Ontario 2011 Election Campaign 2
Anyone who checked out the twitter feed for #ondp in the last couple of days will have seen the Liberals going gangbusters on this story to the exclusion of everything else. The media response to the story has not been what the Liberals were hoping for, and them beating up the story for all it is worth and more speaks to their desperation. I just picked up 24H, a local freebie newspaper, and it has Andrea on the cover, alright. But she's talking about care for newborns, and this story has been relegated to a one-day wonder.
And I would be *amazed* that if Monte Kwinter keeps York Centre, and Bernie Farber loses out in Thornhill, that we don't see Farber running in York Centre in a by-election in 2012. I happen to think that, bizarrely, this whole story isn't about the NDP at all (at least not all of it). It's about trying to corral the Jewish vote against incursions by the Tories. Whacking imaginary Nazi-lovers makes perfect sense in the twisted logic of the Liberals.
NDP Candidate Who Compared Nazism to Religion Must Go, Liberal Candidate Says
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/provincialelection/article/1...
"Farber said it is no laughing matter and demanded Horwath dump Marco. But so far she's standing solidly by her candidate. 'Shame on both of them,' Farber told the Star.."
Same old Bernie. The former head of the Godwin police.
You'd think Ontario was a paradise, given the obsession shown in the matter by the Liberals. Another Warren Kinsella classic.
Also heard about this site:
http://www.threeontariovotes.ca/home.php
Gives you, as the name says, thre votes... basically it lets you vote using FPTP, PR and Alternate for this election. Pretty good idea
Pretty terrible idea. They are telling people "PR" means pure-province-wide-closed-list, vote purely for a party, the whole province is one riding; only Israel uses that model. No one I know would choose that model for Ontario. Whether intentionally or not, the result is to push users to like the Alternative Vote. Also, it's an unusual model for the Alternative Vote, that forces you to rank three choices, even if you don't really want to, or don't really have a third choice. The results will be misleading.
NDP Candidate Who Compared Nazism to Religion Must Go, Liberal Candidate Says
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/provincialelection/article/1...
"Farber said it is no laughing matter and demanded Horwath dump Marco. But so far she's standing solidly by her candidate. 'Shame on both of them,' Farber told the Star.."
Here it is:
http://lovehatethings.com/lovehate-podcast-196-of-wiki-bibles-and-burni
To summarize: "I'm going to talk about Burning the Koran, stupidity, and ignorance . . . When there's no factual basis for something, you can talk about it forever. . . If you're going to talk about a book burning may I suggest that, if you're going to burn books -- and for the most part I would never advocate burning books -- there are a couple of ones I would suggest burning. It's not even like "burn stuff by Adolf Hitler." No, whatever. If you want to read that stuff, read that stuff. For some people the old politics of Nazi Germany might be their religion . . . You can't stop somebody from believing in something. . . So if you're going to be burning books . . . I suggest . . . Justin Bieber's autobiography."
I don't find his whole running-off-at-the-mouth (a feeble excuse for a rant) either funny or a good advertisement for the NDP. It wasn't intended to be either. In fact I'm at a loss at to what purpose it served other than to alleviate his boredom. But it doesn't suggest Nazism was funny.
Wilf it wasn't for the NDP - it was just about Marco expressing his thoughts and last time I checked we still let people have freedom of expression. This was a witch hunt but it failed for sure.
So. I dont want to say what riding I'm in but any suggestions for who might need some help in Toronto? I'm in the east end. If there's a real horserace thats where I'd like to work the phones, especially if the candidate for the riding has a good story, a la Miller paying his way through Harvard by scrubbing the loos of rich brats.
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Ontario+leader+likability+that+news+oth...
I'm surprised no one has replied to this yet.
'Likeability' -
Horwath: 37%
Hudak: 32%
McGuinty: 31%
Looking forward to more flyering.
Cops Outraged by NDP Candidate's Podcast
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/OntarioVotes/News/2011/09/22/18726026...
