So...why wasn't Hochelaga closer?

The future is a longer time-frame than some thought.

There is reason to work towards it but perhaps it is better not to assume that the future is now.

But not Layton.

Jack said he had a 10 year plan for Quebec in 2003. He seems reasonably well on track. With some excellent candidates for the next election, things are lookin' bright for the NPD in Quebec.

Let the Cons & the Bloc battle it out in the rural areas, as realistically the NPD needs to mainly focus on urban Quebec.  

To me the key accomplishments here were to (i) pass the Liberals, and (ii) get a serious listen from labour and the local community groups.  They didn't endorse us, but NOTE: they didn't endorse the Bloc either.  I think Jean-Claude got a favourable reception from people, even those who weren't prepared to support him this time around.

Give Fred Wilson's column on the main Rabble page a read.  He's writing about the disciplined electoral strategy of labour in Québec.  The strength of the NDP now puts us in good standing with them if/when the Bloc starts to encounter difficulties.

By the way, I'm SO-O-O-O proud of the campaign they waged there, under quite difficult circumstances given that the municipal elections were eating up all the air time.  We had 1.9 percent of the vote in 2000.  Monday we got 10 times that amount.  That's huge.  Meantime, the Liberals dropped from 35.7% to 14.3% over the same time period.

Compare the 2000 election results in the Montreal ridings to the 2008 results:

                                    2000                                  2008

                        VOTES   SEATS     %             VOTES   SEATS     %

LIBERAL           580523     17     56.2           389552    12      36.3

CONSERVATIVE   53969       0       5.2           161111     0       15.0

N.D.P.                25651      0       2.5           139867     1       13.1

B.Q.                 288076      5     27.9           329577    10       30.7 

CAN. ALLIANCE    47949      0       4.7                    -      -            -

OTHER               36514      0       3.5             51908     0        4.9

TOTAL            1032682     22                    1072015    23

What do the figures show?

The Liberals have lost almost 200,000 votes, down 20% of voter support.

The Conservatives (P.C. & Can. Alliance) have had 8 years and 3 elections to win support, yet they have shown an increase of only 60,000+ votes, 5% growth.

The Bloc Quebecois have gained just 40,000+ votes, 2.8 % growth

The New Democrats have gained almost 115,000 votes, 10.6% growth, plus winning a seat where they had never come close ever before.

The result in Hochelaga shows that the Liberal slide is continuing.

It takes time to gain the trust of the electorate, and Jack Layton is doing what is necessary to earn that support.

What's happens next may depend on whether Gilles Duceppe decides it's time to leave after all.

Stay tuned!

Is the assumption that Duceppe is the only leader that can hold left voters for the Bloc?

Ken, I don't know if that's the assumption, but it's certainly the right question to ask.  I'd have to defer to folks who know more about Quebec politics than I do.  Anyone?

 I wonder what the NDP plan is for the massive Liberal assault that is headed their way.  It's going to get ugly.

No.  And neither are any other ridings in Quebec other than Outremont and Gatineau. 

Then again, even fewer are winnable for the Liberals.  And the Hochelaga result permanently discredits the idea that the NDP should feel obligated to step aside in Quebec in favor of the Liberals, a party that now agrees far more with Harper than with anyone who identifies as progressive.

I don't think that's correct.  There are still several seats in Quebec that the Liberals can pick up in the next election depending on what the numbers are.

And the Hochelaga result doesn't really say too much at this point - the NDP put a lot more effort into that riding than the Liberals and only finished slightly ahead.  In order for the NDP to displace the Liberals in Quebec it will need to beat them there in the next election.  THEN it could be argued that the NDP are on the move.

Considering that Outremont is already held by the NDP, to say "even fewer are winnable for the Liberals" is delusional, unless the NDP/Tories do to anglo-Liberals what Reform did to the Albertan PCs in '93...

Theres a lot of distance between 'delusional' and 'somewhat overstated'.

And as long as the Liberals are doing poorly in Quebec- as they have been doing since the election except for the very brief Iggy honeymoon- then they really do have no traction to gain any seats in Quebec.

"Doing poorly" for this purpose translates into 'not making any gains'... and they have been parked at there or worse.

I was pretty sure that the Bloc's emerged standing viz the Liberals is what made them complacent about the prospects of an election- as far as I could see, the only party that was. That was assuming of course that the Conservatives were finished in Quebec. Now that the bets are off on that one, I'll bet they get as gun shy about elections as everyone else is. But they still have every reason to be confident of their standing viz the Liberals.

"The NDP put in a lot more effort" is a rationalization, and an overstatement. The NDP put in a lot of emphasis, and a lot of noise, and some clever tactics. Its hardly like they threw in the kitchen sink- as with getting Outremont in that by-election.

And the Liberals putting in little is a reflection of realism: they don't get to automatically be the default federalist vote anymore. They never did do much in ridings like this.

There is every expectation that the Liberal vote in ridings like this will continue to erode- now that everyone has seen the proof and credibility, fewer will vote for the Liberals just because 'they are the ones'. This by-election was just the passing of the tipping point.

The NDP doesn't need to displace the Liberals in all of Quebec to displace them in a lot of the ridings. [Leaving aside the false and self serving standard you have raised here: since we all know the Liberals will not be dislodged from the west Island, it isn't possible for the NDP to displace them in Quebec holus bolus.]

Some french language columnists already think the NDP is on the move, and that Jack Layton is the only alternative prime minister:

http://www.cyberpresse.ca/le-droit/opinions/editoriaux/200911/11/01-920518-lecons-des-partielles.php

Meanwhile in other news, Denis Coderre is running for the Liberal leadership next time it opens up:

http://www.cyberpresse.ca/actualites/quebec-canada/politique-canadienne/200911/11/01-920810-denis-coderre-veut-diriger-le-parti-liberal.php [15]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/blogs/spector-vision/denis-coderres-back/article1360458/ [16]

I would have thought you guys had enough problems on your hands that you'd be too busy to come over and gloat at NDPers for their performance in Hochelaga, Debater. Will you be supporting Mr. Coderre's candidacy ;-)  Start spreading the news !

Who represents anglophone interests?  Anglo alienation may lead to a Conservative breakthrough on the west island, especialy if Harper looks to win a majority ( if you can't beat 'em...)  It bears watching.

Rosemont, Laurier-Sainte-Marie, La Pointe-de-l'Ile...any other than those 3?

