Nov 29, 2010 By-elections: news and views II

I'm going on a limb and calling Vaughn for Fantino.

Aristotleded24 wrote:

Stockholm wrote:

Which "gang" are you referring to?

The "gang" basically includes incumbent politicians and big names and players from the past. There is a general sense of malaise with politics, and people are in a mood for change. One easy way to accomplish that is to vote against whomever is there now.

If you're talking provincially, I don't agree. I think the current government is genuinely stagnated. It's not voter malaise. The loss of Doer and the lack of a similarly charismatic replacement, who might shake things up a bit while still keeping the government in power is what's causing the stagnation.

I don't know about that. Dawn Black quit to run provincially - and the NDP easily held on to her seat in the byelection last year. The Tories also easily held Dauphin even though Inky Mark quit to run for mayor of Dauphin.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

Yes, but you're underestimating Lamoureux's constituency and the fact that Chief was the newcomer here.

jas wrote:

Aristotleded24 wrote:

Stockholm wrote:

Which "gang" are you referring to?

The "gang" basically includes incumbent politicians and big names and players from the past. There is a general sense of malaise with politics, and people are in a mood for change. One easy way to accomplish that is to vote against whomever is there now.

If you're talking provincially, I don't agree. I think the current government is genuinely stagnated. It's not voter malaise. The loss of Doer and the lack of a similarly charismatic replacement, who might shake things up a bit while still keeping the government in power is what's causing the stagnation.

The other thing is that since Winnipeg North has a strong NDP tradition, voting Liberal is in effect voting against the NDP "machine" or "tradition" and for something new. I think it's a lot more than simple stagnation. If it was just stagnation, the result in a traditionally safe NDP area should have been much closer, even if people are unenthusiastic about the current provincial government. I think voter malaise is definitely a huge factor, and added to the results we saw tonight.

I think there is about a 95% chance that the government falls and that we have a federal election in March or April. I hope Kevin Chief runs again and runs hard. If there is another vote in just a few months, Lamoureux will have had almost no time to establish himself as an incumbent in the 75% of the riding that he never represented provincially and the right national trend could easily get back the seat.

nicky wrote:

I think Debater is quite correct that voters seem to punish parties whose incumbents jump ship to seek other offices. Personally I feel it is very opportunistic and I can fully appreciate that voters feel a sense of betrayal as well as resentment for the unneccessay cost and bother of a by-election. Politiicians should think twice before they pull this kind of stunt.

I agree.  MP's should only step down early for reasons of family emergency or illness.

Quitting before a general election means that a riding is left without representation for months at a time because in our system the Prime Minister can abuse the by-election process by waiting 6 months to call one.  As Ed Broadbent has said, voters should have the right to have a new MP selected within a month of a riding becoming vacant.  It isn't right that Winnipeg North has been without an MP since the Spring.

Luckily the vacancies in the other ridings didn't last as long, but it's still a problem.

I honestly don't think that voters vote to punish parties for having an MP who resigns to run for another office. I just don't believe it. I think that Bevilaqua could have dropped dead of a stroke - and the result in Vaughan would have been the same. If voters were really pissed off at him for resigning to run for mayor of vaughan - why do you think that they elected him mayor by a massive majority? The best way to express their negative feelings about him quitting for greener pastures would have been to have voted to defeat him for mayor of Vaugahn!

BTW, Kevin Chief got almost exactly the popular vote % I predicted - I just expected the Tory vote to be about 15% high and the Liberal vote about 15% lower. C'est la vie!

For every example, there is a counter example - Dawn Black resigned to run provincially. She easily won provincially and the NDP easily held her seat federally. A couple of years ago, John Baird, Jim Flaherty and Marilyn Churley quit Queens Park to run federally - Baird and Flaherty won and all three saw tnheir seats retained by their parties in the subsequent byelections.

I'm sorry, but there is no pattern here. A cigar is just a cigar.

Sorry, one last thought - the election of Kevin Lamoureux illustrates the further deterioration of the quality of Manitoba's federal representation.  The province used to have great parliamentarians like J.S. Woodsworth, Stanley Knowles, Walter Dinsdale, Jake Epp, Lloyd Axworthy and Bill Blaikie.  Now we've got the likes of Joy Smith, Kevin Lamoureux and Jim Maloway. Bleh.

Stockholm wrote:

I think that because Ignatieff was under the gun to begin with and because he is widely seen as a liability for the Liberals - he had way more at stake tonight.