"...Marco is quoted by the Liberals as saying -- in reference to people such as police, firefighters and doctors -- 'automatically calling occupations as heroic, I'm tired of hearing about that. Doing your job doesn't necessarily make you heroic...
Some critics ripped the Liberals for seemingly taking these comments out of context. But they remain locked on Marco - releasing other podcast excerpts about how he 'hates the electoral process'..'
Go Marco Go! More...!
So. I dont want to say what riding I'm in but any suggestions for who might need some help in Toronto? I'm in the east end. If there's a real horserace thats where I'd like to work the phones, especially if the candidate for the riding has a good story, a la Miller paying his way through Harvard by scrubbing the loos of rich brats.
I'm completely biased, but you should check out Bruce Budd in Scarborough Southwest. Budd is giving Berardinetti a real run for his money.
Cops Outraged by NDP Candidate's Podcast
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/OntarioVotes/News/2011/09/22/18726026...
The very fact that only the Sun is carrying this story, and a second-tier story at that, suggests the media have by and large seen the Liberals flogging this dead horse into red paste, and stopped caring days ago.
I've already seen this articule used again the NDP as well... Its not a horrioble articule its just simple, "i'm so confused cause i don't have the full platform but have already made up my mind they are confusing" they fail to understand how things will be paid for (which is clearly IN the platform already)
http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/article/1057870--the-ndp-s-everyday-plan#article
How much more of the platform is to be released other than the full costing? or did i miss that :P
ALSO, were starting to hear the tag lines from the Liberals "... of the NDP voted against transit... child care... minimum wage increase", technically thats true but those were aspects of budgets that were overal not worth voting for. Smart attack though, any thoughts on how to counter (hopefully some NDP campaigners are here)
A 'dalliance'? I suppose we should be grateful McParland doesn't think it a one night stand. Are Ontario voters meant to be fourteenth-century damsels? Given the amount of wooing that's going on, it seems all a little surreal.
any thoughts on how to counter (hopefully some NDP campaigners are here)
I'd pick out and trumpet the toxic sludge that accompanied the things that the Liberals are banging the drum about. Make it so that no progressive in their right mind would vote for those pieces of crud.
New poll out in tomorrow's Toronto Star: Lib 35%, PC 35%, NDP 23%, Green 5%
"39,000 respondent" ?
That would mean like a poll of almost 400 people in each riding! I can't wait to see what sort of seat projection they do. That would actually be a geat result since it would almost certainly lead us to a 1985-style Liberal-NDP accord type situation.
They project 47 seats each for the Liberals and Tories and 13 for the NDP.
If those popular vote numbers were what actually happened on election day - that would mean Liberals DOWN 7% from 2007, NDP UP 6% from 2007, Tories UP 3% and Greens down 3%. There is absolutely no way whatsoever that the NDP would get a 13 point swing vis-a-vis the Liberals and end up with only three more seats. With 23% of the vote and Liberals in the mid-30s you would see the NDP at worst with 18 or 19 seats. Keep in mind that as recently as the 2008 federal election the NDP managed to get 17 seats in Ontario with just 18% of the vote.
My own viw when it comes to these robo-calling IVR polls is that they aren't bad for the "big picture" but at the micro riding level they tend to produce a lot of crazy anomalies.
I'm sticking with the prediction I've had from the start. McGuinty will form a minority government - regardless of whether the Liberals are the largest party. I also think they will bring in a savage rightwing agenda of spending cuts and privatization in their third term and they will probably have the Tories voting to prop them up far more than the NDP will.
Look at the predictions of where parties will pick up seats and lose them. Total bs. I don't trust a poll like this. 99.9 per cent of the people I know hang up on any automated call like this routinely. I just don't beleive those who would stay on the line as being representative of anything.
They project 47 seats each for the Liberals and Tories and 13 for the NDP.
"Because of the large number of voters surveyed Forum was also able to provide riding-by-riding results. If those numbers were to be repeated on Oct. 6, the Liberals and Tories would be tied at 47 seats with the NDP only holding 13 seats in the 107-member Legislature. However, the results for at least 28 ridings are within the margin of error, so seat predictions are not nearly as reliable as the total sample."
