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In Murray's case, I think it's more a desire to attach himself to a winning team as opposed to advocating for one viewpoint or another.
ghoris, one more thing about Brandon: I think Selinger figures that Caldwell will hold Brandon East, so he's sending a clear message to Brandon that the only way they get a Cabinet minister is to vote for Jim Murray in Brandon West.
Any word on who the Tories have nominated to replace Rick?
I saw that Gerald Hawranik not only decided not to run again, but actually resigned his seat the other day. Strange that all these guys - some of whom are not that long in the tooth - like Borotsik, Faurschou, Hawranik and Dyck, are leaving when the Tories are (supposedly, if you believe Scott MacKay) on the cusp of power. Fortunately, the PC caucus remains a delightful assortment of Filmon-era has-beens (Mitchelson, Derkach, Driedger), Murray-era never-will-bes (Goertzen, Schuler, Stefanson) and of course, a solid block of cranky old white rural guys (Briese, Cullen, Maguire, Eichler, Graydon, Pedersen)
Edited to add: I see Leanne Rowat has been nominated for Riding Mountain, which is the successor to Len Derkach's Russell seat. Did she defeat him for the nomination or did he decide to retire? I've seen news reports that said he was running for the nomination but the Freep's 'Under the Dome' blog says he is retiring.
I believe the Tories will nominate a businessman by the name of Reg Hewler. I'm certainly not familiar with the name, but if he expects to just wave his PC membership card and expect Brandon residents to line up like lemmings and vote for him as they have in the past, he will be in for a rough surprise. As for that race, all candidates have their own potential and baggage, so I think the local campaigns will really play a role.
I agree with your assessment of all the Tories leaving. Almost a quarter of their caucus is stepping down, in fact I can actually name more total Tory candidates not running than NDPers (which would be Brick and McGifford). If I were the NDP, I'd certainly put resources into Brandon, Portage, and Lac du Bonnet because in each case, there is history the NDP can rely on, or they are polling new ground (assuming they can survive the BiPoleIII backlash). Assuming Lameroux is re-elected next month, that means Tyndall Park will almost certainly go to the NDP, so if the election goes well, the Tories are going to have a tough time keeping their ground overall, much less breaking new ground. They might win new seats in south Winnipeg, but that could easily be off-set by NDP pick-ups I just mentioned.
I'l also say that the provincail polling in Manitoba does not add up. Supposedly, the NDP is trailing the Tories quite significantly, and yet they are still tied in Winnipeg. I don't understand where that is coming from, since Winnipeg is the major centre. The only thing I can think of that would explain that would be if the Tories were beginning to break new ground in northern Manitoba, but if that was the case, I'm sure we'd hear about it.
I too am baffled by recent polls. My sense of the polling is that the Tories are probably running up huge margins in seats they already hold in Southern Manitoba (which does not help them) and perhaps recovering to traditional levels of support in Winnipeg (such that they are likely to regain southern suburban seats). But I think people do not fully appreciate the mountain the Tories have to climb to win (not unlike the Tories in the UK last year). I do not see more than maybe three or four seats outside Winnipeg, at the absolute most, that the Tories can steal from the NDP (I'm thinking of Dawson Trail, Gimli, and maybe Brandon East and Dauphin-Roblin). That means they have to win seven or eight seats in Winnipeg, minimum, to form government. On the current numbers, they likely win back Kirkfield Park, Southdale and St. Norbert, and have a good shot at regaining Riel, Seine River and Fort Richmond (although all of these were won by pretty healthy margins in 2007). That still leaves another two or three seats they need to win and I have a hard time seeing where they come from. The next likely targets are St. James, Rossmere, Assiniboia and Radisson, but all of these seats were won by margins of 20 to 30 percent - such a significant swing to the Tories seems unlikely, especially if they are level-pegging with the NDP in Winnipeg but not yet beating the NDP.
Even that, I think from the Conservative's perspective that would be the best case scenario, not the most likely.
I definitely agree winning all four of these seats would have to be a best case scenario for them, since none of them were *that* close in 2007.
I'm not sure what the result in Dawson Trail would have been on the old boundaries, but it's basically the western end of the current La Verendrye seat (basically exurban bedroom communities like Lorette, St. Anne and Ile Des Chenes). Ron Lemieux won the current La Verendrye seat by a surprisingly healthy margin, and I would have to think that now that all of the more rural parts have been hived off into the 'new' La Verendrye, this can only assist Lemieux.
