Sunday, May 1, 2011

On the Precipice

I agree with Murray Dobbin.
The NDP surge and the equally stunning collapse of the Liberals (this has been a slow process up til now) could actually produce a Harper majority by some accounts as the widespread nature of the shift to the NDP takes votes from Liberals everywhere. That means in seats where the Liberals were competitive (and even incumbent) with the Conservatives but the NDP is not.
On top of that, I think i remember reading that somebody crunched the numbers and found out it was mostly harpercon voters who swelled the ranks of advance voters this year.

10 comments:

Todd said...

Just had a look at that Catch22 site with its recommended ridings for SV.

The odd thing is that my riding isn't in there when, according to Elections Canada, it's returned Conservatives of one kind or another since Confederation. I would've thought that they'd encourage voters to the left of the Cons here not to split the vote.

wondering said...

projectdemocracy.ca probably has your riding, Todd. Sounds like catch-22 has a list of 22 Con candidates to get rid of (and then another list of 22 incumbents to keep). They apparently wanted to keep with their theme.

Todd said...

Just checked that one. I found my riding, but I'm somewhat perplexed at what it said: "A Conservative stronghold, so vote your preference."

I'd have imagined the tactic would be to go after such strongholds and persuade unresponsive voters to turnout and vote with usually non-Liberal voters to vote Lib (unless there simply are too many Con voters and not enough non-Con voters, but I don't see how Project Democracy could know that).

thwap said...

Todd,

You're aware that past election results are available at the Elections Canada site, right?

(Serious question. One never knows.)

double nickel said...

Nobody knows the outcome of the advance polls.

ThinkingManNeil said...

Another issue that I haven't seen a lot of coverage of: the loyal, sycophantic Harpercon senate. We've seen how the struck down legislation that was duly passed by the House of Commons so how will anything anything get passed if either the Libs or Dippers win? With an upper chamber stuffed full of whores and porkers, perhaps this is the trump card Stevie Peevie's held all along...

thwap said...

All the more reason to abolish it then.

Todd said...

"You're aware that past election results are available at the Elections Canada site, right?"

Yes.

Where do you think I found out about my riding's history?

thwap said...

from the Catch 22 site.

Todd said...

No. I think I've been sounding off about my riding for longer than Catch22's been around.