BC May 12, 2009 Election Discussion (Cont'd)

Job Wave and associate programs for welfare to work, were never designed to work. They were designed to syphon off tax payer money to private enterprises, and CoC's and other orgs who advertised the programs. Plus in the minor role of tax payer money being doled out, businesses got 3 months of partial wage subsidy, which caused revolving doors employees.

And another guarantee that should go with that is that the NDP will continue to spin their wheels, alienating people who should be voting for them while failing to woo voters who view them with a deeply rooted prejudice.  If the goal is to peel off BC Liberal voters and get them to vote for the BC NDP then I would recommend a name change.  Maybe the 'Conservative Democratic Alliance'...

'If only we had a better communicator' doesn't really stack up either.  James hasn't been that bad at getting the BC NDP message out, everyone says she won the debate and she comes off as much more human and likeable than the creep we call Premier.  She has gone out of her way to suck up to Canwest and bashed her own candidates and the environmental movement but I'm not sure that can solely be blamed on 'her' communication skills, I think deliberate 'strategic' decisions by the BC NDP came into play there.

The BC NDP has muddied the waters on who is left and who is right, who is progressive and environmental and who is not, and I think that had more to do with the belief Stockholm articulated that they needed to appeal to rightwing BC Liberal voters than Carol James's communication skills.  The net result will probably be that the BC NDP has reduced their own numbers and not the BC Liberals at all.

She did not bash the environmental movement, no matter how many times you repeat it, it is not factual, she said she was going to ignore the pretend environmental movement (paraphrased). Which is where I guess you have decided to put yourself. Nor have the BCNDP muddied the waters inrespect to who is progessive and who isn't and who isn't environmentalists adnd who is, but the Green Party sure as hell has supporting Gordo and their Reform platform.

All right then, let's focus on really solving climate change -- and why Berman and her allies are dead wrong.

See this thread too [16]

From this thread [17] that you appear again to want to try and completely ignore now it is closed:

The list for Endorsing Organizations,Groups and Representatives is:

A-Line Communications (Vancouver, BC)
Apple Tree Productions Inc
BC Citizens for Public Power
BC Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines (Vancouver, BC)
BC Federation of Retired Union Members
BC Government and Service Employees' Union (BCGEU)
BC Guardians
BC Peace & Global Educators, PAGE
BC Teachers' Federation (BCTF)
Blewett Conservation Society (Nelson, BC)
Burke Mountain Naturalists (Coquitlam, BC)
Canadian Office & Professional Employees Union 378 (COPE 378)
Canadian Union of Public Employees BC (CUPE BC)
Cariboo Chilcotin Conservation Society (Williams Lake, BC)
Citizens Against Urban Sprawl Society (Mission, BC)
Citizens United to Save the Peace (Fort St. John, BC)
Community Action Coalition of Burnaby (Burnaby, BC)
Comuna of Consejo Indigena Popular de Oaxaca (CIPO) in Vancouver
Councillor Andrea Reimer, City of Vancouver
Councillor David Cadman, City of Vancouver
Councillor Karen Rockwell, City of Port Moody
Councillor Paul McDonnell, City of Burnaby
Councillor Pietro Calendino, City of Burnaby
Councillor Sav Dhaliwal, City of Burnaby
Councillor Tom Duncan, City of Duncan
Council of Canadians
Council of Senior Citizens Organizations
Council of Senior Citizens Organizations (Sunshine Coast Branch)
Friends of Bute Inlet (Discovery Islands, BC)
Friends of Eagle River (Powell River, BC)
Golden Branch of Wildsight (Golden, BC)
Greater Victoria Water Watch Coalition (Victoria, BC)
Impact on Communities Coalition (Vancouver, BC)
Indigenous Action Movement (Vancouver, Coast Salish Territory)
Interfaith Summer Institute for Justice, Peace and Social Movements
(Burnaby, BC)
Kelowna Citizens for Public Power (Kelowna, BC)
Kelowna KAIROS (Kelowna, BC)
Malaspina Communities for Public Power (Powell River, BC)
Mothers Against Power Poles (Delta, BC)
New Media B.C.
North Columbia Environmental Society (Revelstoke, BC)
Parksville/Qualicum KAIROS (Parksville, BC)
Pitt Polder Preservation Society (Maple Ridge BC)
Purcell Alliance for Wilderness (Argenta, BC)
Salmon Arm KAIROS Committee (Salmon Arm, BC)
Save Our Rivers Society
Secwepemc Native Youth Movement (unceded Secwepemc Territories)
Seniors For News On The Bright Side (Vancouver, BC)
Shuswap Environmental Action Society (Chase, BC)
Social Justice Group, St. James Anglican Church (Vancouver, BC)
Society Targeting Overuse of Pesticides (Victoria, BC)
South Asian Network for Secularism and Democracy (Burnaby, BC)
Streams of Justice (Vancouver, BC)
Toxic Free Canada
Union of BC Indian Chiefs
Victoria Raging Grannies (Victoria, BC)
Watershed Watch Salmon Society (Port Coquitlam, BC)
Western Canada Wilderness Committee
Women Elders in Action (Vancouver, BC)
Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (Vancouver, BC)
2010 Watch (Vancouver, BC)

Unity in Opposition to Private Power Projects [18]

I'm sorry to break the news to you, but the only way that a progressive government will EVER win in BC is if the proportion of voters supporting the Socred/Reform/Conservative/Liberal/Alliance party can be brought down to significant below the 46-47% they seem likely to get in this election. I suppose that if you are on the far left, it is distasteful to come to grips with the fact that the NDP has to either attract that sliver of soft BC Liberal voters or never win another election. There is no point in trying to win over NDP/Communist party swing voters - there simply aren't enough of those people to win an election, you have to attract swing voters in the centre. Sorry but that;'s the way it is.

