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My understanding is that the wealthy Rothesay neighbourhood is only about 25% of the riding of Rothesay. The rest is middle class suburbia and indistinguishable from suburban areas of Halifax that are now safe NDP territory.
I dont think Cardy's 'cross appeal' is primarily that of being a 'blue Dipper'.... if he even has that appeal at all. [I would say the latter is more a case of a touch of 'sanitizing' to make sure he isnt seen as the threat the NDP tends to be seen at in the region... until we are winners. Obviously, I think the party can be swallowed by that concern- or swallow itself- like Dexter. But doing some of it does not mean necessarily you are in the process of swallowing yourself. Thats another discussion. For the purposes now: Cardy's primary appeal is not 'blue Dipper', and I think its questionable how much a feature that is at all,]
#1- this is a by-election. And there is a lot of disaatisfaction out there, on a number of issues. Patronage has been added to that, and nobody likes that. Then there is fracking- where the concerns spread into the suburbs, and cut across ideological lines.
Then there is the fact that Dominic is a consumate organizer- when superior organization because its a by-election means even more. And Dominic is good enough at it, to do a bang up job leading it even when he only he has spare time to directly devote to organizing, because he's busy as the candidate.
Watch him.
One reason people are in Rothsay is because it borders a huge tract of parkland. [or is part of it?]
People that are conservationists as the route into being environmentaly concerned are a big part of the 'fractivists'.
The Alward government is offering a new explanation for the controversial appointment of Margaret-Ann Blaney as president of Efficiency New Brunswick.
The former energy minister was given the high-paying job of president and chief executive officer of the Crown corporation in May, even though a civil servant had been put in the job in March.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/story/2012/06/14/nb-robichau...
And the story keeps changing. From what I hear, the Tories are pretty worried. They are working much harder for this byelection than they had ever expected.
I think the Tories would be better off just not talking about this issue until the by-election is over. They gain absolutely nothing my reminding people of the topic, especially with yesterday's ridiculous spin.
They just cannot help themselves it seems!
https://twitter.com/lisahrabluk/status/214691848789299200
"The patio and coffeehouse chatter I hear in Rothesay increasingly thinks Dominic Cardy is going to win #rsayvotes #nbpoli"
Olivia Chow is going to Rothesay to campaign for Dominic cardy tomorrow...nice to see all levels of the NDP pitching in like this!
That's what I like about the NDP Stock, we try to be helpful to one another and pitch in. I think that part of that is because there is one membership for provincial and federal and so we feel we are one - I don't ever want to change that part of the organization. Thus it makes it easy and natural to be a federalist but feel just as beholding provincially.
Sure there are differences across Canada in terms of cultural of the NDP, whether provincially or say urban, rural, northern and so on but there is unity. Olivia is the best to go out and help out.
Agreed.
I'm hearing more people conceding that Dominic Cardy will do quite well, if not in fact win. Another thing I'm hearing is that the Cardy campaign needs money and has been appealing widely for donations.
The New Brunswick NDP have not had a seat in the legislature since 2005 and at the federal level hold 1 seat and finished second in 6. They also came very close in Moncton, where they finished third, and in recent history have been very strong in Madawaska-Restigouche, where they also finished third. This riding borders Québec ridings the NDP swept in 2011. So the growth prospects for the NDP are huge, but the party needs some sort of a push.
Blaney appointment will cost $300,000
If its any indication, the Liberal and PC candidates are getting very nasty in their attacks of Dominic Cardy this week.
If people recall, early in the campaign, Liberal Interim Leader Victor Boudreau essentially dared Cardy to run in the byelection:
CBC June 1st: “He is the leader of the provincial New Democratic Party, he doesn't have a seat in the house, and this is an opportunity to show what he's made of,” Boudreau had said.
Now, the Liberal leader and his candidate are attacking Cardy for "parachuting" into the riding, something they had dared him to do. "I've been in this riding for 26 years. Dominic Cardy has been here 26 minutes", Liberal candidate John Wilcox said on CTV news last night.