I believe that the first time I've seen information touted then completely undermined in the same paragraph.
B-EY and T-S tight races? Are they meant to be tight races in the way T-S was a 'tight race' federally? The Star was being rather mild in terming these riding-by-riding predictions as 'questionable'.
A further comment I have is that if these riding-by-riding predictions are so heavily asterisked, why bother doing them at all? The desire to know what that means on the ground is apparently irresistable, even if it means indulging in high fantasy. No way 23% lands you only 13 seats. I can't find a link to the poll results themselves, but if they don't have YSW and Davenport in the NDP column, I'll wonder what they're smoking.
Here's a link to the article, if you're in the mood for modern fiction.
I don't understand that poll. How in the hell is Timmins-James Bay, Beaches-East York, Trinity-Spadina close races? These are seats that the NDP won, despite only winning 7 seats in 2003.
Amazing!! The largest poll in the history of Ontario!! 40,750 people were called AND every single one of them knew who they were going to vote for,n ot a single undecded or wouldn''t say, weeks before the election, before the big leaders debate! AND not only do the votes break down to a tie ie in the numbe of votes between the Liberals and Conservatives, they broke to to a tie in the number of seats between the Liberals and Conservatices. The largest poll in the history of Ontario, showing the most polarized race in the history of Ontario, and s the closest race in the history of Ontario. Wonder if they would be willing to do anothe poll closer to the actual election date?
P..s. There is a small margin of people who are going to vote the NDP. about 25% of the potential electorate
.p.p.s. if this largest poll in the histoy of Ontario is accurate, there will be a minority governement with the NDP holding the balance of power
p,p,p.s, If a small number of those committed to waste their vote on the ONDP were to vote stategically they would deicde which party, the Liberal or Conservatives form government,a majority government.
p.p.p.ps. wonder of they have any advice on show to sway that small percentage of people committed to wasting their vote on the NDP
Thanks, toaster. I'd missed Timmins-James Bay. Bisson is an NDP MPP who increased his vote in 1995, and has had no serious opposition since. He is hardworking, and well-liked, and I can't see any reason for him not to win by a hefty margin.
Wilf it wasn't for the NDP - it was just about Marco expressing his thoughts and last time I checked we still let people have freedom of expression. This was a witch hunt but it failed for sure.
Hmm. Last time I checked, [url=http://rabble.ca/babble/ontario/ndp-dumps-weisleder-candidate]there wasn't freedom of expression for NDP candidates[/url] and witch hunts were still in vogue.
And imagine what fun the Liberal and Tory war rooms would have been having with your pal Barry for the past three weeks!
Any idea if the Star will release the individual riding poll results?
tomorrow
Having numbers attached to SWAGs (Scientific Wild-Ass Guesses) does make them more plausible.
And imagine what fun the Liberal and Tory war rooms would have been having with your pal Barry for the past three weeks!
Maybe.
But would Jan be running to his defence the way she has for Anthony Marco? I doubt it.
The left in the NDP gets zero tolerance. Everyone else gets a pass.
Dalton McGuilty has added as much in debt in eight years as all previous governments since Confederation managed to rack up Liberals spending like drunken sailors.
What'll we do with a drunken sailor,
What'll we do with a drunken sailor,
What'll we do with a drunken sailor,
Earl-aye in the morning?
No way 23% lands you only 13 seats.
It may quite possibly net the NDP more than 13 seats, but it's certainly not going to land the 22 seats that 25% of the vote did federally just a few months ago. For one thing, the Liberal vote hasn't collapsed to anything like the same degree as it did federally, which means the NDP isn't going to grab so many Liberal-NDP swing seats the way it did in May -- in an FPTP system, being in the mid-20s just doesn't work out as well if you're in third place as it does if you're in second.
I'm not willing to make an exact prediction, but while 13 seats is probably at the lower end of their potential seat range, it's not at all outside the realm of possibility; I certainly can't see how they can get into the 20s.