Gimli loses West. St. Paul to the new St. Paul seat, so again, I'm not sure what impact that has on the 2007 results, but in any event Peter Bjornson won by 2,500 votes (roughly 25 percentage points) so it's not like he'll be that easy to dislodge. Similarly, Drew Caldwell won by 1,100 votes (also roughly 25 percentage points). The closest call was in Dauphin-Roblin, where Stan Struthers won by just under 1,000 votes (approximately 12 percentage points).
What's also interesting is the Tories scored similar or smaller margins in three seats outside the Perimeter: Brandon West - 56 votes, Portage - 400 votes, and Minnedosa - 1,000 votes. The incumbents in the first two are not running for re-election, and Minnedosa disappears under the redistribution.
He was going to run initially but then he stepped aside for Leanne.
Probably a positive thing for the party. Leanne Rowat strikes me as one of the few bright spots in an otherwise dismal caucus. Plus she's one of only two rural female MLAs in the Tory caucus (and one of only five female Tory MLAs in total) so it might not have looked good if she got squeezed out in favour of yet another cranky old white guy. Speaking of, (well, OK, cranky *young* white guys), I gather Mike Waddell is running for the Tories in Brandon East again - could make things interesting.
As I understand it, Marilyn Brick, Diane McGifford, Gerard Jennissen and George Hickes are not offering again for the NDP, while Rick Borotsik, Len Derkach, Gerald Hawranik, David Faurschou and Peter George Dyck are the Tories who are bowing out. Kevin Chief is expected to replace Hickes in Point Douglas and Jamie Allum is running to replace McGifford in Fort Garry-Riverview, but any word on who's been nominated in St. Norbert or Flin Flon? I'm also curious to know where Flor Marcelino is running. It's quite maddening that the NDP does not have its candidates listed on the website but the Tories do.
Correct.
And my mistake about the other NDP MLAs not running, but they still have less people retiring than the PCs.
What's done can be undone
From the linked article:
I assume this means he was fired as a candidate because the party felt he was being lazy. I've never heard of a candidate being relieved because of "identified shortcomings" in participating in election preparedness and campaign planning. I wonder if there's some other skeleton that the party preferred not to have come dancing out of the closet in the glare of the campaign.
The Interlake Tories are somewhat notorious for allegations of questionable campaign tactics in the past (see: Campbell-Dewar, Heather and Barrett, Cubby). For some reason the Tories always seem to see this as a swing seat, but it's been NDP since its creation and they held it even in the 1988 disaster. The Tories came close a couple of times - in 1988, when Bill Uruski squeaked in by about 250 votes, and in 1999, when Tom Nevakshonoff only won by about 550 votes. Since then, he's held the seat by increasingly comfortable margins - winning by 2,600 votes last time. I suppose this could become a target for the Tories if there's an NDP meltdown but right now I don't see it.
Wasn't Interlake one of the key constituencies involved in the vote splitting affair that brought down Gary Filmon's government?
I don't know why anyone even considers Radisson to be a possibility for the Tories. The NDP hasn't even been close to losing it since 1988, and even then, they lost it to the Liberals instead. With that kind of record, it belongs in the same category as Transcona.
The demographics of Radisson have changed a lot over the last 25 years. Lots of new suburban McMansion developments in Eaglemere, Harbour View South and Kildonan Meadows. Also the boundaries shifted quite a bit in the 1998 redistribution, losing South Transcona and everything west of Molson Street/Panet Road (very solid NDP areas) and taking in about half of Windsor Park, which was distinctly less hospitable to the NDP. In 2003, Bidhu Jha won by less than 1,000 votes (halving Marianne Cerilli's 2,000-vote margin from 1999) - one of the narrower margins for a victorious NDP candidate in Winnipeg. Daryl Reid's margins in Transcona have been consistently strong since 1990, so there's no question in my mind that Transcona is a much safer seat (1988 being an historic aberration).
Bidhu did improve his margin in Radisson to about 1,800 votes in 2007, so while it's not low-hanging fruit for Tories at this point, it could become a possible target if the campaign really starts to go their way (or the NDP tanks). Of St. James, Rossmere, Assiniboia and Radisson, Radisson was the closest race for the last two elections.
