Greens and Liberals : Dirty Party Politics

montrealer58 wrote:

Allowing floor-crossing makes the Greens like the Tories and the Liberals.

But if you continue to protest loudly at Harper's "security agenda" and want to see Canada reduce its GHG emissions, perhaps there is some common ground.

 

One detail about floor-crossing hardly makes the Greens like the Tories and Liberals. And yeah, I will protest Harper's security agenda and I do want to see Canada reduce its GHG emissions, both admirable goals in my books.

nicky wrote:

It isn't the first time that it happened with the Greens. Just before the 2008 election May welcomed with open arms the defection of Wilson an MP who had been kicked out of the Liberal caucus for possible corruption. May evidently had less scruples than even the Liberals when it came to ethics which is really saying something. 

On the basis of that floor-crossing may was able to claim she had a sitting MP and this helped her get into the leaders' debates.

Blair Wilson was exonerated of all allegations, unlike the Liberal Party (sponsorship scandal), the Conservative Party (in-and-out scandal) and the NDP (misuse of House resources), so can't really compare. 

And yes that did help her, but the broad public support for her inclusion was a bigger factor.

The thesis of this thread has been proven false several times now.  Everyone from myself to MP Bryce Hyer has demolished it.

There is no alliance between the Greens & the Liberals.  Past history shows that the Greens run campaigns in Liberal strongholds and that the Greens have 'split the vote' to the detriment of the Liberals.  Recent examples include Calgary Centre in 2012 and Yukon in 2011.  (Not to mention the Green campaigns in Guelph & London North Centre where Liz May herself ran!)

And to put another nail in the coffin of the "Green-Liberal" alliance, a Liberal candidate was selected today to run against Elizabeth May in Saanich-Gulf Islands!  So Justin Trudeau is not letting Liz May run unchallenged.  Case closed.

Here's tonight's update from Alice Funke:

#LPC has acclaimed Tim Kane of Delta Media ( @TheBigTK ) to run against @ElizabethMay in Saanich-Gulf Islands this aft. #elxn42 #nomnews

https://twitter.com/punditsguide/status/566772455155716096

nicky wrote:

Of course the Liberals will run candidates in every riding to show they are a national party but they will run nominal campaigns in those Vancouver Island seats where the Greens are the chief competitor for the NDP. The Liberals want to defeat as many NDP MPs as possible, as does Debater. They view the Greens as their close allies. So Deabter by floating another piece of deceit once again demonstrates his habitual mendacity.

You mean the way the NDP & BQ had an informal deal with each other to defeat the Liberals in Outremont & Papineau in 2011?

The BQ apparently agreed to run a weak campaign in Outremont to help Mulcair against Martin Cauchon, and the NDP was reportedly rooting for the BQ to beat Justin Trudeau in Papineau so they ran a weaker campaign there.

It was reported by the press at the time.

nicky wrote:

Funny how that worked out.

The NDP ran Justin a close second in Papineau with the Bloc fading into third but still polling enough to allow Justin to stagger through with a much reduced vote. Hopefully the Bloc will fade enough this election to spare Canada Justin as PM.

Rather than denying that the Liberals will back the Greens to beat the NDP in some ridings Debater dreams up collusions between the NDP and the Bloc. As it turned out in '11 the NDP were the Bloc's worst nightmare.

Oh, Nicky, I've got you now.  This is what we lawyers call overplaying your hand.

The NDP finished a distant 2nd in Papineau.  Justin won by 10 points and 4,000 votes.  

Justin did not 'stagger through with a much reduced vote'!  His percentage of the popular vote dropped by 3 points, yes.  But that was an exceptionally good result to get in what was the worst Liberal year in history.  You didn't mention any of that in your analysis.  He also tripled his winning margin from 3 points in 2008 to 10 points in 2011.

But here's the clincher!  As luck would have it, there are some mathematical facts about Justin Trudeau that came out this week which demolish your contention above!  Neat, huh?

This week, when looking at incumbent MP Joe Oliver's chances of winning in Eglinton-Lawrence, Eric Grenier examined the value of incumbency for MP's, and how particular MP's are more resistant to regional trends.

Grenier posted results for incumbent MP's from 2011.  They showed which incumbent MP's were most successful at resisting provincial trends that went against their parties.

Which MP had the best result of any incumbent MP in Canada to provincial trends in 2011?

Justin Trudeau. 

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Here's how the math works:

The incumbency bonus awarded to Oliver is worth 8% of his support. That is to say that what the unadjusted swing model would give him is boosted by a factor of 1.08. In order to be projected to win the riding, that factor would need to be increased to 1.46. Only one incumbent MP whose party had dropped in support managed to resist regional trends by such a factor in the 2011 election. He just happened to be Justin Trudeau.

...

Nevertheless, Oliver's odds are now just a little worse than 4 to 1. But just who were the 38 incumbents in 2011 who bucked the trends by 1.14 or more when their party was losing support?

Most of them were Liberals, of course, as the party dropped support throughout the country. The Bloc Québécois makes a few appearances as well. But you can see that a lot of the names tend to be some of the better known incumbents. At the top of the list is Justin Trudeau, who did better than any other incumbent.

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http://www.threehundredeight.com/2015/02/eglinton-lawrence-joe-oliver-an...