Isn't there supposed to be a huge pool of far-left non-voters, who would be motivated to get out and vote if only the NDP moved further to the left? I think I heard that somewhere...

Or, obviously, the rightwing vote has to split significantly.

I don't think the numbers of far-left non-voters would do it. But I'm quite certain there are enough non-voters to make the difference. When every vote counts, more people vote; typically 8% or so more.

In my experience conservative voters are quite civic-minded; they turn out and do their civic duty even in safe conservative seats. That's why municipal elections, with low turnouts, so often elect conservatives.

Young people, working people, poor people, and others with marginal attachment to the electoral process are more likely to say "why bother voting." And more often than not, they are correct.

A fair, proportional, voting system would result in a lot more voters voting.

And a system like BC-STV would even count Green Party votes, most often by counting their second choices. 

Sorry Wilf, but your post is internally inconsistent. On the one hand, "civic-minded" conservative voters turn out and (surprise!) conservatives get elected. Then you say that it is "correct" for young/working/poor people to say "why bother voting". Seems to me your own example belies that premise and creates a self-fulfilling prophecy - conservatives get elected because people more likely to vote for progressive candidates don't bother voting. Of course, if those people actually bothered to vote, the result might not be preordained. The only way your vote "doesn't count" is if you don't show up. Maybe if some of these progressive-leaning voters were a bit more "civic-minded", as opposed to (with apologies to Aaron Sorkin) "so howl-at-the-moon, lazy-ass stupid that they can't even be bothered to raise their hands" we might elect more progressive candidates.

I apologize if my comments sound harsh, but I really have no time for the excuses that are trotted out for people who don't vote and then complain that they're "disenfranchised" and "marginalized": "I voted but my candidate didn't win! My vote didn't count! Boo hoo, I feel so disengaged from the political process! I'm just going to stay home and play XBox next time - that'll show 'em!"

Meanwhile, when the BC NDP won two byelections in November, the excuse from the BC Liberals was that they lost because the turn out was so low and their people stayed home!

Young people, working people, and poor people form the great majority of the voters - I mean people who do vote, not just those eligible to vote -  in almost every consittuency.

I mean how many middle-aged or old, non-working, aflluent people are there anyway?

Another manifestation of the left mindset that if you vote Liberal or Conservative you can't really be young, a worker, or poor.

Na, they do not sound harsh, and I agree that those whining their vote did not count  and are thus are marginalized or disenfranchised, need to get a freaking grip on reality.

I have stayed at home, though not because of falsely perceived disengagement, and I found out how counter productive it was to myself.

Young voters are thinking

http://www.miss604.com/2009/05/candidate-interview-with-carole-james.htm...

She does have a point.

James makes appeal to environmentalists

That is too ff, Sterk slams James for trying to poach Green Party voters, while the Green Party has poached most of the BCNDP's long held activities, actions, and platforms in order to try and poach NDP votes. Never doubt the hypocrisy of Reformatories, I guess.

Well, just went and voted, and my goodness  there was a line up out the door, in this small community, and this was before 8:15 and parents were in there registering with their children who are now 18 and over and who are first time voters even.

And interestingly, people who had just finished voting were actually outside asking others coming out, if they too had just voted NDP,  in fact I did not see anyone who didn't join the group outside. And then the "get rid of Gordo" rants started, and some of these were people I thought for sure would be voting BC Liberal, or even Conservative. I hope this scenario is being played out across the province. Even more interesting were the rants against Gordo that I had not eve heard about.

"Sterk slams James for trying to poach Green Party voters"

Sterk is so weak and ineffectual that I thank that being "slammed" by her is like being hit over the head with a feather duster!

I don't know Stockholm. Some people may have serious allergies and a feather duster might put them in hospital. But I guess we'll see how toxic the duster is tonight won't we?

Then there is the amazing power of propaganda. Maybe I live too far away to understand how BC could even contemplate returning Campbell to power.

BC people are fed a constant diet of anti-democracy propaganda screed form the msm media outlets.

If Ontarians were willing to re-elect Mike Harris in 1999 after the unspeakable horrors he was responsible for and after the forced amalgamations, the gutting of health and education, the days of action etc....then anything is possible. Americans re-elected Bush in 2004 too!

I don't like to carp about the press or the media being unfair, but in BC it really is an extreme case. At least when it comes to national politics or Ontario politics there is SOME variance in what the media feeds us - what with the Toronto Star or the Globe or the CBC etc...it may not be much but at least it isn't liek BC where the media 100% monolithically owned by Canwest and essentially works as a virtual arm of the BC Liberal party.

Correction - Bush was not re-elected.  In order to be re-elected, you have to have been elected the first time.

I was surprised, a little, by the difference between the MSM propaganda in Manitoba and the MSM propaganda in BC. There is a difference; the very right wing views in much of the corporate media on Vancouver Island, e.g., is in jarring contrast to the views of many of the people that live here. The class warfare is more advanced here, and the boss class has many more victories under their well-fed belts than do working people.