The answer to the thread title will come in the next general election.  With the LPC adrift it will depend upon the strength of the new BQ candidate and the strength of the BQ campaign. The NDP could close up the gap. Its still the BQs to lose. The NDP candidate must be high profile, community oriented and seen as aviable alternative to the BQ MP.  Then the traditional Federal/Sovereign debate continues.

 interesting reading OO, and Coderre running now, so they are actually talking about "running", as opposed to "annoiting" again?

ottawaobserver, I find it annoying when you imply I am a Liberal PR person.  I do not work for the Liberals at this point in time, and have not for several years.  I am not supporting them at the moment, but I may again one day down the road.

As for Coderre, I'm not sure why he thinks he can run for the leadership after he deliberately sabotaged his own party.  His leadership aspirations are presumably finished.

Anyway, the main subject of this thread is Hochelaga and why the NDP did not receive a better score there.

The NDP vote in Hochelaga has gone from 2% in 2000 to 5% in 2004 to 9% in 2006 to 14% in 2008 to 20% in the byelection. Its called steady progress. Keep in mind that last year in 2008 the NDP had a multimillion dollar air campaign running in Quebec and there was a national campaign to get local momentum from. Its more challenging to build support in an isolated byelection in an area where the NDP has no historical base of support. I suspect that while the NDP candidate personally put in a lot of work and was out and about, the fact is that the number of actual NDP members in Hochelaga is still quite small and that in a very low turnout byelection that was vastly overshadowed by the municipal election - it was hard to get much attention. I think that without getting collateral help from a big national campaign - the NDP did well to increase its vote percent. If the NDP had run a phantom candidate, they would have come in third.

Meanwhile, i want to know what happened to the Liberals in Hochelaga? As recently as 2000 they took 35% of the vote there, then 25%, then 17%, then 21% and now 14% - and this from a party with a very powerful brand image among federalists in Quebec and under a leader who was supposed to be a big winner in Quebec.

The Libereals as official opposition  has vastly more resources to draw upon than the NDP - they have twice the staff, twice the money, plus about 50 senators who get paid fat salaries to do nothing but engage in Liberal Party partisan activities. What excuse do the Liberals have for coming in third? Why were the HUNDREDS of overpaid and underworked potentates at Liberal HQ in Ottawa sitting on their asses and doing NOTHING when there was a byelection happening just two hours away?

When all is said and done, the NDP got what it wanted out of Hochelaga. No one ever seriously thought we could actually win there - but even though some of us might have been hoping for 25% and not 20% - the media all seem to be reacting as if the NDP scored an upset by getting 20% and upstaging the Liberals. Whatever resources the NDP funneled into Hochelaga - it was well worth it for the fact that pundits in La Presse and Le Devoir and in English Canada are all writing stories about how the NDP has replaced the Liberals as the main alternative to the BQ in francophone Montreal.

Most people haven't tried to answer the thread title but I'll bite.

1) It is a work in progress: this is true. Going from ~15 percentage points to about ~20 percentages is a 33% increase in your vote. These are a lot of new voters. When you're running a campaign you don't know where these new voters are going to come from, where they are going to show up in the riding, where the potential NPD swing voters are. Once you start to figure that out, it is easier to do voter contact, build a base and make sure these supporters get out to vote next time around. The NPD, in general, knows very little (from a targetting perspective) about the Québecois that do or might support.

2) organisational infrastructure: the NPD has been so historically weak in Québec (and is still very weak today) that it has very little capacity for voter contact and GOTV operations. This capacity is even weaker if you are targetting francophones. In more anglophone ridings the NDP can cheat by bringing in its (larger number of) anglophone volunteers and workers (and phone banks) to do voter contact and GOTV, produce more (and better) media, and manage the campaigns.

3) information: despite great strides the NDP is still learning what makes Québecois voters tick, what issues will get them riled up, what issues are good in one riding vs. another, what the traditional voter patterns are, and how you break some (e.g. federalist vs. sovereigntist as opposed to left vs. right, or white collar vs. blue collar) of them.

4) unreasonable expectations: Hochelaga is deep sovereigntist country as far as Montréal goes. It voted Yes in the 1995 referendum. Jean Charest didn't even come within a country mile of winning it with the provincial Liberals in 2008. The last time anyone other than the PQ held the riding was a fluke one-time byelection win for the Liberals in 1979. Daniel Paillé, regardless of any negatives, is a big name and would have been well known as a former Pequiste cabinet minister locally. Jean-Claude Rochelau doesn't have that name recognition or political firepower. The only way you can possible win this riding is by absolutely running roughshod over the BQ/PQ machine.

V.Jara, your points #1 and #3 are very germane.  It is a riddle to figure out who and where to target, and how to do it.  And, I think it was also difficult this time to get much feedback on what might work, given the overwhelming preoccupation with municipal politics in Montreal during most of the campaign.  In the fallout after the municipal election day, there was barely a week to catch people's attention.  Our folks did the best they could (quite creatively, you'd have to admit), but probably needed a longer window.

On name recognition, though, I think Jean-Claude is as wonderful and well-known a candidate as we could hope for in Hochelaga.  I don't view the election as having been a rejection of his candidacy: to the contrary I think people were impressed with him, but not yet convinced to abandon their traditional party preference.

It should also be noted that Hochelaga was NOT the NDP's best east-end prospect. Here's the 2008 results:

Rosemont-La-Petite-Patrie 8,522 16.3%

Jeanne-Le Ber 7,708 15.7%

Laurier-Sainte-Marie 8,209 17.1% 

Hochelaga 6,600 14.4%

And one should not overlook the South Shore

Verchères—Les Patriotes 8,388 15.5%

Châteauguay—Saint-Constant 8,261 15.0%

Saint-Lambert 6,280 14.5%

Longueuil - Pierre-Boucher 7,021 14.0%

Chambly-Borduas 8,998 14.2%

Nor the North Shore:

Repentigny 8,853 (ahead of the Liberal) 15.1%

Rivière-du-Nord 7,187 (ahead of the Liberal) 14.5%

Terrebonne-Blainville 7,551 14.0%

Nor the interesting saliant to the south-east:

Saint-Hyacinthe-Bagot 6,721 (ahead of the Liberal) 14.0%

Drummond 7,460 16.4%

That being said Wilf, it was a particular disappointment to progressives, because the progressive Real Menard was replaced by the conservative Daniel Paille.

I think in the future the NDP targetting needs to consider going after the polls that voted Liberal in 1997 and 2000 but now vote BQ. I suspect these voters/polls contain the famed soft-nationalists that large Quebec sample polls indicate the NDP is able to attract. Sadly the riding (and some of the political scene) has changed since then, but I think the local campaign can provide a check on any undue extrapolation of outdated results on the basis of their own local knowledge.

