Winnipeg North recount

outwest wrote:

If you'd ever spoken at length with those of us who work for strategic voting as a temporary measure until PR is enacted (and then all bets are off), you would realize that our groups include members in equal numbers from BOTH the Liberal and ND parties, as well as a representative number of Greens and independents, etc., and that we are all united in our opposition to right wing policies and legislation.

[url=http://www.punditsguide.ca/2011/05/strategic-failure/]That strategy failed, and that failure was anticipated[/url]

Stockholm wrote:

One other thing I would LOVE someone in the strategic voting movement to explain to me is why there was no quality control of any kind on who they "endorsed". Supposedly the point of these sites is to avoid splitting the so-called "progressive vote". So in the riding of Bramalea-Gore-Malton, they were telling people to vote for Liberal incumbent Gurbax Malhi. Malhi is a reactionary extreme social conservative in the Liberal caucus with a 100% homophobic voting record who also opposes abortion right. All the SV sites recommended that people vote for this hateful bigot. Well guess what? He came in THIRD and the NDP candidate who is extremely progressive lost narrowly to the Tory by 400 votes.

At the very least, the people behind catch-22 and project democracy owe us all an explanation and an apology for having endorses homophobic anti-choice freaks and having the false impression that these people were progressive.

Winnipeg South Centre is another example. Joyce Bateman was known as a Liberal supporter and was thought by many to be a successor to Liberal Anita Neville. That turned out to be the case and Bateman took the seat...for the Conservatives. Many people thought about voting for Anita to stop the Conservatives, but apparenlty would have been okay to vote for Bateman had she run under her original party's banner. Why is Bateman an acceptable representative as a Liberal but not as a Conservative?

Ignore this.

Stockholm wrote:

Read the editorial in the Calgary Herald from a week ago. They are telling their rightwing audience that the Liberal Party MUST rise again because god forbid that the federal Tories get unpopular and the NDP comes to power and ACTUALLY starts to change things. According to the Calgary Herald - the oil patch and the business elites NEED the Liberal party to be strong - after all when people get sick of being governed by black cats - we need them to turn to the white cats NEVER to the mice.

Do you have a link?

Lord Palmerston wrote:

Stockholm wrote:

Read the editorial in the Calgary Herald from a week ago. They are telling their rightwing audience that the Liberal Party MUST rise again because god forbid that the federal Tories get unpopular and the NDP comes to power and ACTUALLY starts to change things. According to the Calgary Herald - the oil patch and the business elites NEED the Liberal party to be strong - after all when people get sick of being governed by black cats - we need them to turn to the white cats NEVER to the mice.

Do you have a link?

Voila

The federal Liberal Party may be unpopular with a large number of Albertans, but cheering over the devastation voters wrought on the Liberals Monday should be muted. That's because there's a crucial reason to see the Liberals regroup and undergo a resurgence.

That reason is Jack Layton's NDP.

The federal Conservatives will hold the reins of power for at least the next four years, but reality forces us to admit that eventually, they will be replaced as the governing party, whether Albertans vote for them or not. It's simply the nature of the beast that the political pendulum inevitably swings back. And when it does, it needs to swing to a strong and newly vibrant Liberal Party, not to the NDP. It's a foregone conclusion that an NDP government in Ottawa, with its leftist spendthrift policies and anti-oilsands zeitgeist, would be an unmitigated disaster for Alberta -and therefore the entire country. The government in waiting needs to be the Liberals, not the NDP.

Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/decision-canada/should+care+about+federal+Liberals/4737143/story.html#ixzz1N3QOmQxK

adma wrote:

Though there's ambiguity in both directions--for instance, for all their federal gesturing, I'm not so certain whether the Ujjals and Bob Raes and Chris Axworthys out there have explicitly glued their provincial allegiances to the BC Liberal/Sask Party end.  Maybe because they know they'd be keelhauled for it; so, it pays to be provincially ambiguous.

Indeed, there are so many ambiguities in so many directions, it's why I insist that the NDP should also work on the Conservative vote, rather than leave it all up to the supposedly "truer" alterna-Tory party...

For the NDP to grow further and approach forming a government, the Conservative vote definitely needs to go down - the reason they won a majority is because they got a hell of a lot more votes than everyone else.  Certainly there's some Western populist vote that the NDP can appeal to, and I think they can pry away some Conservative votes in SW Ontario ridings like Kitchener, St. Catharines, Essex, etc.

In Alberta and Saskatchewan, the Liberals seem to have gone down enough in terms of the province-wide popular vote.  But in Ontario and Atlantic Canada especially, the NDP really needs to get more of the Liberal vote (perhaps around 40-50% of it).

It seems there are no safe Liberal seats anymore - just personal feifdoms like those of Goodale and Brison etc. and a few other ridings that managed to survive the tide (York West, Scarborough-Guildwood, etc.) 

Arthur Cramer wrote:

I find it really, really hard to believe that real New Dems would work with Libs like that.

Even New Democrats are not immune from stupid.

