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.
Ontario PC Elizabeth Witmer Resigns, Takes position with WSIB
April 27, 2012 - 6:25pm
Will Hudaks PCs be able to hold onto this seat?
Kitchener Waterloo IIRC
Realistically if the NDP does not have a chance we had better hope the Cons win. But perhaps the NDP with a great candidate could win - yes?
Ontario Liberals could return to majority government after Tory resignationhttp://news.nationalpost.com/2012/04/27/ontario-liberals-could-return-to-majority-government-in-after-tory-resignation/
Her resignation puts the Liberals in a tie with the combined numbers of the two opposition parties at Queen's Park. The Liberals have 53 seats, the PCs have 36 and the NDP, 17. The speaker, Liberal Dave Levac, only votes in the case of a tie, so Mr. McGuinty will remain in an effective minority situation for now. Should the Liberals win a by-election, they would have a majority.
They already have a Liberal-NDP Majority Government™. They don't need K-W.
Looks like a big F-You to Tim Hudak.
I'd say it is winnable (esp. given present favourable provincial polls), or at least targetable--and the NDP had a serious candidate here in 2007, school trustee Catherine Fife, who actually did better than her 2011 counterpart. If Fife ran again under the present circumstance, she could take it.
Oh, and generally speaking, don't use 2011's fed-prov results as a barometer. Federally, especially, the NDP-compatible leftward energy was artificially sucked dry by Andrew Telegdi's aggressive Liberal comeback bid...
In any event, I'd *like* to think that the bad old pattern of byelections turning into straight Lib-Con slugfests and the NDP reduced to duking it out w/Green for 5% or less is over....
In Kitchener-Waterloo byelection, the liberals will do everything to win and I think they will win. 1 seat is the difference between majority and the minority government.
The Liberal brand is not what it once was. In the last election people were looking for an alternative, but their was a not knowing you enough gap for the two leaders, especially I expect Horwath. The more people saw of Hudak the less they likes so Liberal fortunes were bouyed some. The dynamic isn't the same. People still generally dislike McGuinty, the have not warmed to Hudak and Horwath has gained in warmth.
All this is to say, it is absolutely not a given that the Liberals will win this seat. Residual PC support and increasing NDP support could make this one of the most intersting by-elections in recent memory.
What were the results of the last election in Kitchener-Waterloo?
Mark these were the results in the last 2 provincial elections
Election results [hide]Ontario general election, 2011 Party Candidate Votes % ±pp Progressive Conservative Elizabeth Witmer 21,356 43.41 +2.52 Liberal Eric Davis 17,837 36.25 +5.06 New Democratic Isabel Cisterna 8,259 16.79 -0.72 Green J.D. McGuire 1,307 2.66 -6.60 Independent Peter Davis 316 0.64 Freedom Melanie Motz 124 0.25 Total valid votes 49,199 100.00Note: the 2011 election was held on October 6, 2011. These are unofficial results.
[hide]Ontario general election, 2007 Party Candidate Votes % ±pp Progressive Conservative Elizabeth Witmer 20,731 40.89 -2.19 Liberal Louise Ervin 15,814 31.19 -9.19 New Democratic Catherine Fife 8,878 17.51 +6.57 Green Judy Greenwood-Speers 4,697 9.26 +6.07 Family Coalition Louis Reitzel 587 1.15 -0.56 Total valid votes 50,707 100.00Now I asked about this too and also found out a wee tidbit. Before the riding was changed, Witmer won in 1990 general election for Waterloo North.
Waterloo NorthTotal votes: 38 883
Andrew Telegdi9441 (24.3%) Elizabeth Witmer
14 552 (37.4%) Hugh Miller
11 298 (29.1%) Ted Kryn
(FCP) 2946 (7.6%)
Rita Huschka-Sprague
(Lbt) 646 (1.7%) Herb Epp
Take note that the NDP came a strong 2nd, and beat the favoured Telegdi. And it was my understanding that the NDP didn't put a bunch of resources in this riding because they didn't think they would be competitive. I was talking to a liberal about this and who was familar with this race back in the day - they said that the NDP would probably have won it if they had put resources in this riding.
Of note also, before this election happen, the seat distribution was thus:
Party Party Leader # ofcandidates Seats Popular Vote 1987 Elected % Change # % % Change New Democratic Bob Rae 130 19 74 +279% 1,509,506 37.6% +11.9% Liberal David Peterson 130 95 36 -62.1% 1,302,134 32.4% -14.9% Progressive Conservative Mike Harris 130 16 20 +25% 944,564 23.5% -1.2%
Going into this election, the NDP only had 19 seats in the house, and ended up winning the election. Considering the recent results, and the positive polling both federally and provincially for the NDP and all the positive media for Andrea H. and the provincial NDP, with a super candidate like Catherine we could win this.
Incidently, Catherine is now the Chair of the W/K public school Board, and the president of the OPSBA, and vice president of the Canadian School Board Association. Both the Libs and NDP will be courting Catherine, make no mistake, But perhaps Catherine has her sights set on a bigger prize such as federal.
Her passions are public education and national childcare.
