The Manitoba NDP and provincial election 2011: strategy - future - futility? Part 3

Having the Liberals to split the right wing vote definitely helped the NDP get back in with the majority of seats. 

Northern Shoveler wrote:

Having the Liberals to split the right wing vote definitely helped the NDP get back in with the majority of seats. 

Quite the opposite. The Liberals collapsing and thus *not* splitting the left-wing/anti-Tory vote was what helped the NDP. In the last 30 years, the Tories have only won elections where the Liberals were pulling at least 20% of the vote. The Manitoba Liberals tend to be placed more in the centre-left part of the spectrum, as opposed to their counterparts in other provinces. They are not perceived as a particularly "right-wing" party.

ghoris wrote:

Northern Shoveler wrote:

Having the Liberals to split the right wing vote definitely helped the NDP get back in with the majority of seats. 

Quite the opposite. The Liberals collapsing and thus *not* splitting the left-wing/anti-Tory vote was what helped the NDP. In the last 30 years, the Tories have only won elections where the Liberals were pulling at least 20% of the vote. The Manitoba Liberals tend to be placed more in the centre-left part of the spectrum, as opposed to their counterparts in other provinces. They are not perceived as a particularly "right-wing" party.

The Angus Reid poll showed that of those Liberals that switched since the last election, they went NDP by a 2-to-1 margin. And 2 former Liberla M.P.s endordsed NDP candidates.

Despite the fact that only one seat changed hands last night as between the parties, due to the large number of retiring incumbents from the NDP and PCs, there will still be 13 new faces in the legislature.

New NDP MLAs: James Allum (Fort Garry-Riverview), Kevin Chief (Point Douglas), Deanne Crothers (St. James), Dave Gaudreau (St. Norbert), Ron Kostyshyn (Swan River), Ted Marcelino (Tyndall Park), Clarence Pettersen (Flin Flon) and Melanie Wight (Burrows).

New PC MLAs: Wayne Ewasko (Lac du Bonnet), Cameron Friesen (Morden-Winkler), Reg Helwer (Brandon West), Dennis Smook (La Verendrye) and Ian Wishart (Portage la Prairie).

Interestingly, three of the new NDP MLAs (Allum, Chief and Gaudreau) are all former federal candidates, while Crothers came up short in her bid for the St. James ward in last year's Winnipeg municipal elections.

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Most number of seats ever won by a government, most consecutive governments, and the first time leader took over as premier in mid-term and government got re-elected

I hate to nitpick but these points are being thrown around willy-nilly by the Free Press and others and they are not correct. The honour of most seats goes to the Norris Liberal government, which won 40 seats in 1915. Second place goes to John Bracken's Liberal-Progressives, who got 38 seats in 1932. (And the House was smaller in both of those elections.)

As for most consecutive governments, the Liberal-Progressives of John Bracken, Stuart Garson and Douglas Campbell won an astounding six consecutive elections in 1932, 1936, 1941, 1945, 1949 and 1953.  If you include the two United Farmer/Progressive governments that preceded them (also led by John Bracken) then they actually won eight elections in a row. Second place goes to the Tories of Hugh John Macdonald and Rodmond Roblin, who won five back-to-back elections in 1899, 1903, 1907, 1910 and 1914.

Roblin, not Selinger, also has the distinction of being the first leader (after the early 'non-partisan' era) to take over mid-term and get re-elected. Subsequent leaders who took over mid-term and were re-elected were Stuart Garson and Douglas Campbell of the Liberal-Progressives.

River Heights is sort of a weird seat. It's perhaps the only 'natural' Liberal seat in the province. The best analogy I can make is that it is the "St. Paul's" of Manitoba - an upper-income, 'professional'-class, inner-city seat. Gerrard has run here since 1999, despite the fact that he used to live in St. Francis Xavier (and represented Portage-Interlake federally) because it is demographically hospitable to the Liberals - upper-income but socially progressive. The Tories have only won it once in recent history - 1995. The losing Liberal candidate was none other than Anita Neville, who of course went on to represent the area federally.

I wonder if Selinger is going to shuffle his cabinet before he recalls the legislature. I suspect he will call the legislature back before Christmas to take care of housekeeping like electing a speaker (and possibly deal with estimates and supply), and maybe have a brief throne speech and pass a few minor bills. 

There are two vacant portfolios now - Finance and Conservation - so I would think there will be at least two new faces in cabinet. It's possible that Drew Caldwell might make it back in to give Brandon and southwestern Manitoba some representation and to maintain the urban/rural balance with Wowchuk's departure, but I have my doubts. With Blaikie's retirement there is now no cabinet representation from northeast Winnipeg, so someone like Erna Braun or Matt Wiebe might be under consideration. I expect Selinger will find a place for Kevin Chief somewhere. Sharon Blady might get a post to boost her profile and shore up support.

