Bryant resigns - St. Paul's by-election

ottawaobserver wrote:

Debater wrote:

But considering that the NDP vote went up in Ontario in the last federal election while the Liberal vote plummeted, the Liberal vote should have been lower than it was and the NDP vote higher in this riding.

Or, just possibly, it proves that your methodology of taking a national or provincial number and applying it evenly to every local riding is not very valid.

Who says that is my methodology?

Of course there are variations from riding to riding, but when your party goes way up or way down in a province and your vote goes in the opposite direction, it sometimes says something about the candidate.  The fact that Chow only won by that margin indicates that she is not the strongest candidate - she should have beaten the Liberals by a larger margin considering they dropped in most of the ridings in Ontario.

Well, look at it this way--

(1) considering the size and diverse nature of Ontario, to paint it with a single polling-number brush oversimplifies things to an extreme; you might as well be judging by Canada-wide numbers, then.

(2) a lot of that increased NDP share was over-absorbed by such things as their Northern Ontario pickups and Hamilton/London holds.  But in most of the rest of the province (with an assist by the eMay Greens), it was stagnant or down.

(3) T-S has been going through the kind of condo boom (Cityplace et al) that wouldn't ordinarily favour the NDP at all.  (It's also the token explanation for why, provincially, Rosario Marchese held it in '07 with only 41% as well, versus a little-more-than-nominal Liberal candidate and campaign which came within 10 points, anyway.  Lots of people were predicting he was headed for a 50%+ landslide.)

(4) Again, the Greens.  Don't forget the eMay Greens.  (Their share increased by almost as much as Chow's dropped.  That wasn't an uncommon pattern, you know--and, like it or not, that *can* be viewed as a proxy for erstwhile NDP support.)

(4) And, again, however much they bombed elsewhere, the federal Grits had a very effective (and underrated) Toronto-compatible raid-the-urban-left strategy in place--of course, it didn't hurt that seven(!) of Dion's leadership-contender rivals represented or were running for seats in the 416.  (And variations of that strategy also worked in Montreal--note Mulcair's close call, or or Marc Garneau's surprisingly un-close call--and Vancouver: think Byers vs Fry.)

Under such circumstances, it wasn't that Olivia Chow wasn't the strongest candidate; more that she was the strongest Fed NDP candidate possible in what would otherwise be an increasingly incompatible seat.  If she stepped down prior to the 2008 election, I sincerely doubt any NDP candidate could have held Trinity-Spadina, given that election's (local) dynamics...

Oh,  And to get more on-topic, remember that the NDP share fell significantly in St Paul's from '06 to '08, too.  Though that's the result of a lesser-profile and somewhat perennialish candidate, coupled with a bit of a sympathy factor t/w the post-brake-line-slashing Carolyn Bennett...

"Debater wrote:

But considering that the NDP vote went up in Ontario in the last federal election while the Liberal vote plummeted, the Liberal vote should have been lower than it was and the NDP vote higher in this riding."

That isn't even correct, the NDP popular vote % actually dropped very slightly in Ontario from 2006 to 2008, but the Liberal vote dropped a lot more and mostly went Tory.

We don't know that the Liberal vote stayed home - I suspect that the people who stayed home were former supporters of all the parties - there probably were a lot of Liberals who voted Tory and there were Tory voters from '06 who stayed home as well.

"some Annex types probably didn't like the "kitchen table"/anti-carbon tax campaign"

That's probably true, but in Canada as a whole, I think that the "kitchen table"/anti-carbon tax campaign won over far more votes than it lost.

Well, Halifax, parts of Winnipeg Centre, Edmonton-Strathcona, Victoria, parts of Van East maybe.

Lord Palmerston wrote:

I'm sure the Libs are far more concerned about winning back seats in the 905 belt and places like the Kitchener-Waterloo region than they are about swinging a few inner-city "creative class" ridings held by the NDP - what is there really besides central Ottawa, Trinity-Spadina and Outremont anyway?

Well Ottawa Centre, Trinity-Spadina and Outremont are all ridings that were recently Liberal and are all ridings that the Liberals could re-take so it is normal for parties to target ridings which are within reach.

