than I would have expected.
All of which is to say that while I don't think its a "slam dunk" by any means that the NDP wins back WN in the next federal election - Its also not unlikely they will win it back. Byelections that have a massive swing almost always correct themselves at least to some extent in the following election - Mulcair won Outremont by 17% in the byelection and that was cut to a 6% margin the the '08 federal election - even though the Liberal running in '08 was literally just a "NOB" (Name on the Ballot). But there (or was) is a lot of "Liberal DNA" in Outremont and it asserted itself. There is a lot of "NDP DNA" in Winnipeg North and since the margin there was 5% not 17% - it wouldn't take much of a "return to normalcy" to have the seat swing right back.
You're righ, you don't live in Winnipeg. Katz has been a terrible mayor. Look 2 hours down the road to Brandon, and while people weren't exactly happy with Burgess, he wasn't nearly as bad as Katz. And the right-wing Burgess lost the mayor's race to a left-wing woman, and Brandon is a dyed-in-the-wool Tory town. So a Tory town elects a left mayor and social democratic Winnipeg re-elects a right-winger.
Not only that, but the NDP's council strategy was terrible, and there wasn't a change in the balance.
A quick question to rabblers...
Does anyone recall the parliamentary careers of Liberal M.P.s Christian Jobin (LEVIS-et-CHUTE-de la CHAUDIERE) or Gilbert Barrette (TEMISCAMINGUE), who were elected to Parliament in by-elections on June 26, 2003?
I didn't think so.
Why?
Because they were both defeated in the election of June 28, 2004, and haven't been seen around Ottawa again.
You do realize that the Sponsorship Scandal happened in between those 2 dates, right?
You're righ, you don't live in Winnipeg. Katz has been a terrible mayor.
Its all a matter of opinion. If you are right of centre person who votes Conservative or (often times Liberal) you probably think he's been a fantastic mayor! I'm sure you think he has been a terrible mayor and I'm sure people in the leftwing/NDP/union sub-culture think he's terrible and i'm sure if i lived in Wpg, I'd think he was terrible. But obviously the majority like him - or they wouldn't have re-elected him. If he was so indisputably terrible why would over half of people in Winnipeg have said that they approved of him in polls taken all year?
Since when is Brandon such a "dyed in the wool" Tory town? There are two provincial seats that make up Brandon. Brandon East has been NDP since 1969 - it even stayed NDP in the wipeout of 1987 and Brandon West has gone NDP off and on and only went Tory by something like 50 votes last election.
It's not just a left-right thing, he has even made horrible business decisions. How can you do business with someone who says he is going to build Rapid Transit to the University of Manitoba and then doesn't build it? Or some of the questions around a council decision regarding the Winnipeg Goldeyes, which he owns? Even PC Bill Norrie came out for Judy, what does that tell you?
As for those polls, what do you expect? People generally don't pay attention anyways, so of course they're going to say, "Sam Katz? Yeah, he's doing a great job." The other thing is that the Judy campaign did not adequately rise up to the challenge of explaining what she would do. People were looking for change, but being unsure what kind of change Judy would bring, reluctantly went with the devil they knew.
You're righ, you don't live in Winnipeg. Katz has been a terrible mayor.
For one, look at federal voting habits. It's consistently returned a Tory MP since WWII (often with a large majority), with the exception of 1993 when it went to the Liberals on a right-wing vote split.
Brandon-West has swung NDP in the past, but has a reliable Tory base that will come out loyally.
Municipally, it has elected right-wing mayors for a long time, certainly at least since 1979.
That's not quite true. The federal riding is Brandon-Souris and over half the votes cast in that seat are in rural southwestern manitoba where Tories typically get about 80% of the vote. I suspect that the NDP and Liberals don't bother putting up much of a fight there because with the rural areas going unanimously Tory - its almost impossible to ever win that seat - no matter how many votes you get in the city of Brandon.
You're absolutely right Stockholm, you know more than me. What would I know about Brandon, having lived there for 25 years of my life?
And I'm prepared to stand by my assessment of the other Winnipeg ridings. As the opening post suggests, nobody thought Winnipeg North would fall away from the NDP until it actually did. Every seat is up for grabs now, there is no such thing as a "safe seat."
A columnist in today's Winnipeg Sun voices his analysis:
http://www.winnipegsun.com/news/columnists/tom_brodbeck/2010/12/01/16397...
Tom Brodbeck, as the Winnipeg Sun in general, has an irrational hatred of the left. There's very little in the Sun's pages that has even a small shred of credibility.