For 2011, the boundaries are shifting south again, picking up the rest of Windsor Park and adding a fairly upscale new subdivision south of Fermor, while losing Harbour View South and about half of Lakeside Meadows to Rossmere. I don't have a poll-by-poll breakdown, but my sense is that the redistribution is more likely to slightly favour the Tories, on balance.
In other news, looks like Burrows MLA Doug Martindale is retiring after 20 years in the leg: "NDP MLA trades politics for the pulpit."
Yep. (Again, see: Barrett, Cubby.) This was the constituency where eventual 'whistle-blower' Daryl Sutherland ran as a "Native Voice" candidate in 1995 (with financial backing from the Tories in an effort to split the NDP vote).
Rumours are now flying thick and fast that maverick Transcona councillor Russ Wyatt is going to seek the provincial Conservative nomination in Transcona and run against Daryl Reid. Has anyone heard anything? In one of Dan Lett's columns he suggested that Russ was turned down for a provincial NDP nomination and that put his nose out of joint.
I know Russ was increasingly coming persona non grata within the party, especially with his recent endorsement of the federal Tory candidate who beat Maloway, but I didn't imagine that he would swing all the way over to the provincial Tories. This is a guy who not too long ago chaired Steve Ashton's leadership campaign.
Russ is very personally popular but I wonder if even that personal popularity will convince people in Transcona to vote for Hughie McFadyen and his ragtag band of right-wing ideologues. Then again, they did all just vote for Harpo and his well-organized band of right-wing ideologues, so who knows? Either way, Daryl Reid is in for a tough fight.
Let's hope Wyatt succeeds, then the left flank of city council can try and win one more seat in the coming by-election.
Well, ideally he'd resign his seat to force a council by-election, and then lose in the provincial election. I'm sure he's got some preferred successor waiting in the wings, though.
In other nomination news, St. James MLA Bonnie Korzienowski announced the other day that she is packing it in, bringing the total number of NDP retirees to six by my count: Brick, Hickes, McGifford, Martindale, Jennissen and Korzienowski. The NDP retirees now exceed the number of confirmed Tory retirees (five): Dyck, Borotsik, Derkach, Hawranik and Faurschou. No matter who wins, at least 11/57 MLAs elected in October will be new faces.
Still, I do see a stagnation that has set in the Manitoba NDP. Even if the NDP manages to hold on this Fall, they will almost certainly be defeated in 2015, as I can see them dropping below the Tories in the polls throughout this entire period and being unable to accomplish much. Kind of like what happened to the NDP in Saskatchewan in its most recent term.
I agree. Sooner or later the Tories are going to win, if for no other reason than eventually voters will get tired of the NDP and decide 'It's time for a change'. Frankly I'd rather have the NDP lose narrowly and be in a position to boot the Tories out at the very next opportunity than limp along for a fourth term only to get shellacked, 1988-style, in 2015 and spend another decade-plus in the wilderness. I don't know that the next four years are going to be a great time to be in government, and I'd rather have the Tories take the fall for any continued economic weakness or unpopular spending cuts, etc that have to be made. Normally I would concede that a change of government is not always a bad thing, but I have no confidence that Hugh and the Gang That Can't Shoot Straight will give Manitoba something even remotely resembling competent government.
I could very easily see the Tories winning very narrowly in the fall (say 29 or 30 seats) and then, due to the party's horrific lack of bench strength and Hugh's shortcomings as a leader, spend the next four years doing nothing but fucking up and lurching from crisis to crisis. Meanwhile the NDP will have a chance to have a change of leadership and renew itself. I can definitely foresee a repeat of the Lyon experience, where a very unpopular Tory government gets resoundingly turfed after just one term by a resurgent NDP.
It may be that allowing Hugh McFadyen to hang himself is the best opportunity, and the Manitoba NDP is in need of renewal. Hopefully there will be an actual renewal, instead of what's happening in Saskatchewan where the NDP chose a leader too closely tied to the previous regime and is looking at possibly losing seats this time around.
It's funny you mention Sterling Lyon. With the current economic situation and how voting patterns are changing. If the NDP plays their cards right, the 2015 election may produce a result that causes the PCs to look back on 1981 with fond memories. This dynamic may also come into play federally and could be key in winning large amounts of seats and playing a role in beating Harper.