For the NDP, its sad to lose a byelection, but no one ever cast this as some "supreme test of Layton's leadership" and it was very much a local campaign. I think that for the NDP, this is a bit like how the BQ felt after losing Roberval in 2007 and after losing Montmagny-Lislet-Kamouraska-Riviere du Loup last year. A blow in the short term - but ultimately, the BQ picked itself up and did very well afterwards - and now no one said then or now "Duceppe has to go because he lost MIKR". I suspect that the NDP has some negative momentum right now in Manitoba after the municipal elections and with a provincial government that may be nearing the "best before date" (as all governments do).

Meanwhile, what a TOTAL humiliation for the Green Party. Less than 1% in Winnipeg North, 1.2% in Vaughan and 6% and a very distant fourth in Dauphin - despite an endorsement by outgoing Tory MP Inky Mark.

1st of all, Inky Mark backed nobody. He was just generally pissed at the Conservatives.

2nd, judging by the fact the NDP earned all of 2% in Vaughn, I think its safe to say there was some strategic voting going on

My assessment:

Push for the Conservatives

Strangely good night for the Liberals

Can't say it's a good night for the NDP

Nobody cares about the Greens. You're like Bill Whatcott with gay people.

The result of a 30.8% turnout in Winnipeg North:

Party 2008; 2010

NDP 14,097; 6,508

Lib 2,075; 7,303

Con 5,033; 1,645

Gre 1,070; 114

Tot 22,516; 15,780

The total dropped 6,736, and the NDP vote dropped 7,589.

Yea, the Spec has been such a bastion of support for the NDP.

And actually The Globe, Canada's national newspaper already has their take on the results:

Vaughan by-election loss adds to Ignatieff's woes

NorthReport wrote:

Elections are not decided in Manitoba, but they are decided in Ontario. It has been just a disaster for the Liberals tonite, and the last thing Ignatieff would want now is a federal election, however he will be the last person to decide on that.

Considering that Fantino was a "star" candidate who was expected to walk away, the fact that an unknown Liberal made it into a race almost right up to the last poll says a great deal. And speaking as a Manitoban, I will thank you for being so dismissive about how Ontario and Ontario alone decides election results, when it clearly does not. The trend we saw in Winnipeg could easily replicate itself in Ontario as the Liberal vote comes back at the expense of NDP seats in the area. Or have you also forgotten that the NDP-Conservative battle in Western Canada (particularly BC) can have a major impact on the number of Conservative seats and which parties have the balance of power and by how much?

As Debator showed, the media will not hesitate to spin this a a loss for the NDP. The NDP lost a safe seat, no amount of spin can cover that up.

Turnout was pretty disgusting in all three byelections (high twenties or low thirties), but I think that's not too atypical of byelections. I think given the history of the riding (it was known as Winnipeg North Centre for a while), it was more likely for the Liberals to win (even coming from so far behind), as the only time the Conservatives ever won was during the Diefenbaker landslide. It's not just that the Conservatives stayed home or voted Liberal, most people stayed home. Turnout in the last couple of general elections seems to be less than 50% and falling too.

http://enr.elections.ca/ElectoralDistricts_e.aspx

ghoris wrote:

 Now we've got the likes of Joy Smith, Kevin Lamoureux and Jim Maloway. Bleh.

Agree. Lamoureux tends to champion the trivial. I can't even imagine what he thinks he's going to bring to the House of Commons.

And also your point about how federal representation will be taking him out of his constituency more than might be good for him. We'll see.

Aristotleded24 wrote:

ghoris, what do you think about the reasons that have been given in this thread for the NDP defeat? Do you have any comments you wish to add?

Sorry for the delay in responding - I blackberried the last post and didn't want to get permanent carpal tunnel by trying to thumb-type my usual long-winded ruminations. ;)

I think most of the reasons have been hit on above.

I think there was a bit of a backlash against the NDP because of Judy WL's decision to jump ship midterm.

I suspect there was probably a bit of a complacency factor and the NDP did not get out the vote as well as it usually does.  Thus Lamoureux could win in a low-turnout race.  Lamoureux is a formidable campaigner and a true constituency politician. He has always had a strong 'machine' behind him that easily rivals anything the NDP had on the ground.

Lamoureux also had something of an 'incumbency' advantage.  Certainly more name recognition than Kevin Chief. Although, paradoxically, Chief was likely tagged as the 'establishment' candidate as the standard-bearer of the incumbent party.