I think that for ONDP to break 20 - they would need to run the tables in northern Ontario (which is certainly possible). If they gained 5 seats in the north, then it isn't hard to see the NDP getting the rest of the way to 20 by picking up the usual low hanging fruit like Davenport, YSW, London-Fanshawe, Hamilton-Mountain and Windsor West
And imagine what fun the Liberal and Tory war rooms would have been having with your pal Barry for the past three weeks!
Indeed having watched people like Barry, and Barry HIMSELF and his various proteges, tie up meetings, they did the right thing. Every coalition and group he's allowed to participate in inevitably turns into a stultifying debating society where he tries to convert it into the people's socialist whatever. He's tedious. He's not an effective activist.
Typical Barry et al move:
Barry: Gee, can we resolve within our anti racism/ sexism/ peace environmental group, that the reason for [fill in the blank social problem] is capitalism?
Everyone else from NDPers to anarchists: Well, while we are agreed on that Barry, were all here to fight[fill in the blank social problem], not form another tiny, irrelevant,Trotsky study cell.
3 meetings, almost all the new volunteers, everyone's enthusiasm and 43 hours of dull dull dull debate later...
Motion defeated
1 Meeting later
Barry: Gee, can we resolve within our [fill in the blank social problem] group that capitalist economics are the root of [fill in the blank social problem]?
Everyone else: Fuck, Barry, we just spent three meetings defeating that proposal
Barry: No, that was totally different, that was capitalism, this is capitalist economics
Repeat cycle until death of org.
He kills everything he touches. Good riddance.
You would think, considering Andrea's high likeability rating, that the NDP would be polling higher.
WTF do people see in two bland dweebs like Hudak and McGuinty?
Is Ontario even paying attention yet, really? I think the debate will wake people up. (Of course there's not much time then before voting day.)
You would think, considering Andrea's high likeability rating, that the NDP would be polling higher.
WTF do people see in two bland dweebs like Hudak and McGuinty?
When you say 'people', I suspect you're referring to voters in Ontario. But keep in mind that the last time Bay Street shoved Pinocchio McGuilty and his party into Queen's Park they won just [u]22%[/u] of the registered vote giving them 66% of legislature seats and [color=red]129%[/color] of the power. It's electoral fraud.
I suspect the debate will only work to embolden the 129 percenters' resolve to get their vote out on "election" day. Whatever Horwath tries to focus on in the debate, health care and poverty will likely be thoroughly sidetracked with old line party banter surrounding separate school funding or some third rail issue volleyed back and forth in the lapdog newz media by last week of the campaign.
I'm hoping the debate will result in another surge for the NDP.
Still, as Jeff noted, there isn't much time left, especially after the debate, and those who can be bothered to vote, actually like Hudak and McGuinty, or rather favour the Conservatives and Liberals, even after eight years of Harris and McGuinty.
Why are people so dumb to always and immediately presume that Conservatives are "fiscally responsible?" I don't get this b.s. narrative and why it continues to stick, especially with a vacant and obnoxious ideologue like Hudak. At least with Harris, another vacant and obnoxious ideologue, he had a campaign with a simple message (just like Rob Ford's) which resonated with the electorate at the time. But Hudak's campaign has been a joke, a complete and utter mess.
Meanwhile the Ontario Liberal strategy (or excuse for one) vis-a-vis the NDP is to run ads claiming that the NDP is just like the PCs and to have Andrea Horwath morphing into Tim Hudak - which is so ludicrous it defies rebuttal. I actually think this is good for the NDP - to the extent it has any impact at all it sends a message to "soft Tory" types who find Hudak a bit creepy that the NDP is a mainstream alternative!
Although apparently the PCs are doing better than expected in northern Ontario, I think Hudak's tactics and messaging are turning most people off - it pretty much targets those who aren't voting Liberal to begin with, and grates on anyone who isn't immediately predisposed to them. Plus, the Liberals aren't as unpopular as their critics make them out to be. Those two factors are keeping Liberal numbers high. I also agree with asterix's post.