Normally when the class warfare is more advanced people are more aware of it and people are less likely to identify with those they have a common interest with- this should worry the elites not make them safer.

Often we have class oppression without a class war and people become co-opted by the propaganda.

Nbeltov, here in BC it has gone past a state of simple propaganda, it is nothing more than blatent anti-democratic actions, It is pretty damn bad that I have to listen to Alberta CTV to get a more balanced view of what is going on.

People here are more than co-opted by propaganda, and then there is the whacked out fundamentalist religious vote that is fiull of propaganda from their churches. However those churches are moving into NGO areas so their congregations are being employed, while others are not.

That's a little garbled, Sean. I think people can be more aware of class conflict without being offered any political leadership to make sense of it and thereby resist further attacks. Without fighting leadership people become demoralized and inactive.

This election is an opportunity for stirring the pot and may succeed in raising awareness of the need for a fightback. If the NDP wins then I see a mixed bag in the new regime. I would expect James to move further to the right once in Government. If the Liberals win, then I see more assaults and MAYBE more of a fightback in response. The data on voter turnout, and on the STV referendum, should be interesting.

Harvey Oberfeld, a retired BC journalist, noted that there is a chance that Campbell may lose his own seat. Now that would be satisfying.

Where I am there is a lot of militarized thinking. I miss the Winnipeg Peace Walk. Perhaps I should start my own out here.

Oh would that be sweet!

Is it too early to start drinking yet?

Have their been any individual riding polls of the high-profile races?

I'll have my premier on Toast Please as I ate my problems for breakfast and I though he would do fine for lunch.  Which makes me think of the kids in my neighborhood who are either eating garbage, expired food or going with out.  As Children Cry, "Please Mr. Campbell don't take our teachers," our futures, our dreams or the food out of our mouths as they posted their crayon type posters in my neighborhood for us all to see.  It was sad for me as I looked back from on my bike and seen the poor little signs all for the worse and they had been rained on.  And its cuts like a knife to their futures which is the future of BC and how important is that?  As important as you want it to be so chop, chop lets go Axe those Liberals.

He is not my premier so do not need him on my toast. I'd be satisfied if he were toast.

I don't thinkgarbled - although perhaps we just disagree.

I think there is a correlation between the degree people see issues as a class conflict and the degree to which they identify with people of the same situation and recognize those issues in policy. This is fairly basic from Marx's conflict theory. I don't accept that in BC there is not a recognizable difference between the NDP and Liberals. The all parties are the same canard is one fed by selective individual policy comparisons but it does not hold up when whole programs are compared. The more people see that those who are of radically different means have little in common with them and lack common interest, the less they will identify with the MSM tripe that what is good for the capitalist elite is also good for them. Once they do this they can recognize in NDP social policy enough differences -- even without any presumptions of perfection-- to justify not voting for the Liberals. That this has not happened is a symptom of the fact that we are not there yet and people still buy the crap.

I also think that this like of identification by ordinary people of the party that has the greatest shared interests with them also delays that party's development as we are less able to focus on individual issues the party has to get right and is not there yet while we fight obvious political ideology wars with people supporting those who keep them down.

Hopefully come 2013 the NDP will have a better leader, be more organised so they can win. I am shocked Oppal won by so much as well.

Well, BC is lost, Green Party has fulfilled their function, and thus bear culpability for what will now happen.

Knew they would get less than what polls showed, and indeed they got well less than 10%, though they got just enough to play the spoiler, well done at returning Gordo to power and destroying the province environmentally. Congratulations on your win, that will be a loss for us all.

STV is going down to a resounding defeat along with the Green Party. Says much actually.

.

Conservative party leader finishes in 3rd place in his riding

Why would the NDP replace a leader who got more votes than Harcourt, Barrett or Clark and who increased her popular vote every time out?

How about all those babblers who declared Carole's stance on the carbon tax would ruin her?   She got more votes.

Who's to say those green voters would have all voted NDP.  Liberals had the carbon tax, Greens are in favor of that type of thing.  Even if the green vote was split 50/50, Gordo wins still.  It appears a larger portion of the BC population likes Libs more than Dippers and the voter is always right, whether we like it or not.

They wouldn't

Nice to see places like Prince George-Mackenzie voted Liberal.  Geez, is there something in the water up there?

CBC Projects that STV Fails

Come on the people in PrinceGeorge-Mackenzie exercised their right to vote as the saw fit.  Ya have to live with the results and not insult those that voted differently than you. It's not the water, it's the message that they heard that had them elect the person they did.

Oh grow up, no one was questioning their right to vote.   But if half your town has either moved away or is packing and you vote for "4 more years!" then I hope they won't mind if I don't shed a tear for them.

No one is asking you to shed a tear, these people will live with their vote.  It is obvious that 55% of them like the Libs, live with it.  It has no impact on your life how that community voted just as your vote has no impact on their community.

Actually, as long as Mackenzie is part of BC their vote does have an effect on me and vice versa.  I didn't see it but I hear Joy Macphail was pretty shocked at Mackenzie too.

I thought the NDP's axe the tax campaign was going to deliver the vote outside Vancouver? 

Carole's speech about working together with Gordon Cambell was a pretty good example of why the NDP has been such an ineffectual opposition.