Another thing that would help would be if the NDP had had some better nat'l policy issues to run on, namely with respect to the economy. I mean, most polls show that it has been top of mind for voters for well over a year and in BC the NDP had the HST to run against. In Hochelaga the NDP tried to improvise in a campaign that was focused mostly on Paille's resume (especially the out of riding part). There's nothing wrong with that, but it left the party without much to say on the nationwide issues of the day - a problem exacerbated by the NDP's rebalancing act post-propping up the Conservatives. So this is a byelection where the NDP really soft-pedalled the serious top-of-mind policy issues.

The NDP still did very well and probably remains on an upward trajectory in Hochelaga, but it will take some serious effort to flip a such a serious sovereigntist riding that until now no federal party has been able to crack.

ETA: One thing that helped Quebec Solidaire to defeat a powerful PQ incumbent in the neighbouring riding of Laurier-Ste Marie was several high profile endorsements by known sovereigntists or seeming soft nationalists. While the courting endorsements from known sovereigntists would be disastrous for the NDP, endorsements from soft nationalists or even just plain francophones (most of the high profile NDP endorsements in Montreal have been from anglophones!), would make a difference. For example, Claude Beland former President of Desjardins endorsed Quebec Solidaire in the last provincial elections and spoke at the NDP convention in Halifax. He would have been a big name that could have given Jean-Claude Rochelau a shot in the arm, among others. In the future, the Quebec unions really need to step up too. They fail to support Jean-Claude and conservative MP Paille is their reward.

Probably the one union with a real interest in doing so, the PSAC, of course can't because of its position as a public sector union.  But Paillé was the author of the new Bloc deficit reduction plan that advocates cutting the federal public service dramatically ... something the Conservatives could totally get behind.

P.S., one riding you didn't mention, probably because at 13.9% it was just under your threshold is Montcalm, where we have a fantastic candidate, Manon Perrault, who is a municipal councillor and disability activist.

http://www.lexpressmontcalm.com/article-394886-Le-NPD-consulte-dans-Mont...

BTW, it's so fantastic that we now have so many bilingual MPs from so many other parts of the country who can travel to Quebec and support these new candidates (the story above is about a visit Alex Atamanenko made, but a ton of MPs went to MIKR and Hochelaga to help out as well).

Another thing that convinces me that part of the NPD's lack of strength comes down to weaker organisation, fewer developed resources, is the fact that virtually every Québec riding that has had a byelection since 2006 produced above average results for the NPD in the 2008 general election. The one exception to this "rule" is Roberval-Lac St Jean.

Maybe if one were to "rationalize" the "disappointing" result re the hurdles one has to jump, potential NDP strength vs the Bloc in Hochelaga is a little like potential NDP strength vs the Liberals in York West.  Like, it's latently *there*, if you really want to go for it, but...

... it's more than a one-election thing (to finish your thought for you, adma).

I think the simple reason why the NDP didn't do as well as expected in the by-election is because this is babble.  Predictions on the electoral successes of the NDP on here tends to be rather optimistic, to say the least.

a few things:

1. hochelaga was a disappointment because while we expected to lose, we expected it to be close.  we hit probably every door in the riding.  we had every poll covered with a scrutineer, while the bq didn't even bother.  we ran a great campaign, and had the right sort of candidate.  and what happened?  at 7pm, we'd pulled only about 25% of identified voters.  our people just didn't want to get out and vote, while the bloc base did.  the ndp can't win this riding unless something changes really dramatically in the contours of the dominant political discourse, the ndp is a left v. right sort of party, or a clean up politics party, or a protest party, but the bloc owns those in places like hochelaga AND brings in that hugely compelling "nous autre" quality.  if the bloc goes hard right with the next leader, that's when the ndp has a shot at winning, rather than growing into respectable losing numbers.

2.  the best ndp riding in the province, the one going straight into the ndp column (assuming a compelling candidate) is laurier-sainte marie whenever duceppe retires.  it'll be tight overcoming the southern portion of the riding, but the plateau is just ndp turf, it's where mulcair wracks up the numbers to overcome the cote-st catherine and cotes des neiges and outremont (!) numbers.

3.  qs won mercier, not sainte marie-saint jacques.  that riding overlaps with those of mulcair and duceppe.

4.  it feels like the liberals are fucked in progressive montreal, which ought to help the bq in places like ahuntsic and jeanne le ber.  that said, the ndp's movement in montreal is impressive, but it's fragile. you just have this feeling that a lot of the people are trying the party out and that some (many?) won't stay.  a lot of the ndp volunteers are new to the party, some are looking to get in on the ground floor of a building movement, others like the idea of a progressive party (paille was a very very cynical choice - tossing a plutocrat into hochelaga and assuming that you'd win on the "nous autre" is really shitty), overall, though, it still feels like an anglo political party.

That's a good on the ground account. I guess the one ray of hope is that in a general election campaign, turnout (even in Hochelaga) is likely to go up to the usual 55-60% and maybe then the NDP at least gets a much better popular vote in the riding. Its obvious that in a totally francophone riding, the stakes in a BQ/NDP battle are seen to be way too low to get people motivated to actually vote. I think its clear that we underestimated the extent to which the municipal elections really sucked the oxygen out of the room.

I feel badly for the people who worked so hard on the campaign in Hochelaga and were hoping to do better. Its nice that the media is treating the NDP's 20% second place showing as a triumph - but I know that people expected a higher popular vote. I hope they don't get discouraged.

If its any consolation in a federal election, the NDP campaign in a place like Hochelaga will get a lift from being part of a national campaign that is on the news and running ads etc... It may be that in Hochelaga the NDP has the potential to do better when the campaign is more "nationalized" as opposed to localized

I think those people will be able to feel by the next election that they led the way, and like Stockholm, I hope they judge their accomplishments favourably.

ETA:  I also appreciated the detailed on-the-ground report, f-f-k.  Try hard not to feel disappointed; the effort will pay off later on, I'm sure.

Thanks ffk. I think the NPD still feeling like an anglophone party is an important point and a difficult one to overcome. The dominant political discourse has not been one of anglophones and francophones sitting around in a circle, holding hands, and singing Kumbaya. It's a tragic fact of Canada's sovereignty/federalist dynamic that otherwise progressive people have not been able or encouraged to unite over more common political "values" as opposed the language one speaks or the culture that one calls home. The people of Hochelaga deserve much better than Paillé, but perhaps he is just there for the moment. The NPD has made great strides since Layton became leader and it's important to enjoy and appreciate the progress thus far. Chantal Hébert makes this point rather forcefully in her latest column. I don't think Hébert is that far of base with the thrust of her commentary...the Liberals seem really lost right now.

