Toronto-Danforth byelection - 4

Yeah, actually, that bothered me too, the mention of the kid's name - I forgot about that until you mentioned it.  It's not like his name was "John" or something.  Everyone would know exactly who he was talking about, and that kind of stuff gets around schools too once one kid hears it and passes it along.

These odd balls tactics shouldn't be discounted. They get Hedy Fry elected in Vancouver Centre and certainly didn't hurt Keith Martin in Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca. They don't injure Rob Anders in Calgary. Kevin Lamoureux's McDonald's hour is not a problem for him. Denis Coderre has not lost office despite his unflattering guignol on Laflaque. They helped Myron Thompson in Wildrose and Deborah Grey to become the first Alliance MP. Elsie Wayne dominated Saint John. In short, real characters can win real elections. They get people's attention and if quirks are not negatives and the other stuff is positives, it gets people elected.

As for Grant Gordon, I think his greatest flaw (tactic wise) is talking about being losers. Most voters hate a loser. The Liberals use to run whole campaigns on being "winners." It's damn tough spot to be in. Anyways, Grant is succeeding in getting noticed, and as an ad exec, he knows that's much of the battle, especially in a race the media (and others) want to ignore because the result is so dialed in.

Another place the result was supposed to be dialed in= Winnipeg North. Don't let this guy get anymore attention.

Howard wrote:

These odd balls tactics shouldn't be discounted. They get Hedy Fry elected in Vancouver Centre and certainly didn't hurt Keith Martin in Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca. They don't injure Rob Anders in Calgary. Kevin Lamoureux's McDonald's hour is not a problem for him. Denis Coderre has not lost office despite his unflattering guignol on Laflaque. They helped Myron Thompson in Wildrose and Deborah Grey to become the first Alliance MP. Elsie Wayne dominated Saint John. In short, real characters can win real elections. They get people's attention and if quirks are not negatives and the other stuff is positives, it gets people elected.

You forgot the most obvious/immediate example of all: Dennis Mills.

But as Lloyd Bentsen would say, Grant Gordon's no Dennis Mills.

The Cons don't expect to win Danforth but they want to get as many votes as possible. They presumably seek to attract some centrist voters who will choose between voting Con and Lib. Voters who switched from the Libs to the Cons gave the Cons their majority in 2011. The Cons need to keep these "Blue Liberal" voters and would like to gain some more. Running against Rae seems like a good strategy. The by-election is a chance to field test anti-Rae messaging.

The Tories were actually only a couple of percentage points behind the liberals in the may election in T-D - its not inconceivable that they could come in second.

Howard wrote:

 Grant is succeeding in getting noticed, and as an ad exec, he knows that's much of the battle,

Ad exec? Where? As far as i can tell he ran a one-man-band "agency" / ego trip that didnt make any money and didnt have any clients

Grant Gordon had his "telephone town hall" this afternoon with Bob Rae and Judy Sgro...with Bob Rae doing most of the talking.

It was pretty normal Liberal campaign stuff...campaign from the left and govern from the right.

However the one issue that discussed that had me puzzled was housing.  I am curious as to how Bob Rae was able to talk about the Liberal housing plan without losing his breakfast, lunch and between meal snacks.

The Chretien/Martin Liberal government spent over a dozen years in office and made "re-announcing" a national housing programme over and over again without ever delivering one into an art form.

Even more hypocritical was Judy Sgro also raising the issue of housing.  I mean Rae might be forgiven...he had another job at the time.   But Judy Sgro was a cabinet minister in that government.

ctrl190, radiorahim and I were a little further east, eating a delicious brunch at Morgan's, probably around the time you were sipping your pretentious beverage at The Only. ;)  So we missed them.

We had the telephone town hall radiorahim mentions above on speakerphone (on mute of course), so we were both howling at the phone at intervals, especially when that thing about the national housing strategy came up - or, indeed, any issue they mentioned that they had 12 or 13 years to do something about while they were in government and didn't bother, but really, they're going to do it this time, honest!