But it is true though that since the Liberals have lost so many ridings in other areas of Ontario and are so badly represented in those areas that they definitely need more representation in those places if they want to become a more national party.

adma wrote:

...though in doing so, it also swung the NDP in more of a blue-collar/frontier party direction.  Thus, the seats it gained and vulnerable marginals it salvaged in Ontario.  (And another overlooked tidbit: despite being less high-profile than Sid Ryan, Mike Shields increased the NDP share in Oshawa.)

Mike Shields increased the NDP vote by 1% from 2006, but the problem was that the Conservative vote went up by a larger amount so that the Cons ended up winning the riding by a larger margin in 2008 than they did in 2006.  It seems that a lot of the Liberal vote went to the Cons, and very little of it to the NDP.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canadavotes/riding/168/06results.html

So what is next for Bryant -- run for mayor of toronto or run again as a lib but this time federally when carebear announces she is not running again?

Debater, don't you look at the turnout?  It dropped in Oshawa from like 64% to 55% last time.  Mostly all Liberals (or else, as Stockholm notes elsewhere, perhaps Libs switching Conservative and Conservatives staying home).  The NDP raw vote mostly held, the Green vote was up a tidge, and the Conservative vote [wrong: increased] dropped a tidge.

Louise Parkes didn't take votes from the Conservatives.  To the contrary, her raw vote declined too between 2004 and 2006, most of it going *to* the Conservatives.

When turnout changes so dramatically, you really have to look at the raw vote to figure out who went where.

From 2000 to 2008 the Liberal vote went from    16,428 --> 14,510 --> 12,831 --> 7,741
During the same time the Cons/CA/PC vote was 16,747 --> 15,815 --> 20,657 --> 19,951
And the NDP vote went from a low in 2000 of       3,979 --> 15,352 --> 17,905 --> 16,750

Turnout over that period of time went from 37,832 --> 47,905 (57%) --> 53,689 (64%) --> 48,422 (55%)

So, in 2006 both the NDP and the Conservatives grew based on folks who had previously stayed home, while the Liberal vote shrank.  In 2008 the Liberal vote nearly collapsed to 16% of the vote, while the margin between Carrie and Shields increased only slightly from 5.1% to 6.6%, even as turnout declined.

Focussing only on vote share gives you an inaccurate picture of things, I'm afraid, which is the weakness of relying only on the CBC website.

Good, well if you don't look at turnout, I hope the Liberals put you in charge of the Oshawa campaign next time.

ETA:  And I sincerely hope you didn't intend to include Liberals in the phrase "left of centre voters"...

"Most Liberals are considered left of centre voters by Liberals"

"and it would be wise to remember that if you want us in your corner." ...

Aha!  "us" ... I *knew* it.  No point denying it anymore.  :-)

And another thing ... this meme that Liberals have been trying to invoke around the blogs and boards, namely that NDPers should be nice to Liberals or you won't do business with us, is just hogwash.

Liberals and NDPers will do business when it is in their mutual interest and in the public interest.  And, apparently, not otherwise, given Paul Martin's rather famous quote to Layton "Jack, you don't have the votes" when we wanted to get some concessions on healthcare in return for supporting the government.

To think otherwise is deluded.  At least this time around, Iggy will have gone through the indignity of his first election campaign and may be slightly less given to the insufferable arrogance and sense of entitlement he's carried around since January.  Imagine if we'd been in a coalition with *that*.  Yuck.

Why in the hell would the NDP need the Liberals in their corner, debator? Moreover, they are too busy being in Harper's corner to be in anyone else's corner.

And as for the implied threat it contains, following the hyprocritical criticizing of someone taking shots at the Liberals, I must say you are piece of  what is truly ugly about the Liberal Party!

And btw, what "Martin" years? He was never in power for  a year, let alone"years".

~

OO, I simply do not get how Iggy can have a sense of entitlement, seeing as how he had to be appointed, as he could not get elected in a open Liberal election. So it must be a natural state of being. What it will bring him to do when he loses, again just like he did the leadership race is up for debate. I suspect he will run away pouting at the nerve of Canadians!

When analyzing Oshawa votes from 2000 to 2008, you should keep in mind that a lot of new houses have been built in North Oshawa during that period. This is not a strong point for the NDP vote.