Electoral reform got defeated so we are guaranteed to an eternity of more whining about splitting the vote from whichever party is in second place in the polls.

Just a few observations:

- The NDP failed to make gains in the Interior, and may even have a loss or two. It appears those voters reacted with fear to the economic collapse. I didn't expect this to this extent, but it shows what a city dweller I am.

- Suburban Vancouver was better for the NDP than expected. I don't think there are any loses, although no more than one or two gains.

- We must throw out the notion that there are more wasted Liberal votes. Look at the huge majorities many NDP MLAs received. At the same time, look at places like Chilliwack or some Okanagan seats to see smaller Liberal pluralities. The NDP vote is no longer efficient.

- The Greens are fading away. As I mentioned earlier, it was an abysmal campaign. There is nothing good for them here. If they elect another ineffective leader they will get thrown out of the debates.

The winner is Angus Reid and online election polling. It looks like the popular vote will end up being quite close about 45.7 to 42.2 - and they projected 44-42. All the telephone polls were projecting a big Liberal lead of 8-10 points.

[sarcasm]But...but...anybody can vote multiple times in these "push polls" [sarcasm]

I'm delighted to see the so-called Green party crushed like a bug on the sidewalk.

Correction: the NDP won Stikine, so did gain an interior seat.

Considering how close a lot of ridings were its pretty clear the Greens had an impact.  Too bad the BC NDP did such an awful job of crafting a message capable of winning over swing Green voters. 

It'll be interesting to see what direction the two parties go.  Hopefully, this is the end of Sterk, with a charismatic young left leaning leader the Greens could become a factor especially if the NDP continues its bland rightwing drift.

The pundits in BC claim the NDP has moved to the Left under James and needs to move to the centre in order to gain power.  Babblers say the party has moved to the Right and needs to move Left to gain power.

Strangely, I disagree with both.

- In fact, the Greens were the key factor in the NDP loss of what was clearly a winnable election.  Just look at the NDP-Lib gap in - incumbent losses like Vancouver-Fairview and possibly Cariboo-Chilcoltin and incredibly close NDP 2nd place finishes in Oak Bay-Gordon Head, Comox Valley, Vancouver Fraserview, Burnaby North and you'll see the Green vote is equal or less to that gap.  Combine the Green vote-split with an abysmal voter turnout (50% province wide, a record low) and it's clear the NDP had a path to victory if they could have inspired more young people to vote and unified the anti-Campbell vote by siphoning Green support.  Yes, I do claim that "axe the tax" lost this election for the NDP and Carole James.

- The NDP vote went down 2% in the Interior, was flat in the Lower Mainland and went up 3-4% on the Island (the NDP is leading Murray Coell in Saanich Gulf-Islands, which is absolutely incredible!).  The axe-the-tax campaign did absolutely no good for the NDP in the North and Interior - we couldn't even win Kootenay East against the loony redneck Bill Bennett, even with the Conservative leader running in the riding.  Angus Reid said on CTV that the "axe the tax" campaign was the worst political blunder the NDP ever made, and he's correct.

- This was the last campaign for both James and Campbell - Gordo will stay for the Olympics and then step down within a year.  Carole's speech and body language tonight signalled to me that she won't be running again and she said she would "reflect on her future" in scrums.  Yes, she did increase her vote in 2005 and 2008, and she is a very strong communicator and campaigner, but she has violently alienated a key part of the base and we won't get the small-g green voters back until James is replaced. 

- The carbon tax is here to stay - by 2013, it will be at $30/tonne and just like the GST, it will be impossible to find a politically acceptable alternative to raise that much revenue.  Carole didn't mention ax the tax in her concession speech tonight and I don't think you'll hear those 3 words from NDP reps in the future. 

- STV and electoral reform are dead for the next 10 years at least. 

"Considering how close a lot of ridings were its pretty clear the Greens had an impact.  Too bad the BC NDP did such an awful job of crafting a message capable of winning over swing Green voters. "

That's not true at all, the Green vote got driven down to less than 8% of the vote even less than in 2005. That is the core "none of the abive" vote - there is virtually nothing left to squeeze from that.

Stockholm, if you think the Greens didn't have an impact then you aren't looking at the results by riding.  West Coast Lefty has provided a good list in the post above, educate yourself.  The NDP fucked up, they alienated voters who they needed and it cost them. 

There is a lot of good news for the NDP in this election - they are deeply rooted in many parts of BC, the incumbents did a great job in holding their seats, and they can form a vigorous oppostion to the Campbell government.  Strong new MLAs like Lana Popham in Saanich South and Michelle Mungal in Nelson Creston will help renew the party and build bridges to the environmental movement.  It will be harder for Gordo to get away with more draconian cuts to programs with 37 NDP MLAs on his back.  With a strong new leader in 2013 who has a positive message of hope and environmental sustainability, the NDP will have a very good chance of forming government next time.  What won't work is more "Gordon Campbell is evil" "ax the carbon tax' negative messaging- people are sick of that approach to politics, and that is what drives vote-splitting with the Greens and record low voter turnout.

So,  as I said, if James had conceded on axe the tax and if she had supported stv if it got 50%, stv would still have lost, she would have got a tonne of extra green votes and the votes of liberals who believe in one person one vote in referenda and might well  have won.

Good old Carole.  When the left has friends like Carole James,  it is easy for sleaseballs to win. 