Unfortunately, the PCs did not learn from the rebuke Manitoba voters gave them in 1981.
From my perspective watching events from Toronto Sellinger has been quite impressive in making hard decisions concerning the flooding. Leaders often grow in a crisis, at least in public perception.
How is his performance regarded in Manitoba?
Honestly, I think the left in Manitoba needs to wake up.
The fact of the matter is the NDP will lose at some point - whether it's 2011, 2015, 2019, or further down the road.
Right now, the left in Manitoba is essentially dormant. Many "progressives" seem to be caught up in the NDP and not really doing a heck of a lot. When it comes to political action for the labour movement, they seem to be singularly focused on electing the NDP, in the hopes that we can get an NDP government in perpetuity and have something at least marginally better than the 90s (even when there is a wage freeze being imposed). Outside some mostly marginal political forces, pretty much every social movement in Manitoba has gone to sleep.
People need to realize that we can't just keep relying on an NDP government in perpetuity. For one thing, the NDP itself disappoints a good chunk of the time, and there is zero vision or appetite to make any major changes within the NDP. For another, every government falls sooner or later.
One day, either the Tories will win, or the NDP will make a hard right turn, and if we aren't ready, things will be bad. And we aren't anywhere near ready, because those muscles haven't been exercised in a decade and have atrophied.
And another thing - if the Tories do win, we can't just sit and wait until 2015 and hope the NDP gets back in.
Shhh genstrike, what are you doing talking like that? Don't you know that the NDP is all good and that everyone should work to keep the NDP in power forever and then good things will always come? Don't you know that you can only have influence when you are actually at the seat of power?
Seriously, you hit the nail on the head. Unfortunately, there seems to be a structural hubris that has set in with the party, and while I would like to see the NDP come back in 2015, I wonder if it is to the point where the only thing that will shake the party of said hubris is some time in the political wilderness.
I'm surprised that nobody has swooped in and accused us all of treason for *daring* to suggest that the NDP doesn't have a divine right to govern and *maybe* it might not be such a bad thing if they were defeated in the fall.
Let's just keep this our little secret for now, m'kay guys?
But seriously, I think the 'structural hubris' Aristotle speaks of has been there for quite some time now, but it was camoflauged, if you like, by the "HOAG" (Hell Of A Guy) factor associated with Doer's leadership. Doer had the 'common touch', so all those middle-class/blue collar/populist types that are now turning their back on the party and voting Conservative (both big-C and small-c) at the federal and municipal levels were very comfortable voting for the Doer-led NDP because he seemed like the kind of guy that had their interests and heart, and hell, he'd be fun to have a beer with. Selinger does not have Doer's charisma and is perceived as an aloof, woolly-headed academic. The government is perceived as out of touch and complacent. I don't know if I would personally go so far as to say that the government is out of touch, but it is certainly complacent. Of course, one of the big reasons for that complacency is the fact that the Tories have been completely inept over the past decade at providing anything remotely resembling an actual opposition - so Doer could basically skate around controversies like Crocus, Hydro and the emergency room deaths - scandals that would probably have sunk any other government facing an opposition party that was doing its job even half-way decently.
This government will, eventually, defeat itself as all governments do. I get the sense people want change for change's sake, even if it means handing power to Hughie and The Not-Ready-For-Prime-Time Players. If the government is defeated, I hope that the Manitoba NDP does not go down the road of the Saskatchewan NDP and basically slap a fresh coat of paint on the same party. I'd like to see the party get some new blood both in the caucus and behind the scenes. The "The NDP Can't Govern" demons left by the wreckage of the Pawley government have surely been exorcised, and perhaps now it's time for the NDP to start looking at developing a platform and policies that will better address the needs of working people, marginalized people, seniors and families, not just what some strategists perceive will make the party "electable". We've basically had a government (and a party) on cruise control for the last eight years - it would be nice to grab the wheel again.
Let's be fair. Pawley was railroaded in many respects.
double post
I don't disagree. My point was more about public perceptions (aided and abetted by the media). And there's no question that the government collapsed at about the worst possible time. I'm not under any illusions that the government would have been re-elected had it survived until 1990 or 1991, but I think with time the furore over Autopac would have subsided and the NDP would have held more of its core vote.
If Pawley really was so "incompetent" how did he manage to win re-election over Filmon in 1985?