ETA: I thought Mercier was almost completely in Laurier-Ste Marie. Is this incorrect?

I wouldn't be so sure of that, if only because the Bloc isn't simply going to throw away the seat upon Duceppe's retirement; you'd have to assume the BQ is headed for a ADQ-post-Dumont-esque swoon t/w oblivion to put LSM "straight into the NDP column".

Or if not that, there may be a "loony left" stigma grandfathered in from QS...

Thanks for the FFK, informative....how to keep those venturing in, in eh....

"there may be a "loony left" stigma grandfathered in from QS"

I doubt if that's the case. I think that whether people vote NDP or not, Quebecers see the NDP as a mainstream party that forms provincial governments and whose major figures to a Quebec audience would be Layton and Mulcair - who are well-liked and not at all seen as "go-gauche" (loony left) types.

Thanks FFK - I know it's a letdown when you work so hard and you hope for more, but in historical context, to finish 2nd in Hochelaga with 20% of the vote for the NDP is absolutely incredible! I was a QC NDP activist in the early 90s and we would have been over the moon to get a result like that.

A few thoughts on the results:

- As somebody posted earlier, Hochelaga wasn't in the top 3 NDP results in francophone MTL - it's really a hard-core PQ area and it's hard to see that riding going non-BQ as long as the BQ is still a sovereigntist party, i.e. they don't pull a federalist "beau risque" as the PQ did in 1984. 

- The NDP gains in Hochelaga came largely from the Libs staying home or voting NDP, so it's a consolidation of the federalist vote towards the NDP as the Conservatives have virtually no support.  If that happens across MTL, we can win ridings like Jeanne Le-Ber where the fed/sovereigntist split is more even, but it will take a fundamental shift in francophone public opinion away from the BQ to get the NDP to be truly competitive in ridings like Hochelaga.

- It was a good media hit to go after Paillé, but local candidates really don't make that big a difference in a safe partisan seat like Hochelaga.  For example, when Libby Davies retires in Van East, the NDP candidate will in all likelihood keep the seat even if the person is not strong, seen as too centrist, etc.

- Obviously, the turnout was abysmal and that always hurts the NDP worse than other parties.

Bottom line: it's encouraging and Rocheleau has lots of growth potential, but looking at it objectively, Hochelaga should not be a top priority for the NDP in Qc in the next campaign.  If there is a huge surge for Jack and the NDP is at 25% plus, then of course we should put everything we have in Hochelaga, but if the current trend continues - i.e. the Lib vote collapses towards the NDP in Montreal, then Jeanne-Le Ber, Ahuntsic, NDG-Lachine and Westmount-VM would be my top picks along with Gatineau.

The NDP would have to take, respectively, around 60%, 75%, 33% & 25% of the Liberal vote to win. The first 2 will have BQ incumbents, the latter 2 Liberal incumbents. 

WCL, I don't know Montreal so well, but isn't Hochelaga sort of a village within the city, where being a local candidate with longstanding in the community might be expected to count for something?  My sense is that strategically people in Quebec are trying to figure out where and who to target, but I'm not sure this by-election was the final word of that, given the very unusual situation of a highly controversial municipal election running at the same time, which sucked all the oxygen out of other politics.

The other thing that should maybe be considered is the "if" in your statement about the BQ's future.  Is there not something to be said for preparing the ground in the eventuality that things change suddenly in the party system in that province?  The fact of losing the Montmagny-L'Islet-Kamouraska-Riviere-du-Loup seat has put the future direction of the Bloc into question, with more than one commentator calling them long-in-the-tooth.  One of these days, Duceppe is going to leave, and there'll be an opening, so I would have thought it was well-advised to build a strong organization to take advantage of whatever opportunities come along.

I notice you didn't have either Bourassa (Coderre) or Papineau (Trudeau) on your list, by the way.  Aren't they two of the poorest ridings in the city?

Not exactly:

2008; 2009

BQ 22,720; 8,989

NDP 6,600; 3,444

Lib 9,442; 2,519

Con 4,201; 1,768

Green 1,946; 572

Others 774; 277

Rejected 644; 264

Did Not Vote 33,849; 60,827

So with the worst turnout in history, no party made real "gains."

We should be talking about the turnout problem.

The municipal election was a distraction, yes.

Did our anti-Paille campaign help drive down the BQ vote?

Did the gun registry vote help drive down the NDP and Liberal votes?

When the Conservatives were picking up votes in Kamouraska (well, actually, even there they lost 1,478 votes), why did they lose over half their Hochelaga voters?

...according to those numbers the NPD/NDP, were the only party to NOT lose over half of their votes in this election.

The rest lost well over 50% of their supporters/voters in the low voter turnout numbers.

I would like to see breakdowns on gender, to see who is not voting in the large amounts, or whether it is equal across genders.

I agree that we need to build for the long term and I think Rocheleau should be (and will be) supported with resources to keep a presence in Hochelaga and ensure a decent organization for the next federal election.  And yes, Duceppe's departure will be a game-changer that could benefit the NDP a great deal.  But for the likely spring 2010 election with Duceppe at the helm of the BQ, my comments and priorities still apply, IMHO, and that was the context in which I made them.

Papineau will likely go BQ if the Libs continue to collapse and unfortunately, Coderre is pretty well entrenched in Bourassa and won't be easy to dislodge.  The NDP still has more profile in the anglo part of Montreal and if we had a decent candidate in NDP-Lachine and Jeanne Le-Ber, or if Anne-Lagacé Dowson runs again in Westmount V-M, those could be winnable ridings for us.

I think a Spring election is very unlikely. Right now, I can't even see a Fall election being very likely. And so far I've been right in these predictions.

Not the place to get into that diversion. Just take as another reason that the "long term" might be sooner than people expect.

I also think that before the by-election loss the BQ was feeling pretty complacent about their prospects- with no plans to do anything but ride it all. They can instantly stop being complacent- but with no plans, that just means they'll be ducking and hiding more often. No one can turn on a dime to change that, least of an outfit that really is long in the tooth in every sense of the word.

Among other things, and the problems not at all limited to this, the fact he probably has no idea what to do and limited appetite for working on it, may hasten Duceppe's departure.