Here's another article discussing the NDP voting machine:
http://www.winnipegsun.com/news/manitoba/2010/12/01/16397011.html
The time for grieving is over. Hopefully the NDP is now organizing here for the next election.
Every seat is up for grabs now, there is no such thing as a "safe seat."
Anyone who has ever believed in safe seats is an idiot. Parties lose "safe" seats all the time. The Liberals in Outremont. The NDP in Winnipeg North. Ask Roy Romanow about safe seats some time.
"But he has the charm and humour of a stone, the inter-personal skills of a hermit and the political moxie of an undertaker."
Ow!
I remember a Probe Research poll of federal voting intentions in Manitoba a few months back. It had the NDP vote ominously low.The national polls give wildly conflicting assessments of Manitoba and Saskatchewan lumped together based on tiny samples. But generally they too have shown significant NDP declines in this region. At the same time the NDP vote in other provinces is holding up relatively well.
I fear that these polls may reflect a long term NDP decline in Maitoba which may be following the trend in Saskatchewan.
Soon after the byelections were called I wrote to Babble suggesting that Lamoroux would not be giving up his provincial seat unless he had some indication he was in contention. I wonder how much of a surprise Winnipeg North really was to those who saw the private polling.
*Fourth of all, since when was the Winnipeg municipal election one that the NDP "should have won"?? Did they have a shot - yes. But from what I can tell, Katz was not all especially unpopular, polls taken over the course of the year gave him relatively healthy approval ratings. I don't live in Winnipeg, but from what i had read and heard - it seemed to me that defeating Katz was always going to be a bit of a longshot and if anything Judy W-L came closer to winning than I would have expected.
Yup.
You're righ, you don't live in Winnipeg. Katz has been a terrible mayor. Look 2 hours down the road to Brandon, and while people weren't exactly happy with Burgess, he wasn't nearly as bad as Katz. And the right-wing Burgess lost the mayor's race to a left-wing woman, and Brandon is a dyed-in-the-wool Tory town. So a Tory town elects a left mayor and social democratic Winnipeg re-elects a right-winger.
Not only that, but the NDP's council strategy was terrible, and there wasn't a change in the balance.
Aristotleded, that many of us agree that Katz has been a terrible mayor is not the point. As Stockholm points out, many people were perfectly satisfied with him. Far too many people. Moreover, they didn't want a socialist in power.
And how is it that you're calling Winnipeg a "social democratic" town? It has voted Katz in three times now. Seven out of 11 MPs are Conservative. Eight if you include Neville. I've always seen Winnipeg as very divided, almost half and half, between rednecks and progressives.
Referring to Winnipeg as a "social democratic" town was more a comparison to Brandon. Winnipeg has (until recently) had a core NDP support that could always be depended on to elect several NDP representatives to all 3 levels of government. Basically, if history was any indication, if any of Manitoba's 2 largest cities were going to have an NDP mayor, it would have been Winnipeg. The reverse happened.
Every seat is up for grabs now, there is no such thing as a "safe seat."
Anyone who has ever believed in safe seats is an idiot. Parties lose "safe" seats all the time.
That's the point I've been making, and I think we're going to see many more "safe seats" fall.
Of course, it should be noted that for all the talk about Winnipeg being such an NDP stronghold - it has never, ever had an mayor who was a New Democrat. In fact, the only time Winnipeg has had mayor who was not the favoured candidate of the Tory business community was when it had Glen Murray for a term and a half and Murray is a Liberal!
Its true that Winnipeg has its NDP leaning areas, but the areas that vote massively Conservative are larger and have bigger populations. Trying adding up the number of voters in the following federal ridings that are Tory strongholds (Charleswood-Assiniboia, Winnipeg South, St. Boniface, Kildonan-St. Paul) and compare it to how many voters there are in the traditionally NDP seats of Winnipeg Centre, Winnipeg North and Elmwood-Transcona (let's split the difference on Wpg-South Centre) - and I think you will find that the Tories have a massive edge.
I'm not trying to be contrarian, I would genuinely like to be educated on how exactly Brandon can be called a "rock-ribbed Tory" town when one half of it votes NDP 100% of the time in provincial elections and the other half of it votes NDP 50% of the time in provincial elections. I would not disagree with calling Portage La Prairie a "Tory town" since no NDPer has ever been elected to any level of government from there - but Brandon is a different story.
Did you not read my post? In 1969, when Brandon was first split into 2 ridings, Len Evans didn't even think he'd win Brandon East for the NDP.
Yeah well that was 1969 - 42 years ago. Since then Brandon has been electing New Democrats regularly.