You can agree to disagree with Sazukki but you know what, he will still have a job in 6 months.

And the people of bc chose the carbon tax.

No matter what the NDP says or does in a two party system, 8% voting none of the above/so-called Green is as low as it will ever go. If the Green vote was 15%, ou MIGHT have a case, but at 8% NO.

"but she has violently alienated a key part of the base"

People who were upset that the NDP didn't support Campbell's policies may be a lot of things but they are certainly not the NDP's "base".

"The NDP fucked up, they alienated voters who they needed and it cost them. "

They didn't gain the support of voters who wouldn't vote for them anyway but did gain votes overall.  More votes than Clark, Harcourt and Barrett.  The NDP did a great job and I hope Carole stays on for another 4 years.  Maybe the best leader the NDPO has ever had.

Negative ads work.  The Liberals have been very negative going right back to 1996.  Every election the airwaves are full of Liberal attack ads.  They do it because its successful in framing the NDP.

This is awfully presumptuous.

You can list off any riding where the NDP and Green votes combined exceed that of the BC Liberals and draw the same conclusion. But you haven't even come close to proving that these Green voters would have voted NDP had Carole James just supported a carbon tax.

Given that this was a worse result for the Greens than even the 2001 election, I'm willing to guess that the ~400-500 or so people in places like Cariboo-Chilcoltin who voted Green are pretty much dedicated to the cause.

In the end, I don't think the carbon tax played a significant role. It was all about the economy...err, stupid

The NDP pretty much got the vote that it had last time. Perhaps more of the vote was about electing popular incumbents, which balanced off votes lost due to various disgruntalments (carbon tax, etc.).

Very few of the affirmative action candidates did well. This policy will hopefully go with James. It's time for James to go, along with the backroom boys and girls. Its not really left or right, just clearer thinking that's needed...and some nerve.

The upside is the NDP will not have to bare the burden of the what will be the worst economic downturn since the 30s. It is just beginning.

Woops double-post!

What a load of BS, Stockholm! You are usually so detailed in your analysis of election results but you miss the key Green factor in the riding results tonight.  Look at Lana Popham winning Saanich South for the NDP  - while the Greens get 10-12% in most of the neighbouring ridings, she holds them to 6.5% because she's a well-known enviromentalist (who reportedly vehemently disagrees with the ax the tax campaign in private and did not use that theme in her local campaign) who campaigned on climate change and food security, and won the seat by 400+ votes. 

Next door in Saanich North, the Greens got over 11% of the vote and the NDP and Libs are tied (Coell will unfortunately likely win this race when all votes are in). In Vancouver Fairview, the Greens get nearly 10% of the vote (over 1700 votes) and the NDP incumbent loses by 600. In Oak Bay, the NDP is just 300-odd votes behind and the Green got  1824 votes! You can't tell me that we couldn't have got 300 Green votes to switch to the NDP in Oak Bay if Carole had backed the carbon tax and put forward a credible climate change plan. 

It is much easier to get an existing anti-Liberal vote to switch to NDP than to get an existing Liberal voter to reject his/her current choice and also support the NDP - Lib voters are firm and committed, and Green votes are uncertain and liable to change their minds, how can you possibly say there is "nothing left to squeeze" from that voting block? That is the kind of thinking that will keep the NDP in opposition forever.

Try living in the real world instead of some drug-infested swamp. This is about the most idiotic comment I have seen since the results started coming in. This election, for those who are capable of rational thought, is obviously an unmitigated disaster for the NDP. James is done like dinner, and so is the party until wholesale changes are made.

Do you have a link for that?  Looking at Elections BC, granted all the polls haven't been counted, it looks like the NDP's overall vote will be lower than 2005.

Give me a break. There is no upside - what part of this do you not understand? We will now have four more years of uninterrupted right-wing government, to add to the eight previous years. Please give your head a shake.

Maple Ridge-Mission - two polls left and NDPer Mike Bocking is ahead by 4 votes.

With 117 of 117 polls in, Wally Oppal declared elected in Delta South by 2 votes (9619-9617) over the independent. In Maple Ridge-Mission the NDP leads the Liberals by 4 votes with 2 polls remaining (7727-7723)

WCL, for what it's worth, I agree with Stockholm. Even if Carole James and the BC NDP were able to tap into even more Green support than they already did (and I think that there is a 5-8% core of voters that vote Green and are a lot less uncertain than you think), there's no telling how much more support they could have have taken away and how it would have helped electorally. Even if the NDP had picked up an unrealistic five of the six seats you mentioned (Vancouver-Fairview; Cariboo-Chilcoltin; Oak Bay-Gordon Head; Comox Valley; Vancouver Fraserview - the gap b/t BCLibs and NDP is widening here; Burnaby North) the BC Liberals still would have had a majority.

Also, how do you explain the NDP's rise in support on the rest of Vancouver Island? I'm surprised Axe the Tax didn't hurt the NDP more there and in fact it's not clear that Axe the Tax has hurt them there at all. I assume the NDP's success there had to do with Hydro (IPPs), ferries issues, among other things.

1 poll came in and now Bocking is down by 200. 1 poll left.

Seems weird unless it was a huge advanced poll.

Maple Ridge-Mission-1 poll left, Liberal Dalton now leads NDP Bocking by 200 (8220-8020)

With one poll to come the Liberals are now 200 votes up in Maple Ridge - Mission

This is a surprise to me as I had the Maple Ridge - Pitt Meadows riding in my possible Liberal win column.