Maybe someone's mentioned it already, but one thing to keep in mind from the loss of this riding to Lamoureux is that, although he undoubtedly must feel relieved, his victory must nevertheless be rather bittersweet. He moved from runt pup of a runt provincial party (2 seats) in the Manitoba legislature that, I believe, could only speak by leave (which was always granted) to what he thought would be a party forming the federal government or at least the official opposition. He goes to Ottawa as the lone member of the Manitoba Liberal caucus and as a backbencher of, what is for him again, the third party. That's gotta hurt.

Yes, and he's always been a constituency guy, anyway, so I think you're right. He's very much an small 'o' opposition MP/MLA. Nevertheless, it seems to be his fate to always be in the obscured party.

robbie_dee wrote:

I assume you're not a fan of Justin Trudeau either, Debater?

Trudeau lives in his riding, and actually has a connection to it.  That's why he's been elected twice now.

Debater, many of us would have far more respect for you and for your opinions had you simply been honest.  Your pretence that you were other than a Liberal Party apologist and campaigner was quite off-putting because it was so manifestly false.

Doubtless you are feeling quite bitter these days.  It appears that voters throughout the country have decided you party is well past it's Best Before Date and the empty shell of the principle-free, ethically-challenged Liberal Party appears to be crumbling to dust.

If I might be so bold as to suggest, p*$$y bitterness might not be the most effective communications strategy if you really want to turn the trend around.

Maybe "debater" would like to tell us all about Ignatieff's "connection" or lack thereof to Etobicoke-Lakeshore. After living in the US for 30 years he moved back to Canada bought a luxury condo on Yorkville and "slummed it" by being given the nomination in Lakeshore and then hardly ever deigning to set foot in the riding.

Regarding Lamoureau, maybe Debater can explain why it was ok for Lamoureau to run against Pat Martin, when Lamoureau, DIDN'T live in Martin's riding.

And regarding Lamoureau, I am tired of hearing about what a great "constituency guy" he is. So what! He meets people at MacDonalds for Coffee on Saturdays. Big deal! Why don't you ask Judy WL about looking after her constituents. She was MP for 13 years, and preseumably, she must have been a "consitituency guy" as well, or she wouldn't have been re-elected. The difference is, she didn't do it and then say, hey look at me!

And this gem, in the election just past. In the last week of the election, Lamoureau distributed a non glossy flyer where he implied that Dave Chomiak, a member of the NDP provincial government, had endorsed his candidacy over Rebecca Blakie. Yep, there is a principaled guy. Of course Chomiak issued a Press Release that was never published in the papers refuting any assertion that he supported anyone other then Rebecca Blakie. When Kevin Chief's campaign implied Axworthy had endorsed him in the  November By-election, cry-baby Lamoureau and his campaign were all over Chief with the help of the Free Press demanding Chief refute his assertions. But when Lamoureau resorted to what were obviously intentionally dirty tricks, not a peep.

How about that Debater? What's your explanation and justification for that? Oh, wait a sec, you're a Lib, you don't think you need one. Silly me.

Many of the comments here are getting off track - the question is does the NDP approve of parachute candidates, and is it going to denounce the practice?

More to the point, why did so many candidates go on vacation, not even campaign or not even visit their ridings?  This situation was worst of all in Quebec, and as Gilles Duceppe said, he has never seen anything like it before.

Layton, true to form, refused to accept any responsibility for it and blamed a lot of it on Stephen Harper.  Harper is responsible for a lot of things, but it's not his fault that NDP candidates were on vacation when they should have been campaigning.

May I suggest that we all just ignore Debater? He is just pulling our chain and it is getting tedious. Few if any of his points are worth a response so let's just not bother.

Debater wrote:

Layton, true to form, refused to accept any responsibility for it and blamed a lot of it on Stephen Harper.  Harper is responsible for a lot of things, but it's not his fault that NDP candidates were on vacation when they should have been campaigning.

I have some serious issues with the NDP as you would undoubtedly know if you read some of my contributions here. However, it's pretty amusing to see the NDP kick the asses of the Big Business political parties (and the Bloc) and then read such whining. lol.

Layton ran a very successful campaign premised, at least in part, on this stupid practice of focussing on the leader instead of policy. The Conservatives and Liberals benefited by this stupidity and dumbing down of the electorate for many years.These candidates that won were the beneficiaries of campaigning on Layton rather than exclusively policy or the local candidate.

So, yes, Harper does bear responsibility for such things when his party, his odious mentor Brian Mulroney, and so on, benefited by such practices in the past and Harper did nothing about it once he became leader.

Given the MSM penchance towards urinating on the NDP for anything and everything, I'm not surprise to notice such foul odours here on babble. lol. Maybe start a thread on great "Liberal" helmsmen of the past and wallow a little in some nostalgia?

Fidel wrote:

I guess Jack's debate comment that Iggy was Harper's best friend in Ottawa hit home for Canadians who used to vote strategically for the Liberals.

Very true, Fidel.

Yes, and wait till we see their next slate: the kind they'll have to fill as a tiny regionally-based third party with hardly two nickels to rub together. We can save up Debater's quotes for them, and see if he's as committed to them then.

the [b]validated[/b] initial margin was 25

http://www.democracylawblog.ca/articles/23May2011recount.html