I suppose you could call Toronto a "Tory town" because up until the 1960s it tended to elect nothing but Conservatives to Ottawa (hence "Tory Toronto") - but that was then and this is now!
Totalling all eight, in 2008 we find Con 42.5%, NDP 27.2%, Lib 23.4%, Green 6.0%.
The remarkable thing about Brandon-Souris last time was the Liberal running fourth: Green 15.8%, Lib 8.3%.
By the way Brandon-Souris has (2006 census) 84,602 people broken down as follows:
Brandon City 41,511
Balance of Brandon Census Agglomeration 6,745
Virden 3,010
Killarney 2,273
Souris 1,772
Carberry 1,502
Boissevain 1,497
Shilo 1,314
Rivers 1,193
Melita 1,051
Rural 22,734
I'd love to see us try as hard in Brandon-Souris as the Greens did. Or did we?
No, it's been re-electing Len Evans regularly.
But as I said, having lived in Brandon for 25 years doesn't at all qualify me to speak about what's going on there.
Every seat is up for grabs now, there is no such thing as a "safe seat."
Anyone who has ever believed in safe seats is an idiot. Parties lose "safe" seats all the time. The Liberals in Outremont. The NDP in Winnipeg North.
I disagree. Most parties, particularly the two big ones (Conservatives and Liberals) have safe seats. The definition of what is "safe" is open to debate of course and there is the occasional upset, but certain seats which almost always vote for a particular party and have done for decades and decades, can fairly be called safe.
I think it's accurate to say that most ridings in Alberta are safe Conservative seats, for example. Would you not call Wild Rose a safe Conservative seat?
And btw, Outremont was NOT a safe Liberal seat when the Liberals lost it to the NDP in 2007, and it hadn't been for a number of years. Jean Lapierre only won it by small margins in 2004 and 2006 and the Liberals had lost it once before in 1988. It hasn't really been a safe seat since the days when Marc Lalonde held it 30 years ago. Still, the misperception that Outremont was a safe seat in 2007 continues.
A truly safe Liberal seat would be Mount Royal, which has voted Liberal continuously since 1940 (70 years!).
Winnipeg North was not truly an NDP safe seat since it had been Liberal in the past, and prior to Judy W-L winning in 1997. It would be more accurate to say it is a safe "NDP/Liberal" seat in that one of the two have won it in every election for the past 50 years and kept it from the Conservatives since then.
No, it's been re-electing Len Evans regularly.
But as I said, having lived in Brandon for 25 years doesn't at all qualify me to speak about what's going on there.
I believe Len Evans retired a few elections ago and the NDP still holds Brandon East and lost Brandon West by less than 100 votes. I still want some evidence that its a "Tory town" - they don't seem to like actually voting Conservative.
The Tory total in Brandon East has steadily been going up.
Brandon-West is a traditional Tory area. There are 2 exceptions:
1981, where the Tories were unpopular and Brandon West fell along with that. The Tories promptly regained that seat in 1986.
In 1999, the Filmon Tories were on their way out, along with the fact that the then-Tory MLA had problems which contributed to his defeat. And the only reason the NDP lost Brandon West by that small a magin last time was because the NDP was the incumbent MLA. Had the NDP either not held that riding in the first place, or had the NDP fielded a new candidate, the margin of defeat would have been far more decisive.
Then again, what do I know about Brandon? It's not like living somewhere for 25 years would qualify anyone to speak to that subject?
The federal riding of Brandon-Souris is certainly very Conservative.
Ok, OK, I give up. I will defer to your local knowledge that even though Brandon East has been represented by a New Democrat for the past 42 years - that doesn't count! and that even though Brandon West has been represented by a New Democrat for seven out of the past 10 years doesn't count either! and that even though a former NDP candidate is now mahyor of Brandon - that also doesn't count - it's still a Tory town - if you say so. I guess maybe one of these days they will actually start voting Conservative.
The fact that there is an NDP mayor is a major deviation from even recent municipal voting habits in Brandon. Only in the last week of the campaign did anybody think the new mayor actually stood a chance to win. Did you not actually read that part of history?
How about this: Brandon-Souris PC MP Rick Borotsik: former Brandon mayor
Brandon West PC candidate in Brandon West in 2003: Reg Atkinson, another former Brandon mayor.