Also with all the polls except the Absentee Oppal is losing in Delta-South by some 60 + votes.

Dalton now declared elected in Maple Ridge 8390-8194

So does that put it back to 48 - 37 if so that was my prediction.

49-36

melovesproloes,

"Do you have a link for that?  Looking at Elections BC, granted all the polls haven't been counted, it looks like the NDP's overall vote will be lower than 2005."

Nope, last election in 2005 the NDP got 41.52% of the vote.

According to the CBC website the NDP right now has 42.05% of the vote.  So like I said, they gained overall.

Saanich North flipped back to the Liberals

Wow, you predicted what the pollsters said. You're my hero. What do you want, a medal!

Cariboo - Chilcotin

NDP 5814

Libs 5791

Margin 23 votes

Absentee ballots to come - so another nail biter.

Prince George - Valemount

Liberals 8663

NDP 6313

Green 1152

Cons 750

Even with no Green candidate the NDP would still have trouble here.

Which is correct in Delta South

This:http://results.elections.bc.ca/GE-2009-05-12_Party.html

or this:http://results.elections.bc.ca/GE-2009-05-12_Party.html

There seems to be a different result on the home page which has Vicki winning vs the internal page which has Wally ahead by two votes.

Wonder how many absentee ballots there are.

Frank_ wrote:

"How about all those babblers who declared Carole's stance on the carbon tax would ruin her?   She got more votes."

Then North Report said :

"Try living in the real world instead of some drug-infested swamp. This is about the most idiotic comment I have seen since the results started coming in. This election, for those who are capable of rational thought, is obviously an unmitigated disaster for the NDP. James is done like dinner, and so is the party until wholesale changes are made."

Your prose would have appeared a tad more sensible if you had backed up your argument with something approaching logic and facts.   Allow me to show you the way...

The NDP got more votes than last time.  James has increased the seat count and the popular vote in both 2005 and 2009.  She has gained more support than any of the NDP leaders who actually won an election.   Yet you call this an unmitigated disaster and say James has to go? 

So apparently gaining support is a disaster?  One can only speculate who benefits the least from James making a good showing.

One can only assume you would have been happier if she had turned in a Dosanjh-ish performance so that the non-NDP mayor of Vancouver and his carbon-tax supporters could take over the NDP and use it as the new Green vehicle?

This is one of the few, ideology related, analyses that I agree with. The NDP's ideology isn't in question; it's the least of their problems. Even though it looks like the NDP SHARE of the vote went up, they still lost an election that I think, had they been an effective opposition, they could've won. The last couple weeks of the campaign were better, but two weeks alone, cannot make up for four years of ineffectiveness. Erik the Red said he wanted to call Carole James, accidentally on purpose, Kerry James. I think that was apt. The problem with the NDP, and it has been a problem since the last election, is how they present themselves. I'm not going to say they need to become more centrist, or more leftist. They just need to not look like Liberal lite, but then criticize the Liberals for being Liberals. People, who are in between voting NDP or Liberal, look at it and then say "gee, the NDP doesn't like the Liberals - but it's not as if they're offering a whole lot else, so why don't we just stick with the devil we know?" It's not as if Gordon Campbell is universally loved. He isn't as loathed as he once was, partially because they weren't so extreme in their second term, but partially because the NDP has handled him with kid gloves during the last parliament.

Therefore, the hardcore partisans, when looking back at this election can blame the Greens, but whether we lefties like it or not, they're going to keep getting 5-10% of the BC vote. We can be thankful Sterk was so ineffective, but there are always going to be some people who don't want to vote for the big two parties, and in any case it would be more effective to defeat the Liberals by taking "Liberal" votes and making them "NDP" ones next election.

The partisans can also blame the media, but big media is always against progressive change. Besides, Can West is probably going to go bankrupt soon anyways. I'd say the NDP's media strategy was a complete failure for other reasons too, namely their failure to use the internet as a tool. I mean jeez, Canadians, and British Columbians in particular are some of the most wired people in the world - but that's a rant for another day. Back to the MSM though, and why blaming it is a cop-out, you have to admit that plenty of other left(ish) governments have been elected in more hostile media environments. While some think the media was friendly to Obama during the election campaign, I'd dispute that, seeing as they kept repeating the rumours about him being a secret muslim (often ‘confused’ for Osama) who was going to introduce socialism and destroy the free enterprise system. Not to mention the old-fashioned racism that he had to face. But if you want to look a little closer to home, and a little left-leaning, look at the last Vancouver Municipal election, which had the results been transferred to the provincial scene, we would've seen the NDP win Point Grey, Fairview, False Creek and probably Fraserview too. During that election, Gregor Robertson was presented as a granola-eating hippie who snuck on the Sky Train and wouldn't pay his ticket and would have a terrible relationship with the provincial and federal government. The two consistent things between both of those, WINNING, elections is that the left(ish) parties had appealing leaders who offered a clear, concise message of change, which was very different to their right-wing opponents - as opposed to Carole James wasn't that appealing, nor would I argue, all that much of a change from Campbell-term-2. While the NDP tried to offer a clear, concisce message of change with platitudes (because everyone matters), or irrelevant issues (the threat of privatization - which nobody really cares about right now - unless you tie it to the average person's pocket book), they never tried to challenge the Liberals on their strongest issues (the economy and compotence to govern during the recession). And they kept trying to out-flank them on the right on other high-profile issues (ie. crime and the environment).