It wasn't so long ago that there was a lot of speculation that Duceppe was about the retire. I wonder what the latest is on that. The guy has been leader now for 13 years and through six elections, I wonder when he's decide that its time to pack it in.

For those interested in the political landscape of downtown Montreal, here are maps displaying the results - by polling division - from the most recent federal and provincial elections:

2008 Federal

2008 Provincial [49]

Thank you.  Very interesting, and great work, Krago.

Notice that if the 6000+ that had voted for the NPD in 2008 had voted in the latest byelection Jean-Claude Rochelau would have come very close to picking Paillé off. As such, I think my points about GOTV and voter contact/voter id operations stand.

Very interesting maps Krago. There is this thin tranche that runs across the Island from Laurier-Ste Marie to Ahuntsic where the BQ/PQ or QS does well. To the North and South of this tranche is Liberal support with the exception of Hochelaga and La Point-de-L'île, BQ/PQ fortresses. It is a bit of a fault line that generates some interesting swing-seat races.

personally, i think that when duceppe retires:

1.  obviously, as i've said, laurier sainte marie (assuming a strong candidate) goes straight to the ndp.

2.  the bq is likely to go right, to fight off the cpc, which is their main enemy at this point (and in the near future).  losing 1-3 seats to the ndp is one thing, losing 30 seats to the cpc is life/death... and the caucus, though largely progressive, surely well understands les enjeux.  incidentally, i half believe that the reason the bq lost riviere du loup is because they won hochelaga (the strategic decision to engage the ndp left them open to the cpc).

3.  the ndp is newly competitive in 3-4 ridings, and increased ndp vote across the city scatters the received wisdom in 3-4 more.  really, jack and his team (and mulcair too) must be licking their lips at the thought of a duceppe-less bloc.  outremont demonstrated to the ndp leadership how things can go when the bloc vote collapses into ndp vote, and a duceppe-less bloc (especially if he's replaced by some hick from the beauce or from quebec) could well collapse into a rump.  by the way, prediction: mulcair will expand his majority en route to a 3000 vote victory over cauchon.

4.  the montreal-based unions will step back.  the unions in this province are pretty savvy and the ndp has been doing good outreach.  the ndp ≠ qs, and there's really no question that once duceppe steps down, the unions will re-evaluate.  this is not to say that the ndp will suddenly get union support against the bq (that's a ridiculous thing even to consider), rather, that you'll have organizers and funds moving from the bq to the ndp, in the event of a paille leadership team or whatever.  these folks are more committed to social justice than they are to regional representation in the federal parliament.

also:

- hochelaga is indeed a village.  honestly, it's incredible to think that paille will last long.  really, it would be as if the ndp tossed the president of interfor into van east.  this guy will lose, and it'll probably be the ndp that takes him out, it's a matter of time, only a matter of time (years?).

- montreal is moving more to the left with each election.  this is a basically progressive town and it's moving forward.  the national question has fucked shit up for a while, but with the recession of the spectre of a referendum, it seems to be setting itself right, at the margins at least.  i hate to say it (hate), but liberal government is good for the left here in quebec.

- the way to keeping the people in the ndp is simple: the igg stays, duceppe goes, harper remains pm.  the worse this country gets, the more appealing jack becomes. 

- mulcair would be a great leader and could likely lead the ndp to a 1997 atlantic-style breakthrough.  this said, he has little appeal outside of montreal and maybe the gatineau - dude is an anglophone.  his name is great, it sounds like it could be francophone, but the media insist of pronouncing it in a way that makes it clear that he's anglo, and his french (though elegant) is very accented.  better to stick with jack and his workaday french (that he seriously needs to improve).

Careful, there! Robert Cliche was from the Beauce.

Some wonderful perspective in your post f-f-k; thank you so much for taking the time to assemble it for us.

Could I ask one question, then: are you suggesting that Duceppe is setting up Paillé as a possible successor?  Until you mentioned that (which I suppose would be obvious, come to think of it), I assumed it was probably Pierre Paquette vs Michel Guimond, with maybe a Monique Guay or Serge Ménard as possibles.  Is that a reasonable take from the outside?

"better to stick with jack and his workaday french (that he seriously needs to improve)."

I've heard Jack give speeches and be interviewed in French and I thought that the only way his French could be better would be if he was born again with French as his mother tongue. Back in 2004 he was a bit rusty since i think that for the preceding 15 years he had focused more on learning Cantonese than French. But more recently, I find his French to be about as good as can be.

- i think paille is definitely being set up as a duceppe successor. 

- jack has a great accent and he's great with slogans, but he can't speak french nearly well enough to communicate his ideas, and he's not nearly bilingual.  the last french debate provided some wince-inducing examples of this, and i'm pretty sure it cost us the outaouais seat.

Not too plausible; I think Paille is a straw man.

(Bad pun: Paille is French for straw.)

Good one Will!

"the last french debate provided some wince-inducing examples of this, and i'm pretty sure it cost us the outaouais seat."

Leaders debates are just about the most over-rated things in Canadian politics. Looking back at the 2004, 2006 and 2008 elections, I'm not convinced that anything that happened in any of the debates in either language had any material impact on the election outcome. In each and every case, the patterns and trends that were already there before the debate began just kept rolling and nothing changed one iota from what it would have been with no debate at all.

Once a generation there is some shock "defining moment" like Mulroney vs. Turner in 1984 that actually makes a difference - the rest of the time its a total anti-climax. And debates will only get even more anti-climactic because today's generation of politicians are so much more heavily coached that they almost never make the kinds of mistakes that happened in the early years of leaders debates when these "defining moments" occurred.

I think that within reason - voters in Quebec (IMHO) are not a bunch of amateur high school French teachers marking every sentence for perfect grammatical correctness and and voting for whoever gets the highest marks. Apparently in 1984, Ed Broadbent was seen as having done well in the French debate even though he totally mangled the language because people appreciated that he was trying so hard. In fact, I think that when Broadbent was very popular in Quebec it was a kind of Jean Chretien in reverse thing where people found his English accent endearing - kinda like how Anglo-Canadians often found Chretien's English endearing.

One thing for sure, Layton and Harper both speak French better than Stephane Dion speaks English! If Layton is the most popular leader in Quebec these days - he's obviously doing something right. Right now a higher percentage of Quebecers would like to be PM than in any other province in Canada.

well, some quebec voters were looking to the debate last time to get a sense of this layton guy they'd finally decided to consider.  these same voters came away very impressed with a stephane dion they had expected to be a didactic pedant.  back in 2006, harper's improved french during the debate was widely noted (lauded?) in the francophone press, and it certainly contributed to his surprise breakthrough during that campaign.  the media has truly distorted the function of the debate - turning into a scoring match and comparing points and so forth - but the average quebecois really does tune into these things to inform themselves less on the issues than on the extent to which the leaders feel right.  layton came into the debate with a lot of good press, but his french really didn't let him get much beyond the series of canned message box platitutes he tossed out.  he was a non-factor, unlike during the enlish debate the following night, when he turned in a bravura performance (the english debates is where we might talk about importance).