This blogger has a really good interpretation of the byelection spin
http://tcnorris.blogspot.com/2010/11/by-election-post-mortem.html
"A small lesson from history. In the autumn of 1978 Prime Minister Trudeau deferred a federal election call and instead fifteen by-elections were held on October 16. Some called it a mini-general election at the time. It was a low point in Liberal popularity and the outcome was a Liberal disaster. While the results did tell us the Trudeau government would lose the next election, at the time it appeared as if the outcome would be an unprecedented Liberal disaster on the order of a 1958. Instead, Joe Clark's PC's won a minority that lasted less than a year before giving way again to the Trudeau Liberals. Less well-remembered is that two of the constituencies that switched from Liberal to PC that night in October 1978, one in Winnipeg (St. Boniface) and one in Toronto (Parkdale), went back to the Liberals just six months later in the 1979 general election.
By-elections in particular can be influenced by local circumstances and events as well as broader trends. One should be cautious in drawing overly broad conclusions from them."
EDIT - actually I checked and FOUR of the ridings the Tories won in byelections in 1978 went back to the Liberals six months later - the blogger forgot Eglinton and Ottawa Centre.
The thing about the 1978 byelections was that they accurately reflected the mood at the time. The Tories had a 10% lead in the Gallup poll later that fall (45% to 35%). In the 1979 election the Liberals won the popular vote 39% to 35%
I think the larger point is that sometimes in byelection you can get a very exagerrated swing that corrects itself in the following general election. A case in point would be the byelections in Quebec in 2007 where the Tories won Roberval by a 2-1 margin and came very close to winning Ste. Hyacinthe. In the '06 election, the BQ narrowly won Roberval and won Ste. Hyacinthe by a wide margin. In the subsequent '08 election the Tories barely managed to retain Roberval by a afew hundred votes and totally cruched the Tory in Ste. Hyacinthe - so it was a return to the traditional pattern. Even in Outremont - the 17% NDp win the byelection dropped to a 6% win in the general election and i can assure there was no sudden outbreak of "Dion-mania" to explain it. i think that in a general election, the voters DNA tends to re-surface to some extent.
No, Debator. You're wrong.
The closest thing you can get to "safe" is "all things being equal, this seat ought to be safe." Hardly the same thing. All things are not always equal.
In 1993, the Progressive Conservatives every single safe seat they had ever had. (Neither Elsie Wayne not Jean Charest were in seats that would have been considered "safe.")
(But I probably shouldn't work too hard to convince you. It's better that Liberals like you hold on to the delusional notion of "safe seats.")
Wasn't Glen Murray a New Democrat at the time? I thought he only switched teams when wooed federally by Paul Martin in 2004...
No, Debator. You're wrong.
The closest thing you can get to "safe" is "all things being equal, this seat ought to be safe." Hardly the same thing. All things are not always equal.
In 1993, the Progressive Conservatives every single safe seat they had ever had. (Neither Elsie Wayne not Jean Charest were in seats that would have been considered "safe.")
(But I probably shouldn't work too hard to convince you. It's better that Liberals like you hold on to the delusional notion of "safe seats.")
Malcolm, you can participate in this discussion without being insulting and engaging in name-calling. Your views are in the minority on this subject, but you are entitled to them.
And btw, the 1993 election is one of those rare examples where general rules don't apply, so it's not a case you should use. That was an election in which one of Canada's oldest political parties was wiped out in a likely never to be repeated event.
Wasn't Glen Murray a New Democrat at the time? I thought he only switched teams when wooed federally by Paul Martin in 2004...
Adma, that's correct. Although there were rumours about him possibly running federally in 2000.
What namecalling? Based on your contributions over the years, I understood you were a Liberal. And while I'd be insulted to be called a Liberal, my intent here was merely to reflect what I honestly believed to be your partisan identity.
The fact of the matter is that "safe" seats are only safe some of the time - ie, all things being equal. Most general elections see at least a few seats deemed "safe" go the other way (although often hindsight will reveal that erosion was underway for sometime.
None of that negates the fact that anyone running as though their seat was safe is foolish and probably deserves to lose.
What namecalling? Based on your contributions over the years, I understood you were a Liberal. And while I'd be insulted to be called a Liberal, my intent here was merely to reflect what I honestly believed to be your partisan identity.
The fact of the matter is that "safe" seats are only safe some of the time - ie, all things being equal. Most general elections see at least a few seats deemed "safe" go the other way (although often hindsight will reveal that erosion was underway for sometime.
None of that negates the fact that anyone running as though their seat was safe is foolish and probably deserves to lose.
By namecalling I was referring more to words like "delusional" and "idiotic".
As for me, I have said repeatedly that I am a Liberal-NDP voter. I have worked for both parties over the years and can see the faults in both. At the moment I happen to think the Liberals are the only party capable of defeating Stephen Harper, but the current Liberals are farther to the right than they should be. Supporting the Conservatives extending the mission in Afghanistan is an example of that.