Rae did talk, however, about wanting to make it so people could buy into CPP more than they do already, in order to have a pension plan.  Not bad, for a Liberal. But, like a Liberal, they'll promise it and not bother delivering.

He also critiqued the NDP plan to remove the GST from home heating in order to provide relief to people with low incomes, and while he made a good point, he kind of missed the overall issue.  The good point he made is that such a plan would give more relief to people who can afford bigger homes, and he's right.  He also made the point that if you want to help people with lower incomes, then it should be through personal income taxes - lower rates for people with lower incomes and higher rates for people with higher incomes.  And I think he also said something about how he would increase the GIS.

However, the overall issue that I think he missed in his analysis is that when it comes to the GST, if, as he is arguing, it would be regressive to remove it because people with larger houses will get larger savings and if progressive taxation is better, then why not make that leap to considering sales taxes regressive, period?  (Although I do realize that the GST/HST is less regressive than if it was simply a flat tax on everything, since people with lower incomes get GST/HST rebates, and they spend a higher percentage of their income on necessities that are GST/HST exempt.)

I would personally just rather have much more progressive taxation and no sales tax at all.  But what the NDP is proposing (cutting the sales tax on home heating) probably isn't going to help anyone that much, including the environment.  People with comfortable incomes aren't going to care about the five bucks they're going to save on their gas bill.  Not to mention that people who are renting places with utilities included aren't going to see any savings at all since there isn't a snowball's chance in hell that landlords are going to pass the savings along, and most people who have low incomes rent.  So people with low incomes will either never see a gas or electricity bill because they're renting places with utilities included, or they pay utilities on very small places they either rent or own, and it will only be a couple of bucks per month for them too, which isn't going to help their situation that much.  Progressive taxation would help them much more.

Liberals so think Canadians are stupid - a national housing strategy - ha ha ha. I remember when my first child was a toddler and the libs were promising national child care and I actually wrote the liberal govt of the day to really encourage them to do it and how expensive childcare was - ha ha ha - so out of it - we'll be lucky if that adult-child now gets national childcare for her child - which she doesn't have at (but of now child bearing age).

Stockholm wrote:

Let's keep in mind that Toronto-Danforth  is the LITMUS TEST for Bob Rae's interim leadership. He was once MP for the riding and it is right next door to his current riding. The whole Liberal campaign there has been all Rae all the time. If the Liberals can't win Toronto-Danforth, then its proof that they cannot win anywhere and that Bob Rae does nothing for them.

Amen!

I don't think so, Stockholm.  I don't think the Liberals consider winning T-D to be a litmus test for Rae.  They know it will be just about impossible to win it this time out.  They didn't start early enough.  Mills won it because he had been campaigning in it and setting up a shadow constituency office for a year beforehand.  And I've also heard that the incumbent he won against was a bit slack (or perceived to be, anyhow) on the constituency work, so he capitalized on this (perceived?) weakness.  I didn't live here at the time so I don't know firsthand the details.

And don't forget, Rae won this riding when he was NDP.

I think the Liberals will consider it a victory if they just greatly improve the vote share, and I think they'll probably be successful at that.  I don't think there will be any 60% wins this time out, although I do think the NDP will win the by-election.

Stockholm wrote:

I knew the Liberals were in bad shape in this riding - but this is really sad. Is it just me or is this video by the Liberal candidate totaly bizarre and quixotic...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=AC86iUenZes

wow, that's really strange.

T-9, how goes it?

You know Uncle John, many people who aren't really politically engaged don't understand that. Now if the conservative voter believes that the lib is so weak that they may be able to boost their con candidate to 2nd place finish they will vote for their candidate but if not, they will vote NDP because they want to humiliate the libs.

janfromthebruce wrote:

You know Uncle John, many people who aren't really politically engaged don't understand that. Now if the conservative voter believes that the lib is so weak that they may be able to boost their con candidate to 2nd place finish they will vote for their candidate but if not, they will vote NDP because they want to humiliate the libs.

