babble is rabble.ca's discussion board but it's much more than that: it's an online community for folks who just won't shut up. It's a place to tell each other — and the world — what's up with our work and campaigns.
Support rabble | Advertise with us | Contact our staff | About rabble | Log-in or Register for a new account | Corrections | Privacy policy | Newsfeeds | Mailing lists
rabble: Features | Columnists | In Cahoots | Blogs | Books | Photos | What's Up | Polls
babble: Forum Topics | Active Topics
The rpn: About the RPN | Become a podcaster
rabbleTV: Program Guide | Features | Indie Inside | Best of the net
Copyright © 2001-2013 the authors
Syndicate
Andrea Horwath was just on P&P and she gave a good interview - it's a shame she hasn't been on more often.
Yeah, remember with Cathy Crowe that her byelection came *before* Jack-mania. What seemed like an NDP plateau then may not be such a plateau now...
The Elections Ontario website is still showing France Gelinas as not nominated.
There is a new political force in Ontario: the Paramount Canadians Party
or the Paramount Canadian Party
or the Paramount Canadain Party,
or the Paramount Party. (it's hard to tell)
They've got a great slogan: Paramount for Canadian Prominence and a great URL: www.pc-party.ca (no legal issues there!)
They are running four candidates in the Ontario provincial election. Check out their platform.
I like this one (from the first link): Provide gas at low prizes.
A poll by Forum Research in the city of Toronto only has the Liberals at 39%, the Cons at 24 and the NDP way up at 30. I think this will result in roughly the same seat gains the NDP made in the federal election in Toronto, especially because the party wastes few votes in the affluent centre north of the city
Does anyone have the vote percentages for Toronto (416 only) for the federal election. It wd be interesting to make comparisons.
A parrallel development may be the buyers remorse setting in for Rob Ford. Forum also shows his approval rating is down from 57 to 42% since June.
Does anyone have any intelligence on Brampton-Gore-Malton?
I think this is one of the very most important seats for the NDP for several reasons.
Gurmeet Singh, a bright young criminal defence lawyer of my acquaintance, almost won this seat in the federal electio. He is running again and would make an estimable MPP.
A vicotory by him would show thta the party is able to break through in two increasingly important constituencies - the 905 and Sihks. Sihks have become increasingly influential in Canadian politics in a number of provinces.
Perhaps most importantly the NDP must make inroads in the Toronto suburbs if it to come to power. It has neve won a seat in Peel although Gurmeet came closer than anyone else has. Peel gets several more seats in the new redistribution. It has an ethnic and economic mix that on paper should be promising for the NDP. If Gurmeet can win his seat it mmay be like Mulcair winning Outremont - the first big crack in the wall that puts a whole region in play.
If you include Pickering-Scarborough East in 416, the numbers are:
Seats: Cons 9, NDP 8, Lib 6
Popular Vote: Lib 35%, Cons 31%, NDP 30%, Green 3%, Others 0%
Polling Divisions: NDP 35%, Lib 33%, Cons 32%, Green 0%
So based on that poll, the NDP is performing about the same, while the liberals are slightly better and the tories are performing worse. Not great news, with this i'm positive the NDP has YSW and Davenport, i think the liberals have almost given up on them... so the big battle will be TC, SSW and SRR... which MUST be targets, the NDP can't necessarily count on the tories cutting into the Liberals as much as they did federally especially with those numbers.
The party has to be targeting BGM and SRR, those were huge victories (one symbolic, the other real), if the party wasn't serious i don't think mr Singh would have run again; the NDP have another, more well known and politically experience Tamil candidate in SRR but up against an incumbant (both are). BUT if the Tories are up in the 905, that bodes well for them eating away a lot of the Liberal vote in BGM.
There seems to be a Liberal strategy of extinguishing the evoking of Jack's vision - what do others think?
I am so thinking that this is now a Liberal strategy - major Liberal operator and strategist – The Liberals desire to desire to silence and extinguish Jack’s vision of love, hope and optimism for change knows no bounds!
http://warrenkinsella.com/2011/09/i-dont-want-that-to-happen-anymore/
Do you mean Jagmeet Singh?
He would make a formidable MPP.
Kinsella is in the OLP war room, with at least part of his job being to smear the NDP. I'm tempted to say that man wouldn't know love, hope, and optimism if he walked into them.
I take him even less seriously now since he was blithely predicting a Silva victory in Davenport in May. His Sun column shows him willing (eager?) to consort with enemies of progression. In short, the man's a joke.
And if you don't include Pickering-Scarborough East (which is 43% in the City of Toronto), the federal vote percent was Libs 34.7%, Cons 31.0%, NDP 30.6%, Greens 3.2%, others 0.5%.
And if you include the Scarborough East part of Pickering-Scarborough East, the federal vote percent was Libs 34.8%, Cons 31.1%, NDP 30.4%, Greens 3.2%, others 0.5%.
Half an hour to go until the close of nominations, and the Elections Ontario website is still showing France Gelinas as not nominated.
Lively debate in YSW between Ferreira and Albanese last night (PC was too busy being … invisible). The twitter feed on the debate (search #ysw) is entertaining reading. Sounds like they both should have been given boxing gloves and had done with it. From the reports, Ferreira easily had the better of Albanese.
So, Krago, as our Master Counter: how many candidates are running for each party in Ontario? What new parties have got around to actually nominating candidates?
John Ivison: Ontario NDP's fresh face masks a real threat
Good. They should be scared.