You acknowledge above that you have an antipathy towards all things Liberal, even progressive Liberals like Pierre Trudeau, who you attacked on a thread earlier this Fall. Trudeau is the closest thing to a left-wing Prime Minister this country will have for a long time. It's unfortunate, but Canada is too conservative to elect a left-of-centre PM anytime soon. Slagging off the most left-wing PM we've ever had isn't going to bring about an end to Conservative rule and usher in a new golden age of progressive PM's.
There is an important tactical lesson here and this loss may save the NDP other seats later.
The party failed to recognize allocate the resources needed to win the seat-- that much is obvious as the campaign there was not nearly as strong as the party is capable of and the result close enough that it is obvious this made a difference.
In byelections turnout makes a difference and seats can change hands through extraordinary work, even more easily than when you have a general election with more voters.
The Liberals did put in a strong effort and the NDP missed it even though in hind sight this was predictable-- the Liberals could not lose all the seats without a problem and this was the best chance-- ironically their best chance was in an NDP held seat not their own given the Fantino dynamic. That the NDP missed that no doubt has lead to considerable embarrassment by someone whose job it was to figure this out.
As well, everyone knows that "open seats" without an incumbent are much less predictable and the NDP obviously (hindsight = 20/20) missed that.
It is a powerful lesson that all parties can be caught this way. It takes a lot to win a seat and if you don't put in what you should, a seat you otherwise could have won will go to someone else. The NDP ought to watch out in the next election, both to be sure that enough resources are put in to holding seats that the party ought to hold easily if they try, and enough resources are put in to seats the party could take that other parties might be taking for granted.
was he ever leader of the Manitoba Liberals? I thought he ran for the leadership and lost to John Gerrard?
I also read that Lamoureux is quite "controversial" within Manitoba Liberal circles and there are reasons why they never let him have much profile outside his riding. It sounds like he is sort of a "Rob Ford minus the ultra rightwing ideology" and is a good ward-heeler who brags about phoning a thousand constituents a week and being a bit of ambulance chaser when it comes to looking for occasions to make cheap populist outbursts, but he doesn't know much about policy, and given that the Manitoba Liberals are basically now just a party of sherry-sippers in River Heights - Lamoureux is wayyy to trashy and uncouth to ever have been allowed to play a leadership role.
Lamoureux actually ran for the provincial Liberal leadership twice, losing to fellow MLA Paul Edwards in '93 (who lost his own seat in '95) and again to party organizer Ginny Hasselfield in '95. Both time the Liberal establishment from south Winnipeg went all out to stop Lamoureux from winning. Lamoureux actually quit caucus to sit as an independent until Hasselfield resigned and Jon Gerrard became leader.
I agree with Stockholm that the composition of the electorate is different in a by-election than in a general election, and that it can lead to different results.
Another example is the Vancouver Quadra by-election a few years ago. The Liberals nearly lost it to the Conservatives. Joyce Murray won it by only 150 votes. Later that year in the general election the Liberal vote stabilized and they won it by about 5,000 votes.
Therefore, it is correct that the NDP could win back Winnipeg North in the next general election depending on what happens with the electorate, and the Liberals could possibly win back Vaughan. It really depends on whether more of the parties' voters will come out during the general election than during the by-elections.
The Conservatives have done a better job in recent years in getting their vote out in by-elections, and the Liberals by contrast have often done a poor job. The question is whether the Liberals can make up the extra several percent needed in Vaugan to overcome the Conservatives. It also depends on what happens with the NDP vote. It looks like Fantino is such a loathsome candidate to non-Conservative voters that the NDP supporters in Vaughan may have moved over to the Liberals to try and block him. The Liberals will need NDP support again during the general election if they are going to defeat Fantino.
What is remarkable is that even the usually liberal leaning electionprediction.org did not see this coming.
Well, electionprediction.org looks like it was reluctant to rush into calling Winnipeg North (or Vaughan), but faced a lot of criticism for waiting it out, and so in the end it predicted WN for the NDP and Vaughan for the Cons. I noticed on a previous thread that Stockholm was very critical of Milton Chan for waiting a long time to call the ridings. Of course, in the end the Liberals won in WN and nearly won in Vaughan, so it looks like Milton Chan was right for being cautious in his predictions afterall.
You acknowledge above that you have an antipathy towards all things Liberal, even progressive Liberals like Pierre Trudeau, who you attacked on a thread earlier this Fall. Trudeau is the closest thing to a left-wing Prime Minister this country will have for a long time. It's unfortunate, but Canada is too conservative to elect a left-of-centre PM anytime soon. Slagging off the most left-wing PM we've ever had isn't going to bring about an end to Conservative rule and usher in a new golden age of progressive PM's.