This is what Stock said in the other thread in Lib-Ndp govt
Byelections usually go against the government. If the Ontario Liberals manage to win a PC seat in a byelection it will be a remarkably good sign for them and clear evidence that they would have won a province wide election.
So we know that usually bi elections go against the govt of the day if people are pissed at them which is happening with the libs in Ontario. Next, and reading more tea leaves, Hudak just messed himself and the Cons up in this recent budget process and isn't looking good.
So the only party leader go gained in the budget process is Andrea's NDP - so one could say that with the right candidate we could win this bi-election.
I would think that a high profile candidate who is progressive and neither liberal or conservative could win this. Remember Witmer came from the red tory side of the conservatives.
Wern't there some serious issues with Telegdi? Or am I thinking of someone else that Warren Kinsella was quite critical of.
Why are people so certain that Hudak came out of the budget process with less support? He opposed the budget because it wasn't draconian enough for him. A lot of the party's supporters agree with him, and apparently so do Moody's and Standard & Poor.
Nobody has really taken issue with the Conservative agenda. All parties are onside with austerity; the only issue is how much & how fast. There's no real political and economic alternative being offered by anybody to the neoliberal austerity agenda. And Tim Hudak is Mr. Neoliberal Austerity personified.
Well, I don't know about his party supporters but generally he's not popular.
Hudak lags behind McGuinty and Horwath in leadership poll Published Thursday, Apr. 19, 2012 9:01PM EDT Last updated Friday, Apr. 20, 2012 8:25AM EDTA Nanos Research poll shows Conservative Party leader Tim Hudak would be the worst-positioned of Ontario’s three major party leaders to contest another campaign.
Actually the optics for both the Liberals and Conservative is bad which means the NDP needs to tie them together - what is worse - McGuinty Liberals using a high paying appointment to get a open seat or a Conservative selling out for more money! Yeah, the optics for both parties - a paux on both their houses and pick door 3 - the ndp.
Too bad they missed their chance to do exactly that by forcing an election on the issue of austerity, with the NDP on one side, and the Libs and Cons on the other.
Instead we now have the Tweedledum Liberal-NDP Majority Government™ versus the Tweedledumber Conservative opposition. Not much of a choice for the voters of Kitchener-Waterloo!
Nice poll. But what was the question? They don't say. As it was styled a "leadership poll" I assume it was a personal popularity contest. That hardly ever translates into party votes on election day.
Polls are lousy predictors of election results when taken before the campaign begins. A good campaign can win any election.
Well yes and no Spector - polls give one some indication of the general population perspective. And campaigns matter for sure, and NDP always runs a great ground game. But I'm not going to argue with you because you are all down on the NDP because they didn't come out and do what you think they should have done.
Of course, there was one stunning exception to the "against the government" rule in recent times: and that's where the Liberals paved the way for Hudak by killing John Tory off once and for all in HKLB.
Incidentally, notionally within the present K-W boundaries in 1990 (i.e. substituting North Kitchener for rural Wellesley and Woolwich), the NDP would have won.
Adma, that piece of information is good to know. One would need to know how much this riding has changed over time in terms of voters.
That's an excellent reason for not wanting to argue. Far better to argue with people who agree with you, eh?
I'm just not into arguing with you. I rather spend my time doing other enjoyable things.
Wait... so the Hudak bogeyman from the budget threads is now the worst positioned of the three to contest another campaign? How does that work? These poll results came out 11 days ago, yet in this thread, and this thread, and several others, one of the main arguments from those defending Horwath's timorous approach was that an election would likely result in a Hudak government.
Less than a week ago:
I guess now with the budget behind us, the NDP no longer needs Hudak to play the role of bogeyman to frighten people into avoiding an election at all costs. So now with a by-election in the wings it's time to downgrade his electoral prospects in order to buoy the partisan troops.
wow, if the ndp could win this one somehow, the liberals would probably be far less likely to try a stunt like that again any time soon.
Frankly, I hope the Liberals win and get their majority. It will finally remove the NDP's sorry excuses for toadying to the neoliberal austerity agenda, and maybe - just maybe - make them act like a real opposition party.
In other words better to be powerless and ideologically pure than to have some degree of power and responsibility and have to make some tough decisions and compromise from time to time...
if there really are people in the NDP that have such an immature attitude I hope that Horwath and Mulcair join forces to send out the message that those people are all PERSONA NON GRATA.
Nothing is cooler than armchair quarterbacking. You can make all the right calls, but never have to get your jersey dirty. It is grand.
If anyone's been trying to keep her jersey clean in the last month it's Horwath.
"some degree of power and responsibility"? LOL.
The NDP has no power, and shares in the responsibility for the austerity program.
As for "ideological purity" there's no chance of that ever happening to the NDP, unless you're referring to liberal ideology.
"Persona Non Grata" is inscribed on the banner of all the right-wing thugs whose response to any criticism from the left is to expel them from the party.
Of course, it depends upon who's nominated. The Grit ideal would be Telegdi. The NDP ideal would be Fife. The PC ideal would be...I dunno, Elizabeth Witmer or something; maybe she can do a Bruce Hyer-esque 360...