I hate to say it, but I suspect there was a little bit of an anti-First Nations sentiment that led to some otherwise NDP-inclined voters either staying home or voting Liberal.

Lamoureux has very, very strong ties to the Filipino and Indo-Canadian communities and I would wager dollars to donuts that those communities turned out for him big time and put him over the top.

Lamoureux cares little for policy or understanding the issues. He only cares about what might get him a soundbite on the news. He plays the outraged 'little guy' schtick to the hilt, and for some reason people respond to it.  Plus he shows up to any event in his riding with an attendance of more than three.  Everyone knows who he is.  He tends to his constituents assiduously.  The 'ward heeler' appellation above is quite accurate, but sad to say that's what most Winnipeggers want in their politicians ("I don't care about Afghanistan - fix the pothole in my street!")

Finally, although I am loath to say it since I have been called on this before, I think there was a certain amount of protest against the provincial government tonight.  After the relatively poor showing of Judy WL and the 'left' in the municipal elections, it's hard not to see a pattern here. Full disclosure: I predicted doom and gloom for Doer after the 2006 municipal elections too (when the NDP was trailing the Tories by about the same margin they're trailing now) and yet Doer came back and increased the NDP's seat count in the provincial election nine months later.  So while it might be a bit premature to start writing Greg Selinger's obituary, I think it goes without saying that he ain't Gary Doer.  This is not a good omen for the provincial party.

Whether the next election is six months or two years from now, I think Lamoureux will be very, very difficult to dislodge. (Although it is much harder to be a constituency politician at the federal level, when your presence is required in Ottawa five days a week while the House is sitting.)

Aristotleded24 wrote:

NorthReport wrote:

Elections are not decided in Manitoba, but they are decided in Ontario. It has been just a disaster for the Liberals tonite, and the last thing Ignatieff would want now is a federal election, however he will be the last person to decide on that.

Considering that Fantino was a "star" candidate who was expected to walk away, the fact that an unknown Liberal made it into a race almost right up to the last poll says a great deal. And speaking as a Manitoban, I will thank you for being so dismissive about how Ontario and Ontario alone decides election results, when it clearly does not.

True.  Although North Report may be right that Ontario has the largest number of seats, he seems to be forgetting that for the past several elections we have been in a minority cycle in which all seats matter - whether they are in Ontario or Prince Edward Island.  Every seat won or lost by a party can affect the overall count in the next Parliament.

Damn!

Aside from an improved showing in Dauphin-Swan River, this is clearly a disappointing result for the NDP.

A quick look at the Winnipeg North Centre results compared to previous elections suggests that the right wing vote consolidated behind the Liberals, while in Dauphin-Swan River it remained firmly behind the Conservatives.

Anyone besides me notice the surprising absence of John Turmel?

Let the Liberals bask in their momentary glory.

I can remember around early 2000 when the Liberals won two Quebec by-elections in B.Q. seats. 

Their back-slapping and peacock-like strutting was everywhere.

They lost both seats again in the fall general election.

Lots of mitigating factors. But the NDP shouldnt even have let Lamoureux get close, let alone win.

And some of the motigating factors are organizational: the recent loss of Judy W-L, and Lamoureux's organizational depth.

But I still think this has to be chalked up as an organizational failure. Whatever lack there was locally could and should have been made up for by the party.

I dont begrudge Jack Layton's visits to Dauphin and the profile devoted to them. But the fact that there wasnt the same in Winnipeg perhaps speaks to a general underestimation of the needs there: that with Winnipeg in the bag they could afford to throw a lot into Dauphin.

That kind of second guessing is endemic. But you dont have to second guess the comparative allocation of resources to simply say that there may have been a fundamental error made in judging the WN race.

I hope Kevin Chief wants to run again. But its going to be harder, and he has to be willing to start running now, and willing to keep that up even if the election is in 2012. The party will apologize to him, and that will be a start. But if they want him to do it they need to have resolve as well. "We're going to do what it takes."

Kevin Chief is a great person, and the Kevin who won is a useless ward heeler. It would be a shame to by default leave it this way.

Could we start a new thread. Something like Byelections, the day after.

I would start it myself, except I cant stop Babble from innundating my email Inbox when I open a thread.

Although it was part of why Kevin Chief lost, it was good to see that the Conservatives targeted and campaign by stealth methods were such a spectacular failure.

Mind you, they may just decide that it was a really bad place to try to get results out of it.... and that they still learned a lot of valuable lessons in how to make all the pieces work together.

Closing.