Voting Liberal will ensure a golden age of progressive MPs never comes. And sorry, a Prime Minister who declares martial law to deal with two kidnappings is no progressive. Hence my consistent reference to PET as the left's favourite fascist.
You acknowledge above that you have an antipathy towards all things Liberal, even progressive Liberals like Pierre Trudeau, who you attacked on a thread earlier this Fall. Trudeau is the closest thing to a left-wing Prime Minister this country will have for a long time. It's unfortunate, but Canada is too conservative to elect a left-of-centre PM anytime soon. Slagging off the most left-wing PM we've ever had isn't going to bring about an end to Conservative rule and usher in a new golden age of progressive PM's.
Voting Liberal will ensure a golden age of progressive MPs never comes. And sorry, a Prime Minister who declares martial law to deal with two kidnappings is no progressive. Hence my consistent reference to PET as the left's favourite fascist.
This isn't a thread for a major debate on the October Crisis, so I will just say a few brief things:
1. There weren't just kidnappings - there was a murder of a provincial cabinet minister.
2. PET was asked by the Quebec governments (provincially and municipally) to intervene.
3. Quebecers gave PET sweeping victories in Quebec in the province in the following elections.
You could add on PET:
1) He was the most autocratic PM Canada ever had up till Stephen Harper
2) He held to a vision of Canada that was highly centralized and so offended many
3) His manner was the most arrogant this country has ever seen as PM (even more than Harper in fact)
And:
1) He was very socially progressive and decriminalized abortion and homosexuality.
2) He promoted bilingualism and demonstrated that we can all aspire to become bilingual as Canadians.
3) And he was very popular with many NDP voters, as his son will be, should he run.
Anyway, that's enough of that for me.
Getting back to the subject of this thread, what do you think the strategy of the Conservatives was in Winnipeg North? Supposedly it was to sabotage the Liberals' chances of winning the seat and to try and harm the Liberals with the racial minorities in the riding, but it seemed to backfire and the Conservatives ended up collapsing.
Small point: wasn't the War Measures Act invoked BEFORE Pierre Laporte was actually killed? How do we know the act didn't inadvertently provoke the murder?
And even allowing for the fact that it was a horrible thing that Laporte was murdered, did that actually justify a policy that treated everyone who'd ever gone to an NDP riding association meeting as a potential terrorist? And which would likely have led to Trudeau's OWN arrest(given his past political associations)had he not been prime minister at the time?
As to the Conservative strategy, it appears that the wishes of the party leadership were countermanded by rank-and-file Tory voters, who seem to have voted Liberal just to stop an NDP victory, and also perhaps(you'd hate to think it but it has to be considered a possibility with at least SOME normal Tory voters)to make sure the only WHITE candidate in the race was elected(Lamoureux, as opposed to the Filipina Tory candidate and the FN NDP candidate).
There is an important tactical lesson here and this loss may save the NDP other seats later.
The party failed to recognize allocate the resources needed to win the seat-- that much is obvious as the campaign there was not nearly as strong as the party is capable of and the result close enough that it is obvious this made a difference.
Is this actually true? I don't know because i wasn't there. I'd like to hear what resources the NDP did put into Winnipeg North. How much money was spent? Was it the maximum? How many volunteers worked on the campaign? How did that compare to past elections? Were outside organizers sent in?
I'm not saying that that the NDP did put in the maximum effort it was capable of or not - I don't know. Its entirely possible that they poured everything they could into the campaign and still lost for various reasons. I suppose the party could have chartered a 747 and flown every single staffer on parliament Hill to Winnipeg North for the duration of the campaign and left parliament a mausoleum for the whole month of November - but doing that would have counted partly as money spent and would have broken electoral laws. I suppose there can always be more volunteers - but volunteers are just that - VOLUNTEERS. You cannot force people to canvass if they don't feel like it.
This is not the US where candidates in congressional special elections routinely spend millions of dollars and where its routine to use paid campaign workers. In Canada its all unpaid volunteers once you get beyond the campaign manager.
If anyone has any insiders perspective on what the NDP actually invested in the byelection, I'd like to hear about it.
Has there been any explanation, yet, for why Layton went to Dauphin but NOT to Winnipeg North during the campaign?
That always struck me as a weird omission, and, since he'd have to have flown in to Winnipeg just to get to Dauphin, it wouldn't really have been that hard to schedule appearances in both places. It's not as if Dauphin was ever winnable, as far as that goes.