While I suppose it's true that the Liberals haven't had any super-controversies, ala Glen Clark pacing in his kitchen while the police searched his house and the media recorded it, do you actually think the media will manufacture them like they did for the NDP in the 90's? Heck, no - they never do for right-wing fuck-ups. Or at least they never harp on it for as long. The left always has to take matters into their own hands and point out right-wing fuck-ups. So I hope, but am not confident, that the NDP will learn this lesson for their next term in opposition. I hope that they ditch their "new tone" and realize that they're the opposition - so "working with" Gordon Campbell is a load of crap that they shouldn't bother to put any real effort into. It's a platitude to fool naive people. The Westminster system is not designed to encourage "bi-partisanship" outside of the normal bureaucratic functions, rights and responsibilities the government has to all MLA's - so that the average person can access government. There is a government and one or more opposition parties who are supposed to criticize and critique the government. Therefore, while the NDP can't be sanctimonious and hysterical in opposition, they do need to be stridently critical and contrasting of Liberal policy, so that next time there’s an election it the NDP’s vision is well known.

Frankly, the only thing that was completely out of the NDP's control in this election, which helped the Liberals, was that the provincial Conservatives could only muster 20-or-so candidates. Had they ran a full slate they probably would've rivalled the Greens in popular vote, and probably would "steal" more Liberal votes than NDP ones. But political parties need to remember that they don't "own" votes, and people won't just vote "against" something - they want to vote "for" something too. So I'm not convinced that had the Conservatives ran a full slate, the result would've been completely different. For all we know they would've received their highest vote totals in conservative Liberal ridings, not swing seats.

Edit: Typos that could've been very confusing in the third paragraph.

Libs win Maple Ridge-Mission 8390-8194.

Obviously a few of these races will go to recounts:

Delta South - "Stonewally" Oppal (L) leads Vicki Huntington (Ind) by 2 votes.

Cariboo-Chilcotin - Charlie "Landslide" Wyse (NDP) leads Donna Barnett (L) by 23 votes.

Lots of squeakers. Some races that were supposed to be close (eg North Island, Vancouver-Fairview, Skeena, Kootenay East, Nanaimo, North Vancouver-Lonsdale, Prince George-Valemount) weren't, and others that weren't supposed to be close were (Saanich North and the Islands).

James increased the seat count. Who gives a sweet fuck about that! In politics either you win or you lose. In 2009 James lost and brought the NDP to another suffocating defeat. I know it is difficult to grasp, and some folks don't get it quite yet, but her time as leader is over. She is a big time loser, and second place doesn't cut it, especially when you are one of only two main parties running in the election. 

Axe the carbon tax - how dumb can one be.

"James has increased the seat coun"

Perhaps - There are also 6 more seats this time so just because you win more seats doesn't mean you increase your % of seats won and until we get the final results this is prehaps a moot point.

In looking at Delta South it appears that the NDP took about 13% of the vote - am trying to find our what they took in 2005 to see if the NDP threw there support to Vicki.

Gregor Robertson would truly be an "unmitigated disaster".

The Green vote in Delta South went from 4.6% to 2.6%.

I wonder where they went.

"In looking at Delta South it appears that the NDP took about 13% of the vote - am trying to find our what they took in 2005 to see if the NDP threw there support to Vicki."

NDP had 24% last time.

http://www.cbc.ca/bcvotes2005/riding/018/

I would say this was a Dosanjh-esque performance. At least in the sense that it was underwhelming. The economy is terrible, which is usually considered bad for the incumbent government. But because the NDP is afraid of its own shadow on the economy, the NDP waited until the last week to even allude to it by having that "Gordon Campbell, he's even bad for your wallet" add.

The Premier's party had election signs which included his name, which was odd, seeing as he USED to be hated. Which basically took away one very potent weapon the NDP used last time, but due to the "new tone" they brought to the legislature, they couldn't use this time. And while the NDP got more votes (percentage wise), I'd say that was probably because they had more incumbents.

And may I ask, during what point during the last term did the NDP ever look like they were going to win? They got lucky in this election, because the Liberals ran a pretty lame campaign too, and the NDP managed to take advantage of that in the last week. But if mediocrity is what the NDP is going to offer, well, as Oliver Twist wouldn't say - please sir, I don't want anymore.

BTW, though the results are preliminary, they've gotten about 650,000 votes. In 2005 they got 731,000. If they had gotten 731,000 votes this election - they would've won.

Interesting, seeing as he just won a landslide victory to become Vancouver's Mayor.

Given that the NDP vote was up slightly province wide could it be assumed that they threw there votes to Vicki in Delta South to try and defeat Wally and embrass Gordo - if Wally does lose would some one step aside for a by-election or who would be the likely choice for A_G - Mike DeJong is a lawyer and a veteran of the political landscape but are any of the newly elected Liberals who are lawyers likely to get the job.

My 50-35 vote prediction was only off by a seat. He knew...