I just wanted to remark that "generally speaking" I have been impressed with Andrea Horwath's performance so far. She has been communicating fairly effectively, exuding some charm and suppleness, and putting forward a reasonably professional and practical image.
Don't forget his constant bragging that Maria Minna was "solid" in his home riding of Beaches-East York. He even went so far as to suggest that the Liberals might even give Jack Layton a scare.
I think the Ontario Liberals are scared shitless right now of another "Orange Crush"-type wave for the NDP. The electorate clearly wants a change - they are sick of McGuinty and his bland, uninspiring leadership - but they are not prepared to go to the 'default option' of Hudak and the PCs. Hudak is done - even Tory cheerleaders like Christina Blizzard are saying so. He is trying to run a Mike Harris-style divide-and-conquer "hot button issue" campaign but it's falling flat. Running against "welfare bums" and "affirmative action", and making a 'wedge issue' pitch to white-middle-class resentment may have worked for Harris in 1995, but Ontario has changed a lot in 16 years. The federal Tories managed a huge breakthrough in Ontario by courting new Canadians and trying to moderate their more extreme elements - the Hudak Tories, by contrast, seem determined to demonize "immigints" and have allowed fringe groups like the Landowners' Association to hijack the party.
I think the Liberal vote is very, very soft right now and they know it. A strong performance by Howarth could lead to a surge in NDP support which could knock the Liberals down to a minority, or worse. Hence the need to avoid a repeat of the federal campaign by waiting too long to attack the NDP. Hudak is doing a good enough job of self-destructing that now the Liberals can concentrate their fire on the NDP and make sure that the NDP is not seen as a viable option by floating Liberal voters.
Instead of hanging up, what you might want to do is spend the time to respond, and tell them what they want to hear; or even better give them the idea that you are undecided and leaning the tory or liberal way-- depending on who is calling.
Pollute thier data base, make them waste time and money.
There are 656 candidates nominated for the October 6 Ontario Provincial Election, representing 21 political parties:
107 - Ontario Liberal Party107 - PC Party of Ontario
107 - Ontario NDP/NPD
107 - Green Party of Ontario
57 - Freedom Party of Ontario
51 - Ontario Libertarian Party
31 - Family Coalition Party of Ontario
9 - Communist
5 - Socialist Party of Ontario
4 - Paramount Canadians Party
4 - Party for People with Special Needs
4 - Reform Party of Ontario
4 - The People
4 - The Only Party (TOP)
3 - Canadians' Choice Party
3 - Northern Ontario Heritage Party
3 - Ontario Provincial Confederation of Regions Party
3 - People First Republic Party of Ontario
3 - Vegan Environmental Party
2 - Party for Human Rights in Ontario
2 - Paupers
29 - Independent
7 - Unknown
656 - Grand Total
I note there is no SPO candidate for Thornhill yet.
And it looks like S-D-G will be a tough fight among MacDonald, MacDonald and McDonell.
S-D-G might be one case where emphasizing the first name of the candidate at the expense of the last would be a wise move. Otherwise, confusion might well reign.
If the math of the projections is to be believed, the NDP would be hard-pressed to take significantly more than 20 seats unless their support rises considerably - thanks to the "efficiency" of their votes in a handful of ridings and dispersion elsewhere. They have a lot more to lose to the PCs than to the NDP. Strategically it still makes sense to target the PCs.
In the federal campaign, the Liberals lost a lot more to the CPC than to the NDP. Most of the Orange Crush came from Bloc ridings, with a couple prominent swings directly from CPC and Liberals. If anything they spent too much time targeting the NDP (campaigning in NDP ridings day after day) and not enough defending their own ridings against the CPC. Especially in Battleground Ontario.
If the math of the projections is to be believed, the NDP would be hard-pressed to take significantly more than 20 seats unless their support rises considerably - thanks to the "efficiency" of their votes in a handful of ridings and dispersion elsewhere. They have a lot more to lose to the PCs than to the NDP. Strategically it still makes sense to target the PCs.
In the federal campaign, the Liberals lost a lot more to the CPC than to the NDP. Most of the Orange Crush came from Bloc ridings, with a couple prominent swings directly from CPC and Liberals. If anything they spent too much time targeting the NDP (campaigning in NDP ridings day after day) and not enough defending their own ridings against the CPC. Especially in Battleground Ontario.
Also, there are 41 Green Party candidates (38%) that are nominated, but not registered. That means that they will appear on the ballot, and people can vote for them, but they cannot collect or spend any money on their campaigns. They are the definition of paper candidates.
If Mike Schreiner wants to get taken seriously, it doesn't help that his party is backward on the paperwork.
I think that I see on the Elections Ontario website that there will be SPO candidates only in the ridings of Etobicoke-Lakeshore, Leeds-Grenville, Peterborough, St. Paul's, and Trinity-Spadina. I think that matches the number identified on MC Krago's list above.
MC Krago also lists 57 Freedom Party candidates and 51 Libertarian Party candidates, suggesting that there was but one "error of overlap" for the Ayn Rand option in Ontario (for progressives stricken by the expected "math is a right-wing plot" starting point, I drew that conclusion from there being 107 ridings in Ontario and 51 and 57 adding to 108, and from 108 being one more than 107). Lo and behold, I found that my presumption was wrong as soon as I saw FPO and Libertarian candidates in both Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Westdale and Barrie on the alphabetical list. If only they had learnt the value of strategic voting, there would have been a complete alternative for those seeking to elect Ayn Rand fans, and no wasted votes for Randites. I mean, other than voting for candidates who are fans of Ayn Rand in the first place, there would have been no wasted votes.