As to the Conservative strategy, it appears that the wishes of the party leadership were countermanded by rank-and-file Tory voters, who seem to have voted Liberal just to stop an NDP victory, and also perhaps(you'd hate to think it but it has to be considered a possibility with at least SOME normal Tory voters)to make sure the only WHITE candidate in the race was elected(Lamoureux, as opposed to the Filipina Tory candidate and the FN NDP candidate).
I dunno. I think there may be something to the theory that some core Tory voters decided to vote for the one white male on the ballot. I'm not sure that i buy the idea that there is much of a pool of Tory "strategic voters" who would go out of their way to go to the polls during a blizzard to elect a Liberal over a New Democrat. Keep in the mind that the Tory messaging lately has been to attack "the coalition parties" and to say that the Liberals and NDP are identical "hug a thug" (sic.) parties when it comes to crime etc...There is also a lot of research that says that blue collar Tory voters in western Canada have the NDP as their second choice more often than they do the Liberals - though that may change if the NDP candidate is an "in'jun" (sic.)
I think Layton was in Winnipeg, just not as much as he needed to be.
Has there been any explanation, yet, for why Layton went to Dauphin but NOT to Winnipeg North during the campaign?
That always struck me as a weird omission, and, since he'd have to have flown in to Winnipeg just to get to Dauphin, it wouldn't really have been that hard to schedule appearances in both places. It's not as if Dauphin was ever winnable, as far as that goes.
He did go to Winnipeg North. He was there right after the byelection was called at the opening of Chief's HQ and he was there again this past Friday and Saturday - two days before the byelection. A week earlier he made one trip to Dauphin as well. So he visted WM twice during the campaign and Dauphin once (and i don't believe he ever set foot in Vaughan).
Has there been any explanation, yet, for why Layton went to Dauphin but NOT to Winnipeg North during the campaign?
That always struck me as a weird omission, and, since he'd have to have flown in to Winnipeg just to get to Dauphin, it wouldn't really have been that hard to schedule appearances in both places. It's not as if Dauphin was ever winnable, as far as that goes.
He did go to Winnipeg North. He was there right after the byelection was called at the opening of Chief's HQ and he was there again this past Friday and Saturday - two days before the byelection. A week earlier he made one trip to Dauphin as well. So he visted WM twice during the campaign and Dauphin once (and i don't believe he ever set foot in Vaughan).
True. As I said above, Layton was in Winnipeg North, but not as much as he needed to be. Ignatieff was in Winnipeg 4 times. While the NDP is officially saying that it did not take the riding for granted, it looks like the reason Layton wasn't there as much is because he assumed it was safe and so he spent time building support for the future in Dauphin-Swan River.
Are you suggesting that if Layton had not set foot in Dauphin and instead spent that one snowy Friday doing a couple of events in Winnipeg North - the results of the byelection would have been reversed?
Where have you found anything "official" from the NDP saying "we never took the riding for granted". maybe they did and maybe they didn't. i don't know, i have not read the press release.
Quite frankly if I was part of the NDP braintrust (and contrary to popular belief I am not) - I think I'd almost RATHER put out the spin that we were over-confident and didn't put enough into the riding and that now we know better and next time we will put a full court press on Lamoureux, than to say that we put in a massive herculean effort and still lost.
Actually, if he'd written off Dauphin(which was always known to be totally unwinnable)and focused on Winnipeg North, if might well have made the difference, given the closeness of the margin and the low turnout that caused the NDP defeat. What was the point of his ever going to Dauphin anyway?
Where have you found anything "official" from the NDP saying "we never took the riding for granted". maybe they did and maybe they didn't. i don't know, i have not read the press release.
Libby Davies said so on Power & Politics with Evan Solomon on Tuesday's show. She was on a panel discussing the by-election results with Scott Brison and Rick Dykstra.
Obviously no party is going to ever admit it took a riding for granted. Why would it be a surprise that this would be the official position? I would expect any party to say the same.
Actually, if he'd written off Dauphin(which was always known to be totally unwinnable)and focused on Winnipeg North, if might well have made the difference, given the closeness of the margin and the low turnout that caused the NDP defeat. What was the point of his ever going to Dauphin anyway?