Wilf hasn't had a chance to answer that question about the demographics of who moves into North Oshawa, and have not been there [presumably ugly as sin], but typically not many would be autoworkers. Autoworkers being older, and a great many new residents being commuters.

remind wrote:

Why in the hell would the NDP need the Liberals in their corner, debator? Moreover, they are too busy being in Harper's corner to be in anyone else's corner.

And as for the implied threat it contains, following the hyprocritical criticizing of someone taking shots at the Liberals, I must say you are piece of  what is truly ugly about the Liberal Party!

And btw, what "Martin" years? He was never in power for  a year, let alone"years".

~

OO, I simply do not get how Iggy can have a sense of entitlement, seeing as how he had to be appointed, as he could not get elected in a open Liberal election. So it must be a natural state of being. What it will bring him to do when he loses, again just like he did the leadership race is up for debate. I suspect he will run away pouting at the nerve of Canadians!

1.  The NDP needs Liberal voters in certain ridings to win seats and hold seats, that is my main point.  Liberal-NDP swing voters need to work together to defeat the Conservatives in certain seats.  That is the case in Edmonton-Strathcona for example.  Linda Duncan's political future depends to a large extent on her ability to hold Liberal votes - she can't do it on NDP votes alone.  What happened in E-S in the last election is that Liberal voters went NDP and helped her win - the Conservative vote did not actually go down much in E-S.  That is why it is important the NDP doesn't alienate Liberal supporters.

2.  There you go again with the Ignatieff was appointed because he couldn't get elected line.  That is not true.  He was the leading contender in both leadership races - he was the leader in 06 until the final ballot, and he was the leader again in 08 and was going to win.  The other candidates dropped out to prevent drawing out a foregone conclusion and wasting money and to get a leader in place against Harper now rather than wasting.  Ignatieff was then officially elected in May.

Quote:

 There you go again with the Ignatieff was appointed because he couldn't get elected line.  That is not true.  He was the leading contender in both leadership races - he was the leader in 06 until the final ballot, and he was the leader again in 08 and was going to win.  The other candidates dropped out to prevent drawing out a foregone conclusion and wasting money and to get a leader in place against Harper now rather than wasting.  Ignatieff was then officially elected in May.

Nice try at spinning the coup d'état, but I don't buy it.

Debater wrote:

remind wrote:

Why in the hell would the NDP need the Liberals in their corner, debator? Moreover, they are too busy being in Harper's corner to be in anyone else's corner.

And as for the implied threat it contains, following the hyprocritical criticizing of someone taking shots at the Liberals, I must say you are piece of  what is truly ugly about the Liberal Party!

And btw, what "Martin" years? He was never in power for  a year, let alone"years".

~

OO, I simply do not get how Iggy can have a sense of entitlement, seeing as how he had to be appointed, as he could not get elected in a open Liberal election.

1.  The NDP needs Liberal voters in certain ridings to win seats and hold seats, that is my main point.  Liberal-NDP swing voters need to work together to defeat the Conservatives in certain seats.  That is the case in Edmonton-Strathcona for example.  Linda Duncan's political future depends to a large extent on her ability to hold Liberal votes - she can't do it on NDP votes alone.  What happened in E-S in the last election is that Liberal voters went NDP and helped her win - the Conservative vote did not actually go down much in E-S.  That is why it is important the NDP doesn't alienate Liberal supporters.

Ah, now this comment is telling, first of all you say the NDP needs "Liberal voters" and thus you take primary ownership of them, even though you recognize them as "swing voters" later. Swing voters are just that, they are owned by no one, and thus they are not "Liberal" by any stretch of the objective imagination. That they may have at one time supported the Liberals does not mean they are "Liberals". Moreover, the numbers in ES indicate that the riding has been trending NDP, over Liberal, since the 2000 election.

2008 Linda Duncan wins by a 31.5%  margin over the Liberals, who shed 5000 votes.

2006 Linda Duncan wins by a 14.7% margin over the Liberals and the Liberals shed  5000 more votes in this election

2004 the NDP candidate falls short of the Liberal candidate for second place by only 5.2% and they doubled their vote share from the 2000 election. The Liberals shed 2500 votes in this election too.

2000 the NDP are 15.8% behind the Liberals.