It will be interesting in the next election where all three federalist party leaders are anglophones and then we can compare Layton, Harper and Iggy. I've heard bits and pieces of Ignatieff in French and he sounds very snooty and French from France - but I haven't heard enough of him to know what his fluency is like compared to the others.

I am bilingual and grew up in Montreal, so here are my comments on the "3 anglos" and their French skills:

- Ignatieff: His French is "upper crust" and a bit France-French, but is of very high quality and fluency from what I've heard - the best of the 3 leaders overall, I'd say.  He has clearly lived in a French environment at some point in his life, and when Iggy speaks French, he seems to be thinking in French, not translating from English.  He occasionally stumbles but he is at home in French interiviews in a way that Harper and Layton's aren't.  His French is reminiscent of Trudeau's to some extent - the old proper French you heard on Radio-Canada in the 1960's. 

- Harper: He has improved quite a bit over the years.  He strikes me as a very diligent student who has consciously applied himself to learn the language.  He is effective in a limited range of topics and messages and he sticks to those topics.  His accent is so-so but he can get the message across.  He would not be able to carry on an informal conversation in French but he knows this and remains in his comfort zone for the most part.  His comprehension of complex questions is suprisingly good.

- Layton: He is both very comfortable in French, but also maddingly inconsistent in terms of vocabulary.  He has the Quebecois accent down pretty well and he knows the structure of the language better than the other 2 leaders.  He will sometimes use blatant "anglicismes" and fumble for words in interviews. He also has an annoying habit of using "NPD-French" translation terms like "Monsieur and Madame Tout-Le-Monde" that I don't think any real live Quebecois ever says.  My take is that Jack comes from Anglo Quebec, never went to French school and has been living in a virtually all-English environment for 35 years. Harper and Iggy deal with francophone MPs, staff, civil servants, etc on a daily basis and Jack doesn't have that experience for the most part. 

Jack needs much stronger francophone staff support and preparation to make a big impact in Quebec in the next campaign.  It's great to win the "Best PM" polling race but we still have 1 seat and it will be a challenge to hold that one, let alone make significant gains in QC next time.  The NDP still has a pretty low profile in QC overall so Jack's performance in the debate is much more important than for Harper, Duceppe and Iggy who get regular media coverage between elections anyway.

Absolutely perfect fluency in a second language to the point where no one can tell what your mother tongue is - is something that is almost impossible to master unless you grew up in a bilingual household with one parent speaking each language to you. So, I think our expectations of our political leaders have to reasonable. We are clearly at a point where not being able to speak the other language is simply not on for a national leader in Canadian politics. The days when a Lester Pearson or Tommy Douglas or John Diefenbaker couuld be party leaders and each speak virtually no French whatsoever - are long gone.

I don't actually know the whole story of how and where Layton learned French (I may see him at a function tonight - maybe I'll ask him!). He clearly learned more French growing up in Montreal than did a lot of other Anglos of his age. Going to elementary and high school in Montreal in the 50s and 60s (as he would have), you got maybe one hour of French PER WEEK and maybe more in high school if you took French as an elective - so the fact that he had some grounding in French to begin with makes me think that he must have opted for a lot of French classes in high school and maybe university. I know that he moved to Toronto in the early 70s and from then until he ran for the NDP leader in 2002, he would have had little or no reason to speak French - if anything, after he married Olivia Chow, i think he spent a long time putting more energy into learning Cantonese.

I think that since he's been leader, he has put a lot of effort into learning French and he goes on immersion courses every year and has regular lessons etc...and I think that each eection his French has been better than in the preceding one. I do know for a fact that he has a number of top people in his office who are francophone Quebecers (e.g. his press secretary Karl Belanger and many others). I also think that he can and will get more and more attention in the francophone media in the next election. I already find that more often than not I see more headlines mentioning Layton in La Presse than I do in the Toronto Star or the Globe! I also think that in the next election, the very fact that the French media is starting to pick up on Layton's personal popularity in Quebec will cause them to pay more attention to the NDP - esp. with the Liberals in such a downward spiral.

I also think that there is a better than 50% chance that Mulcair will not be the only NDP MP from Quebec in the next eection. I think there is avery reason to believe that Francise Boivin can win in Gatineau and she will be a great addition to the NDP's francophone profile.

With the next election being a while away it seems, it is too early to know what will happen in those seats.  There is no guarantee that Mulcair will be elected next time, and it's hard to predict what will happen in Gatineau as well.  It will depend on how all 4 parties are doing in Quebec at the time of the next election.  If the Liberals and BQ don't improve their Quebec numbers, the NDP may be able to have a good performance in those ridings.  But if the Liberal or BQ numbers start going up again and the NDP numbers level off, it may be more challenging for the NDP to win.

OK, well when that happens, I guess we can expect you back to predict the demise of Tom Mulcair.  For the moment, the smart money is betting the other way.

Debator is a typical Liberal.

Now that the shine has come off the latest Liberal rose, and as the Liberals continue to sink in the polls, watch for more and more of these Liberal hanger-ons, realizing that there is no friggin' way the Liberals are going to be involved in running the Canadian government for a long, long time, if ever again, that are usually there for pure business interests, to make themselves rich at the taxpayer's expense, to bail. 

All the smart bets are against the Liberals at this point. They are the only party sagging in the polls and the last set of byelections showed their support is soft. As such, these are the NDP's best bets for pickups if an election were held today:

Gatineau

St. John's-Mount Pearl

South Shore - St Margaret's

Palliser

Parkdale-High Park

Surrey North

----

Other ridings where I would drop some change in on the chance that things could go well:

Nunavut

Oshawa

Edmonton East

Beaches East York

Newton North Delta (assuming a nominated candidate)

----

The NDP will be in a fight to the death in:

Vancouver Island North

Edmonton-Strathcona

Welland

Sudbury

Saskatoon - Rosetown - Biggar

Burnaby - Douglas (perennial close shaves for the NDP here, the riding association deserves the Victoria Cross )

---

The NDP will need to carefully watch its back in:

Sault Ste. Marie

Outremont

Western Artic

---

If Jack didn't make a carefully planned stop in each of these ridings over the course of a campaign held today, I would be shocked. In fact, I think these ridings are likely to see a lot more of Jack Layton and other Dippers in the next little while. Some of them have already received a fair number of visits.