"You can't tell me that we couldn't have got 300 Green votes to switch to the NDP in Oak Bay if Carole had backed the carbon tax and put forward a credible climate change plan. "

I can and I do. At the start of the campaign, polls had the so-called greens with as much as 15% support. They wound up with 8% - less than in 2005 when the carbon tax was a non-issue. Furthermore if you look at where the so-called greens did well, once again it was mostly in safe Liberal seats like West Vancouver and a couple in the Okanagan. The only way we will ever know what would happen if the green party didn't exist would be if we ran an experiment and had them try not running a single solitary candidate! As long as they have a candidate on the ballot in every riding, they will invariably get about 8% of the vote because there will always be at least 8% of voters who say "none of the above" thinking "the Liberals and pro-business, the NDP is pro-union, I want to vote none of the above". So in the end they were a non-factor. We know from polling that SIXTY PERCENT of people voting green were OPPOSED to the carbon tax - why? because they weren't voting green, they were voting "protest/none of the above".

When I have more time, I will write more about what the NDP could have done differently and why I think the election went the way it did. In a nutshell, I think the problem for the NDP was that there was a solid 46% of BC residents who LIKE Campbell and are satisfied with his government - for now (let's see how they feel after the recession really sets in and Campbell starts slashing everything to ribbons. People go on about the economy, but I have yet to see anyone respond to a question I posted a while back asking how the NDP could keep a straight face while trying to claim that were it not for Campbell, there would be no global recession.

"The economy is terrible, which is usually considered bad for the incumbent government."

Usually, is the operative word here. But much as I disagree with this analsis, i think that a lot of people in BC look at it this way - for 7.5 out of the 8 years that Campbell has been in power - the economy has been doing well - now there is a global recession - they still give credit to Campbell for the economy doing well for 7.5 years and have not gotten to the point yet of considering this to be a "made in BC recession". They will eventually.

I agree WCL that your case about the 'axe the tax' and the Green vote is way short of convincing.

As has been said- the Greens can probably be counted on to get 8% in BC elections no matter what.

And your case about the MLAs who are strong environmentalists keeping the Green vote below that of surrounding seats- is equally unconvincing. That would have a lot to do with strong consituency work. What role the effect on environmentalists has is pure speculation. And its not even clear that people who want the carbon tax would even be aware that the MLA did not personally care for the NDPs position. Even if they were aware, the number of people who it would tip the balance n their vote would be miniscule.

I was less than thrilled with the BCNDPs position on the carbon tax from the beginning, but I see no evidence it hurt them in this election. Sure it cost them some votes to Greens that may have been decisive in a few close races. But there is bound to be close races they won where axe the tax helped... not to mention votes gained in those same close races lost where axe the tax convinced some people to vote Green.

I think the B.C. NDP has to resist the mistake the Republicans are (rather entertainingly) making south of the border.  Take at least a couple of weeks holiday from analysis, let a good amount of time go by before putting together the next strategy, and avoid conviening any circular firing squads.

Seems to me there's got to be a substantially large baby somewhere in yesterday's dirty bath water.

Interesting that among the handful of pro-STV seats was Gordo's own seat.

Seeing Gabriel Yiu on TV, he reminded me disconcertingly of John Lennon--visually *and* vocally.

Congrats, BC NDP, on losing the election!  I hope you lose every election from now on in BC, as a reward for your shortsightedness on BC-STV.  You just couldn't resist the lure of maybe possibly winning phony majorities in the future, could you? You just couldn't do it.

The only thing that would have made this election result more poetic for the NDP is if Carole James had lost her seat - such a pity that she won it. 

Have a lovely life under FPTP, BCNDP!  Hope you lose again!  And again and again.  You've earned it!

BC is really not that much different than Alberta, since WAC Bennett got elected in 1952 we always elect right wing governments except for 3 Occasions in the last 57 years...albeit the Social Credit were not as extreme as El Gordo.

This is the 4th election in a row Campbell received most votes and the NDP only seem able to win if the centre - centre right vote is split...

As charming as it is insightful. I am left wondering how it could be that a party so many claim is incapable of winning anything could have had as much impact on the STV vote as some of the same people seem to think.

Anyway, not to quibble, but it seems to me that the attacks on Ms. James are missing something; there is a common thread in some of the NDP's lacklustre performances across the country that needs addressing.  NOW communications is a problem.  By all accounts they have some good chops on tactical stuff like candidate training, but their strategic sense sucks large.  These are the people who came up with the vacuous slogan Get Orange for the Ontario campaign.  I have to believe that a large part of the BC NDP messaging muddle is NOW's reliance on poorly conceived focus group testing at the expense of a coherent vision. People can usually tell when they're being fed pablum.

I hope somebody is paying attention.

That's bullshit.  The NDP got far less votes this election than in 2005 as Vansterdam Kid has pointed out.  If the NDP had had come close to holding onto their vote count from 2005 they would have won the election.

We'll have to agree to disagree on this one.  FWIW, Gary Holman, the NDP candidate from Saanich North and the Islands who came within 400 votes of beating Murray Coell (which would have been a massive upset for the NDP) while the Greens got 3,000-odd votes in the riding, was on CBC radio this AM.  He said the Green vote-split was the major reason for his loss and specifically said the NDP platform on climate change was not strong enough to attract Green voters.  Holman is going to work within the NDP for a more robust climate change policy next time and to encourage Green-NDP cooperation now that STV is dead.  There will strong support within the NDP membership and many caucus members for Holman's approach.  So, that's the view from a candidate on the ground and I think it merits serious consideration. 

I'm going to close this for people on dial-up, but there are other threads on the election results, so feel free to continue there. :)