Seriously does anybody vote like that?  I hope to god no.  I'd be enticed to switch my vote to Liberal, in a place like Ottawa-Orleans or Ajax-Pickering where it would actually make a difference, but voting for a party who is completely against my beliefs to make another party lose by a larger margin is shameful.  Canadian's are not that bad.

Having grown up in Ontario and moved to BC - I can say that the Conservative/NDP dynamic is very interesting here and totally foreign to a large portion of Ontario. In much of Ontario there seems to be some sort of fluid middle, such that most Conservative and NDP ridings have Liberals coming second, and most Liberal ridings have in second place whichever party represents the side of the spectrum the riding leans towards from the centre. In BC the federal Liberals are truly persona non grata in most ridings. You also get these places like Burnaby and Surrey that attract a very polarized mix of right-leaning SUV suburban types and left-leaning bike/transit city types.

Which is why Nathan Cullen being from BC and putting forth a "coop pact" with NDP/lib candidate may a no-brainer in BC, and even out west in general but a no go in Ontario. I'd think ditto in the Maritimes too!

I completely agree with you Howard. I don't believe 1 plus 1 equals 2 and that when I look various Lib MPs who lost last time - well many of them were not progressive and to suggest otherwise, is to be played a fool.

I live on a major street in T-D and so it's a street where the parties are trying hard to get signs up.

Still, on my street NDP signs outnumber Liberal signs by about a three to on margin.  There are no Tory or Green signs.

Am off this week and just had a knock on my door from the Liberal campaign and the canvasser asked me if I wanted to "balance" my NDP sign with a Liberal sign.    I just smiled and shook my head no.

But, interesting to hear what the "line of the day" is at the door.

I would hope that there is a victory party planned for Mr. Scott on Monday evening.

Does anyone know where it might be?

I'm gonna predict that the MSM line on Monday night will be that the result will be a "setback" for the NDP if Scott falls anywhere at all short of Jack's 2011 vote percentage.  

How much for "Elvis Priestley", though?

Michelle wrote:

I'm positive that Scott WILL fall well short of Jack's vote percentage.  It's almost a sure thing.  Scott is not the leader of the party and is brand new so doesn't have anywhere near Jack's profile in the riding.  And even Jack didn't get 50% of the votes in the election previous to 2011 - he only got about 45% of the vote in 2008.

Gordon is campaigning heavily, and has some hard-hitting, excellent literature at the door.  The latest leaflet we've received continues on the theme of his original nomination leaflet where he appeals to voters from every party, in bright primary party colours.  Bob Rae has been campaigning heavily with him in this riding as well. 

The orange machine is hard at work here, and radiorahim tells me that most of the NDP leadership candidates have shown up to volunteer on the campaign.  But the red machine is hard at work here too, and it will make a difference to the outcome.  It's a completely different race than 2011.

The number of red signs on our street (a main street) is way, way up from last election, and they're ginormous red signs, not those piddly little ones that no-hope campaigns usually use, so they're pushing really hard here.  And I'm seeing red signs on the side streets too, although as RR says, a lot more orange signs overall (including the gigantic one on our tiny little postage-stamp front lawn).

Here's my bold prediction, which of course will be wildly inaccurate because I'm so bad at this:

NDP: 45%

Liberal: 35%

Conservative: 13%

Green: 7%

That's scary close in terms of the gap you project between the Liberals and the NDP. Such a shame if it happens because Craig Scott is an amazing candidate and Grant Gordon...well I'll be nice.

janfromthebruce wrote:

It is a shame but personally I have no idea why someone would vote for Grant Gordon. We got to make sure to get our vote out.

Agreed!

...and what if Craig Scott actually manages to match or even exceed Jack Layton's 60% vote last May? What will the spin/reaction be to that?