And the NDP now has an economic issue to hang the Conservatives in Saskatchewan on too. The NDP MUST develop a policy on the federal deficit (btw, the provincial ones are looking much more serious) or they are going to get road pizza-ed!

Though technically, Mulcair losing would also fit into that 50%+ chance that he won't be the only NDPer elected in Quebec, right?  (Just saying.)

For the moment, I'd say the smart money's hedging more likely than betting.

Sorry, you lost me adma.  In any event, I'd be inclined to bet on the two-time incumbent, rather than the former incumbent who refused to run in the last two elections.  Especially after the recent municipal elections.

Yeah, I'm not sure I can agree with ottawaobserver that people are all betting that Mulcair will win the next election.  I think commentators feel it's a tossup right now if it's a match between Mulcair and Cauchon.  And the election may not be for a while so it's hard to know how to predict it so far in advance anyway.

The safest assumption is that there are few truly safe seats for any party. While if I had to bet , I'd put my money on Mulcair but I certainly would prefer not to bet and would not consider him "safe" by any stretch. He has a better chance if the challenge he is facing is acknowledged.

While everyone's reading tea leaves in Outremont and Hochelaga, the real story is being played out in the GTA.  With Ontario tacking starboard, federally and provincially of late, rough winds could "shake the darling buds of May"...

Just a vaguely smart-alecky/pessimism-allowance observation addressing Stockholm's "I also think that there is a better than 50% chance that Mulcair will not be the only NDP MP from Quebec in the next election" point from the other end...

it seems to me that we shouldn't worry too much about mulcair's seat, without getting complacent.  basically, it's a certainty that unless liberal fortunes increase dramatically before the next election (a possibility), mulcair will increase his margin of victory over the liberal candidate, cauchon or not.  indeed, even if the liberals just duplicated dion's quebec score, mulcair would still increase his margin - the dramatic collapse of bloc support in the riding since 2007 couldn't but continue apace, given the bq's on island slide since 2008.  moreover, as we all know, mulcair is becoming more entrenched, the ndp is becoming more popular in montreal, and the recent municipal elections demonstrate that the riding's leftish voters are the more enthusiastic.  really, the deck is about as stacked for mulcair as it can get, absent some scandal touching cauchon himself.

also, just to be clear - layton isn't from montreal, he's from hudson.  huge difference. 

and wcl, nice analysis of the french.  personally, i go back and forth about how i feel the igg's french will play in any campaign.  owing to my time in france, i have a similar french (though my accent is much less identifiably cosmopolitan anglophone) and i find that the way i speak does tend to raise eyebrows; i'm very often taken for a foreigner, and i tend to consciously manipulate various inflections so as to blend a little better.  the igg going into a debate and pontificating in his particular way using this strange cosmopolitan accent will definitely cool some folks on the liberals.  as you mention, layton's accent is dynamite, but the guy really needs to improve everything else.  really, if improved his ability to speak to a harper level, with his accent, it would be hard for joe quebecois not instantly to feel some basic sympathy to his message (as opposed to the igg and darth harper). 

as a further aside, wtf the igg and his accent.  like jesus, pretty much every quebecois knows how one develops such an accent, and most would instinctively find it unseemly and even a little insulting that dude from toronto wouldn't speak the quebec french.

Thanks, ffk.  I guess my assumption was that the longer he was there, the better ensconced he would be.  You've provided a lot of the detail around that.  Sean is right ... no-one dare be complacent, but knowing how inclined the NDP is to protect its incumbents at all costs, I doubt they would be.

We need to remember that the NDP took the seat partly because of a great candidate, partly because the Liberals melted down and partly because of a HUGE ground effort. The Liberals are going to pour resources into the riding in the next election. Their candidate is a signal of that. If the Liberals want to and get their crap together they can outdo the NDP on the ground-- assuming they make the riding a priority. The Liberals also have a good candidate this time. So on those three factors that won the seat for the NDP it is now almost a wash.

In Mulcair's favour there is a huge recognition in the riding that this is a priority seat for the NDP and the NDP candidate is a senior New Dem that could at some point be tapped for the leadership. The influence gained from keeping this one NDP seat is greater than adding one more Liberal who-- at least for now is no more likely to sit on the government side of the house than Mulcair.

There are only two conditions that would make this seat safe for the NDP: the NDP come in to government or at least replace the Liberals as the main opposition party or Mulcair become the party leader. Neither is about to happen before the next election.

There is one other thing that could make the seat relatively safe for Mulcair. Cauchon sees the writing on the wall and decides that maybe running again isn't such a great idea afterall and the Liberals are left with a door stopper replacement candidate.

Its actually not that far-fetched. Cauchon wanted to run when it seemed almost certain that there would be an election this Fall. Now its clear we won't vote until Spring and maybe not until Fall 2010 or maybe even not until 2011. He may not want to put his life on hold for that long.

Ah, but he wants to be the next leader.  He has to get elected in the next election in order to run.  He's already pushed the last remaining candidate out of the way.  Now, mind you, he might change his mind before then, especially if it's several years off, but as of right now, I believe that's the plan.

According to what Jean Lapierre said on Question Period today, the NDP isn't going anywhere fast in Quebec right now.  He sees Outremont as being the only riding where the NDP is competitive.

Turner won the Liberal leadership when he wasn't an MP.  Have the Liberals changed their rules on that since then?

No, I didn't mean it was a question of the rules.  But it would be harder to have the moral high ground, if he passed up running again, given that he's sat it out a couple of times.  To have the moral authority to run for leader, you have to have been in the trenches when the going got rough.

Debater, you take all your political analysis from talking heads on TV.  If the NDP spent all its time listening to them, we'd have given up and packed it in as a party long ago.  I could hardly care less what Jean Lapierre thinks about what the NDP should try to achieve in Quebec.  Citing him as authoritative is what continues to make people on this board react so voluably to things you write here.  Remember, he is hardly a disinterested party either given his political history in two other parties in that province.  Jean Lapierre has an opinion, and it's worth listening to, along with those of many others, but that's about it.