I doubt that many, if any, of the current ministers will be dropped. The most likely candidate, it would seem to me, is Christine Melnick. She has consistently been the weakest performing minister, and southeast Winnipeg is now significantly over-represented at the Cabinet table with all but one MLA being in Cabinet.

great work for the ndp government there in manitoba.  with the ndp scoring a majority victory, it looks like the next manitoba election will be timed about with the next federal election, meaning that the manitoba government will be on election footing (or something near it) come the next federal campaign - great news for the federal party.  federal elections falling in the middle-mandate zone of a provincial government sometimes make the task more difficult, and i'll take this one.

David Young wrote:

Did anyone else but me notice that the MSM was all a-buzz on Tuesday morning about the 'smashing' Liberal victory in P.E.I., but when it came to Wednesday morning, the news that the NDP had won a fourth-straight majority government in Manitoba was treated almost as an afterthought?

So it wasn't just me? Yes, I noticed that the NDP victory did seem to be buried in the news cycle. I couldn't figure out whether it was because it was a provincial election held someplace other than Ontario or Quebec, or because it was of the historic nature of the NDP win.

When I said "buried," I meant not mention of it until about halfway through the nightly newscast, and no mention at all in the opening blurb. Any bets that Ontario's election tonight will be brushed off in a similar fashion?

Well, I just emailed CBC and politely asked why there was no coverage of the Manitoba election this time but here in B.C. we are getting a full three hours of the Ontario election in prime time. I of course know the answer - who cares about some tiny backwater like Manitoba, clearly everyone else in Canada wants to hear about ONTARIO - but I want to make them say it. 

ghoris wrote:

I just checked and - lo and behold! - Ontario Votes 2011 starts at 6:00 PM on my local CBC News channel! Us lucky British Columbians get the privilege of watching a *full three hours* of Ontario election coverage!

Actually, I find this bizarre in itself. I can understand an extended segment, perhaps, but three hours coverage??

ghoris wrote:

They were practically covering the custodial staff sweeping up at Liberal HQ after the victory party.

Lol.

Ontario is going to get massive coverage...if the Liberals have a shot at governing. Otherwise the CBC will ignore the election. The Ontario NDP will be relegated to the back pages, as they are expected to finish third. No worry that the only thing that has changed between this election and the last is that the NDP has come out of nowhere and reduced BOTH the PCs and Liberals to minority status. No, the news coverage will be about who won and how that shows what a great campaign they ran vis a vis the second place party.

@Debater:

I am coming to this very late. So still around eh?

Look, get this straight. Gerard voted for Martin's disasterous 1995 budget, supported Martin's run for the leadership, and voted with McFayden to cut half a billion dollars from the buget at the cost of 1000s of jobs! We don't need another supply sider trying to pretend he is any different from the Tories by trying to run up the middle.

When Gerard was pressed by Sellinger to explain his vote, all he could say was "I made a mistake". My eye! He got caught, wasn't expecting it and tried to deflect blame for his choice. You mean to tell me he didn't know for what he was voting? Come on!

You are right, we need a real third party like the NDP, which really is different from the other two. We don't need a 3rd party that is just a pale reflection of the main right wing party. You still don't get it, and you never will. I don't want to vote Lib, that is why I vote NDP. Figure it out and knock of the disingeuous whining!

And yes, I wish Gerard had lost. He is a decitful, convining liar, or, he is the stupidest man in Manitoba politics!

Aristotleded24 wrote:

Where can I find poll-by-poll results for individual ridings?

*bump* Anyone?

Sel Burrows has an interesting suggestion for the Tories:

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The Manitoba Conservatives need to reach beyond their present membership to find a leader of substance. Swan was rejected by the NDP when he attempted to run for the leadership. Ideologically, he would make a perfect leader of the PCs and he would give them a badly needed seat in Winnipeg.

The Conservatives reached into Liberal ranks to get Gord Steeves to run as a Conservative. Now might be the time to pluck a right-wing New Democrat as their new provincial leader. Many New Democrats would be happy if they did.

[url=http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/westview/most-manitoba-tories-s... Tory talk from an unlikely source:[/url]

Quote:

"This past election had nothing to do with a rural-urban split. A lot of Winnipeggers who voted for the NDP provincially in October voted for federal Tory candidates just a few months earlier. We lost our way as a party and we lost touch with our cultural base."

Those refreshingly frank comments come from former two-time Progressive Conservative candidate Mike Waddell, as he reflected upon the results in last October's provincial election and the fact no candidate has yet stepped forward to replace Hugh McFadyen as PC party leader.

The Tory candidate in Brandon East in the past two provincial elections, Waddell has twice taken the spear for his party in a yellow-dog NDP riding. He has plenty to say about his experience and the state of the Manitoba Tory party.

"Winning by four or five thousand votes in a rural riding does us no good if we can't figure out why we're losing by almost as much in other ridings. All it does is allow us to deceive ourselves into thinking things really aren't that bad," he says.

"We need to confront uncomfortable truths and be honest with ourselves about the problems facing this party. We need to form a clear understanding of why Manitobans voted for PC party candidates before we can even attempt to understand why so many Manitobans didn't. Until we do that, we're stuck where we are."