Based on the Forum Research poll, here are the ridings where the NDP is either leading, or within 20% of the lead:
- +26.3% -- Hamilton Centre (Andrea Horwath)
- +25.8% -- Nickel Belt (France Gélinas)
- +24.6% -- Hamilton East--Stoney Creek (Paul Miller)
- +19.0% -- Timiskaming--Cochrane (John Vanthof)
- +16.2% -- Davenport (Jonah Schein)
- +16.1% -- Algoma--Manitoulin (Michael Mantha)
- +9.3% -- London--Fanshawe (Teresa Armstrong)
- +7.9% -- Toronto--Danforth (Peter Tabuns)
- +5.3% -- Hamilton Mountain (Monique Taylor)
- +2.8% -- Welland (Cindy Forster)
- +2.6% -- Trinity--Spadina (Rosario Marchese)
- +2.1% -- Timmins--James Bay (Gilles Bisson)
- +2.0% -- Beaches--East York (Michael Prue)
- -0.4% -- Windsor West (Helmi Charif)
- -0.5% -- Thunder Bay--Superior North (Steve Mantis)
- -3.0% -- Thunder Bay--Atikokan (Mary Kozorys)
- -4.8% -- Windsor--Tecumseh (Andrew McAvoy)
- -5.6% -- Parkdale--High Park (Cheri DiNovo)
- -5.9% -- Essex (Taras Natyshak)
- -5.9% -- Sudbury (Paul Loewenberg)
- -7.4% -- Oshawa (Mike Shields)
- -8.1% -- Kenora--Rainy River (Sarah Campbell)
- -10.8% -- Niagara Falls (Wayne Redekop)
- -11.4% -- Peterborough (Dave Nickle)
- -11.9% -- York South--Weston (Paul Ferreira)
- -12.3% -- London North Centre (Steve Holmes)
- -12.3% -- Scarborough Southwest (Bruce Budd)
- -12.6% -- Bramalea--Gore--Malton (Jagmeet Singh)
- -12.8% -- Kitchener--Conestoga (Mark Cairns)
- -13.5% -- Chatham--Kent--Essex (Aleksandra Navarro)
- -13.6% -- London West (Jeff Buchanan)
- -13.7% -- Brant (Brian Van Tilborg)
- -14.5% -- Ancaster--Dundas--Flamborough--Westdale (Trevor Westerhoff)
- -14.7% -- Nipissing (Henri Giroux)
- -15.7% -- Guelph (James Gordon)
- -16.3% -- Cambridge (Atinuke Bankole)
- -16.3% -- Prince Edward--Hastings (Sherry Hayes)
- -16.5% -- Kitchener Centre (Cameron Dearlove)
- -16.8% -- St. Catharines (Irene Lowell)
- -17.5% -- Huron--Bruce (Grant Robertson)
- -17.5% -- Simcoe North (Doris Middleton)
- -18.2% -- Kitchener--Waterloo (Isabel Cisterna)
- -18.3% -- Sarnia--Lambton (Brian White)
- -18.5% -- Sault Ste. Marie (Celia Ross)
- -18.7% -- Scarborough--Rouge River (Neethan Shan)
- -19.4% -- York West (Tom Rakocevic)
Krago, I'm surprised that Ottawa Centre isn't on that list.
There's been so much said that Naqvi is in trouble, so shouldn't there be an indication of NDP strength there?
Taking these numbers seriously is making a key mistake. The numbers quoted do not actually matter. One, the poll does not disclose the refusal rate (likely to be very high). Two, the poll asked for party, and did not name the candidate. Bisson would have ruled Timmins-James Bay, for example, if his name had been mentioned.
The Star itself has admitted that the riding results are sometimes "questionable". If the organization that commissioned the poll is admitting that the results are flawed, then you can be sure there's a truckload of errors they aren't admitting to.
Marchese crushing Thomson – the Star attempts to make it look like a tough race.
- -17.5% -- Huron--Bruce (Grant Robertson). But who is above Grant - we need to know.