If you want to continue to piss people off here, please continue to cite the opinions of mainstream media sources as definitive oracles of what will transpire politically.  What does Craig Oliver think, for example?  Oh wait, what about the editorial board of the National Post?  Or Susan Delacourt?  I simply must know, in order to know whether there is any point whatsoever in supporting my party ... so do tell ... Because they've ALWAYS been right before, haven't they !!!

jean lapierre can say anything he wants.  compare the quebec section in the novembers of 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009.  we're talking 10 fold vote increases in some of these ridings, massive increases in volunteer numbers, an mp and a close run in the gatineau, far more positive press and general public awareness, etc.  and that's not even counting the fact of having provincial and municipal corollaries quebec solidaire and projet montreal dislodge entrenched incumbents on the plateau.  think about that.  mulcair's seat isn't safe, but it's getting safer, and that's "going somewhere".  duceppe's seat will be very tough for the bq to hold whenever he leaves, and that's "going somewhere".  rocheleau scored his deposit back in that by-election, and that's "going somwhere".  you have a party taking the chains to both the bq and plc, you have a party that's becoming more and more francophone and local (though there's still a lot fo progress to be made there, no doubt), you have a party whose profile is attracting candidates and support from quarters that just 2 years ago would have been inconceivable, that's definitely "going somewhere".  it definitely takes time, but it's happening.  if jack could just get the french nailed, he could take the fight off island too (or at least take it further east on island).

Well that clinches it then. (roll eyes here)

Lapierre was being incrediably self-serving.  His views should be take with a block of salt, not a pinch.  And then there was the little issue of what he also said about the Liberals (which I took to be a bid for his resume pitch).  Which basically said the Liberals were dead in the water. 

He completely ignored what seems to be happening polls and those little by-elections held just recently.  Lapierre has shown an unerring record of self-interest and of getting it wrong time and time again.  His views are about as worthwhile as any old fart you come across in a group of old fart retired guys in your local coffee shop, probably less so.

Well as you pointed out, LaPierre pointed out that the Liberals are once again reduced to their Montreal fortress right now and are down in the rest of the province.  It's not as if he provided a biased view of the Liberals and said they were doing great.  He was frank about both the NDP and the Liberals' challenges in Quebec.

All the pundits like Jean Lapierre and Chantal Hebert etc... gave us their "ex-cathedra" views in September about the how the NDP was DOOMED and how they would never ever regain all the credibility they would lose if they didn't vote for the Liberal non-confidence motion etc...and today those people are all eating crow. So why should we listen to them now?

The commentators have certainly had to change their minds quite a few times over the past year about who is up and who is down.

In fairness though, part of that has been the volatility of the polls and the leaders going from being dead to alive and alive to dead.

If that's the case then I can read the polls and read the news and draw my own conclusions. i don't need Jean Lapierre to tell me what's going to happen.

If they were worth their salt as pundits, they'd be able to look ahead and see events and possibilities on the horizon that might lead the polls to go up and down.  The way you think about it, it's all passive, and they're just following the polls, and we're just to follow the pundits.

What horrible political strategy that would be.  The good pundits are the ones (usually the result of having some political experience) who can look ahead and see the possibilities, and even to have had long enough experience to be able to see the possibilities for other parties than the ones they were formerly affiliated with.  It's one of the reasons why I respect L.Ian MacDonald as a pundit, regardless of whether we'd likely agree on much policy.  He looks ahead and sees the strategic openings.

Funny how you 'forgot' to mention that part though eh Debator?

I actually thought the most dispassionate of the bunch was David Herle who clearly indicated there are no floors or ceilings for either the Liberals or the NDP.  He was optimistic of course, but at least he was dealing with today's reality and tomorrow's possibilities, not just looking at yesterdays assumptions.

So now debator is resorting to quoting Jean Lapierre, probably the biggest baffoon in federal politics in Quebec.

A little desperate, much.

Asking Lapierre for an opinion on federal politics is like asking Jose Legault if Quebec will separate.

The HST may just be one of these pivitol events. There are a lot of potential pickups for the NDP in Ontario and BC if the HST is a major issue in the next election.

I think Layton has seen the potential of the HST issue for some time, and worked to develop it in BC during the by-election.  I gather this past weekend at Provincial Council in Ontario, they launched some kind of joint federal-provincial anti-HST campaign as well.

Go back Debator several months to discussions here about Quebec, and look at the wisdom you praised in the pundits of your choice, and prediction ranges you made based on that. Then look at my resposes and equivalent predictions of the range of possibilities. Mine would still fit today.

That isn't because I 'happened' to be right. Its because some of us are more rooted in the longer term trends that don't change as much.

The HST has traction but the doubling seniors pensions is a no go. The Federal NDP gave Canada senior's pensions (back in a previous minority government) and it didn't so much as raise a blip in their next election numbers. Furthermore, the NDP is calling on doubling pensions at a time when Canada is running the largest deficit in its history! These aren't unemployment funds being rushed out the door to help the recession battered unemployed. These are pensions, which based on analysis of the economic stimulus in the US, were some of the least effective elements of the stimulus package (because recipients just banked the extra cash in their savings accounts).

What's the poverty rate amongst seniors right now, VJ?  Would that provision help folks who lost their pension/have no pension?

ETA:  It is the GIS we're talking about right?  So, it's income-tested.  Would that make a difference to your analysis, or is that what you meant?

A 'little' desperate?

Jean Lapierre was the Liberal M.P. for Outremont, whose resignation forced the by-election which the NDP won.

He's like the quarterback who leaves his team's playbook on the bench for the opposing team to find, thus winning the game, and then years later he comments on why his old team isn't winning like it used to.

Why anyone would think his opinion on Quebec politics would be worth listening to escapes me!

I have to agree with you that at this point in time the Liberals are not doing as well in Quebec as they were predicted to do earlier this year.  I also have to concede that as of now, some of my original predictions for Quebec are not looking too good.

However, I'm not sure what you mean by the "longer term trends that don't change as much".  The only long-term trend in Quebec politics is that things are always volatile.  Quebecers are a very fickle electorate, and who's up and who's down can change very quickly as we have seen over the past few years.

It's important to remember that things can change again by the time of the next election, or sooner.

By "longer term trends" I just mean people not making projections off the latest horse race figures. Those are very tentative anywhere- and people who make projections off them are usually in the category of using them to dress up wishes.

And it is a truism they can change again. But take note that what you observed as a [longer running] upward trend for the Liberals in Quebec has shown to be an extremely short blip ["My name in Michael Ignatieff."] in a long dismal run. Ditto for your prediction the Bloc is now in a slode further from its good  old days- rather than apparently in a plateau that is showing a lot of stability through all the changes [at least in relation to competing with the Liberals, if perhaps not the Cons].