Granted, this is true - Cardy is from Fredericton. However, when your own leader essentially calls someone a coward for not running, you kind of cede the ground in the campaign to legitimately criticize when they do call your bluff. Liberals can't help but seem completely hypocritical here.
Following that up, Cardy had Olivia Chow in the riding yesterday and took the opportunity to present the NB NDP plan (similar to what was in the last platform) to reduce small business tax to zero in a way to stimulate economic growth. He was sure to point out that this would be a net-zero, as the savings from cutting corporate welfare programs like Business NB and INvest NB would more than pay for this loss in revenue, and would get government out of the business of picking winners and losers, which squeezes out new entrants to the market, to the benefit of NB's small corporate oligarchy.
In addition, he said that the first order of business would be to get out of deficit, and that this plan would be put into place AS SOON AS and not before the province's books were balanced.
Seemingly hearing none of this, or ignoring the details, the PC candidate was quoted in the Telegraph Journal today attacking Cardy based on McCarthyist-style labels and innuendo. It is quite troubling.
<<Its..“at its best naïve, at its worst it’s irresponsible. Clearly he has no idea of the financial situation of the province, he doesn’t have any idea that small businesses pay extremely low tax rates in any event. It’s typical socialist prattle when you have no meaningful expectation of being in government, you can promise anything,” Flemming said.>>
I don't think the Tories and Liberals would be going quite this negative if they didn't have information that Cardy was the front runner.
For KenS, Dominic Cardy is fiercely opposed to fracking and wants to fight the next provincial election over it.
Just imagine what the effect of a Dominic Cardy victory would have, should it come to happen on Monday!
Stay tuned!
oh I so hope so David.
A good blog post on the byelection
In another thread about the proposed new federal riding boundaries:
Actually he's talking about one Conservative suburb: Rothesay.
I wish Dominic all the luck in the world, but don't kid yourself about where he's running.
Damn!
Double damn!
It's hard to believe the Liberals or Tories could attack Cardy. In fact, he should join them.
Actually, I disagree. You know, small and medim size businesses are the backbone of our country - who do you think employs those front line workers? I'd rather support small business because they are main street and not corporate Canada street.
And Tommy Douglas completely understood how being debt makes you beholden to banks who in turn call the shots. See IMF and how it controls countries when it lends them money. Tommy got it as a socialist.
I was in a meeting this morning with a provincial tory cabinet minister who feels pretty confident about today's vote.
I object to the NDP becoming the party of small business and there are many NDP politicians showcasing policies which tack that way -- is that the best the NDP has to offer policy wise?. I disagree with 'zero' for small business income taxes if that is what Cardy is proposing. I disagree making deficit elimination the #1 priority to the point that it destroys families' livelihoods, as Cardy is proposing austerity as his "first order of business." If that is the best the NDP can bring to a campaign then one can only ask -- where is the vision? I would not doorknock or donate in support of that vision.
The main thrust of the Cardy campaign has been to end all political patronage in NB and for a moratorium on fracking for natural gas...what's not to like??
Polls are closed. And results should be starting to come in. Keep us posted. Is NB Elections or some news feed pretty quick with updating, even for a single by-electionÉ
Cardy is currently in third place.
PC 608, NDP 440, Lib 420, Grn 19, Ind 29.
accord to Twitter
PC 453
Lib 280
NDP 292
The Con margin is entirey on the "special Polls" Cardy leads narrowly on the regular polls, only6 of 27 reporting.
Here's the first numbers, the results of the "special ballots" as reported by a blogger on CBC:
PC 134
LIB 69,
NDP 49,
Green 4,
Ind 7.
(link: http://www.cbc.ca/nb/)
twitter
PC 716, NDP 537, Lib 503, Ind 30, Grn 24. 14/32 polls
Looks like Coady has an outside chance, but that more than anything else this is an embarrassment to the Liberals.
Also, with less than half the polls reporting, Coady has already nearly matched the raw vote total for the NDP candidate in Rothesay(535 votes) in the NB 2010 provincial election(a contest in which the turnout was massively higher than it will be tonight).