So...from this we can see that indeed, if the votes belong to anyone in ES, they now belong to the NDP, as I would classify them as NDP supporters now, they left the Liberal Party who could not beat out Jaffer, and did not go back. Moreover, they have invested in Linda's being elected, and one doubts that they would throw their investment away because the Liberal Party believes they own their votes from 9 long years ago, when they could not even beat Jaffer.

Quote:

2.  There you go again with the Ignatieff was appointed because he couldn't get elected line.  That is not true.  He was the leading contender in both leadership races - he was the leader in 06 until the final ballot, and he was the leader again in 08 and was going to win.  The other candidates dropped out to prevent drawing out a foregone conclusion and wasting money and to get a leader in place against Harper now rather than wasting.  Ignatieff was then officially elected in May.

It absolutely is true, the reality is he LOST in the final ballot, he did not win. The reality is there was NO election to see if he could win, he was appointed. Comments stating he was leading in '08 mean sfa, there was no leadership contest to see if this was actually the  foregone conclusion case amongst the Liberal base who did not choose him in 06. He was appointed and nothing more, and as such he goes down as one who could not get elected and had to be appointed.

And BTW, why did you need a new leader in place supposedly "against" Harper, Iggy has done nothing different than Dion did. They both have been "for" Harper every step of the way, and Iggy has been even more so "for" Harper than Dion was.

h/t to Pundit's Guide for the numbers

remind wrote:

And btw, what "Martin" years? He was never in power for  a year, let alone"years".

I didn't notice this before, so I just wanted to comment on it briefly.  I'm not sure what you mean when you say Martin was "never in power for a year, let alone 'years'".

Paul Martin's official dates as Prime Minister of Canada are from December 12, 2003 until February 6, 2006:

http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/primeministers/h4-3525-e.html

Now, for all intents and purposes, his time as Prime Minister basically ended in late 2005 when the government fell and the election began, but he was certainly not in power for less than a year as you stated above.

This is why I am trying to politely suggest that in the future you not get so emotional when you post about people you don't like.  Don't allow your emotion to cloud your objectivity.

remind wrote:

And BTW, why did you need a new leader in place supposedly "against" Harper, Iggy has done nothing different than Dion did. They both have been "for" Harper every step of the way, and Iggy has been even more so "for" Harper than Dion was.

Well said.

Lord Palmerston wrote:

remind wrote:

And BTW, why did you need a new leader in place supposedly "against" Harper, Iggy has done nothing different than Dion did. They both have been "for" Harper every step of the way, and Iggy has been even more so "for" Harper than Dion was.

Well said.

Yes, Ignatieff has voted with Harper on a number of occasions and that is something he is going to have to explain to the Canadian people.

But as Andrew Coyne said last month on the At Issue end of session panel, if you don't vote with the government when you are in a minority Parliament, the government falls and you generate an election.  As Coyne said, it's not easy being Official Opposition leader in that situation because you can't bring the government down when the country doesn't want an election and so you are stuck supporting the government.  As Coyne said, Ignatieff has had a difficult job in that sense.  That doesn't change the fact though that as you point out, he will have to answer the NDP's questions as to why he has supported Harper quite often.

As to the other question above, the Liberals needed a leader in place in case of another election.  They didn't want to go into another election with Dion at the helm and so they wanted Ignatieff as leader in case of a possible election if the government fell over the budget vote in early 2009 or if the coalition went ahead.

LTJ, first of all, if you need to swear to make a point, that says something.

And secondly, I don't have to justify anything - I'm just explaining what happened and also discussing some of the political analysis that has been done on the subject by the At Issue panel and elsewhere.

Incidentally, Dion should not have entered into the coalition - it was not something his party was really behind and it was something that the majority of Canadians opposed.  Dion was also supposed to resign and allow an interim leader to take over - not to hang on for 6 months when he wasn't wanted.  But when Dion provoked the possibility of the coalition or an election on the January budget, it became necessary for a new leader to be put in place faster.  No one wanted Dion at the helm of another election except the Conservatives.

He couldn't even properly deliver the coalition speech video.

"it became necessary for a new leader to be put in place faster."

Yep, the loser from the actual democratic leadership race, which says it all. If the Liberal Party controllers do not like the party's leadership choice,  they will just remove said person and appoint whomever they want.