We're talking about two different things here - a leader making a visit and the extent to which an entire party apparatus does or does not pour maximum resources into a riding. There is a party organization in Dauphin and the NDP holds a couple of provincial seats in that riding. The NDP also wanted to make it clear that it was not writing off all of rural Canada and that even after the whole gun registry kefuffle - there was still room for growth for the NDP in rural Canada (and given the 10% increase in the popular vote in Dauphin - that turned out to be true). If Layton had never so much as set foot in Dauphin - we never would have heard the end of it from other people on babble about how "Toronto Jack" (sic.) was writing off rural Canada and couldn't be bothered to even set foot in Dauphin when a byelection was taking place. There are a lot of seats in northern Ontario and in northern/remote parts of the west that the NDP either currently holds or has designs on - you have to show the flag in Dauphin as part of that strategy and in fact when layton visited Dauphin it resulted in some good media coverage of the fact that he was talking about the wheat board and agricultural issues etc...
That kind of thinking ensures that the Conservatives will always have a healthy base in Western Canada from which to build. The point was to challenge Harper on his own turf. The NDP didn't win Dauphin, but its share of the vote shot up massively. Lessons can be learned here as to campaigning in the rural parts of Western Canada.
Well, electionprediction.org looks like it was reluctant to rush into calling Winnipeg North (or Vaughan), but faced a lot of criticism for waiting it out, and so in the end it predicted WN for the NDP and Vaughan for the Cons. I noticed on a previous thread that Stockholm was very critical of Milton Chan for waiting a long time to call the ridings. Of course, in the end the Liberals won in WN and nearly won in Vaughan, so it looks like Milton Chan was right for being cautious in his predictions afterall.
Stockholm also claimed that Milton Chan is Gerard Kennedy's EA, which I find little amusing given that he is an uber Iggy loyalist. I doubt Iggy has enough control over his caucus to "annoint" EA in rivals' office like Harper does. In fact it is no secret (it is on his facebook status, and he does have a good number of NDPer "friends") that he was the whiz kid that Iggy dispatched to Winnipeg to run the Lamoureux's eday operation. (Though just some perspective, he also ran Adam Giambrone's eday when he first won a few years back.)
Tory voters, when pissed-off, tend to stay home. It looks like a whole lot of them decided that tredging through the snow to vote for a Filipina was not on.
It's odd the way the Conservative results ended up, because Harper even took the trouble of personally going out to Winnipeg North during the campaign, which he apparently has not done before.
Tory voters, when pissed-off, tend to stay home. It looks like a whole lot of them decided that tredging through the snow to vote for a Filipina was not on.
Or maybe going out & voting for an invisible candidate was not on
Yeah, what was the purpose of the Cons having a candidate who refused to attend the debates or be interviewed?
Yeah, what was the purpose of the Cons having a candidate who refused to attend the debates or be interviewed?
There's no chance of going "off message" that way. Though it was amusing when a story in the Winnipeg Free Press described her as a "prominent Filipina"-then added that she refused comment for the story
All I know is based on one time that I saw the Tory candidate interviewed on the CBC. Her ability to communicate in English, and to formulate statements which would explain her policy seemed extremely limited. The interview asked her why she believed she would be better for "law and order." apparently 90% of her platform, and beyond a few mumble words, she had no answer. Even hating Tories, as I do, it was painful to watch the poor person, struggle to explain herself, and realizing that she was failing.
I suppose she could expain herself in her first language, but iit was easy to understand her reluctance to enter an English debate
The interview asked her why she believed she would be better for "law and order." apparently 90% of her platform, and beyond a few mumble words, she had no answer.
Then again, that could describe Shelly Glover as well as many others
All I know is based on one time that I saw the Tory candidate interviewed on the CBC. Her ability to communicate in English, and to formulate statements which would explain her policy seemed extremely limited. The interview asked her why she believed she would be better for "law and order." apparently 90% of her platform, and beyond a few mumble words, she had no answer. Even hating Tories, as I do, it was painful to watch the poor person, struggle to explain herself, and realizing that she was failing.
I suppose she could expain herself in her first language, but iit was easy to understand her reluctance to enter an English debate
You wonder why the Conservatives would select a candidate that wasn't really comfortable with the language or with speaking to people.
Perhaps if they spent 1/2 the effort in Winnipeg North, as they did in Hochelaga...?
There is an important tactical lesson here and this loss may save the NDP other seats later.
The party failed to recognize allocate the resources needed to win the seat-- that much is obvious as the campaign there was not nearly as strong as the party is capable of and the result close enough that it is obvious this made a difference.
Because years of rightward drift, mixed messaging about the parties political stands, and less than principled governance by the party when it is in power are demolishing the parties base, the base being the activist core that has propelled the party along despite a hostile media environment. The repsonse to the hostile media has been to try and appease it, and in so doing the NDP has adopted the paradigm that the media projects.
Closing for length.