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Toronto Centre Federal By-election (cancelled)

I don't think the Liberals really believe they're ahead of the Conservatives. Although it is unusual I think there is a lot of vote-parking in the Liberal camp. Although best PM polls are problematic - the PM is always chosen PM (even Martin was "best PM" over Harper in the '06 election) Stephane Dion has a lot of problems - Jack Layton is more personally popular than Dion and a majority in an Angus Reid poll disapproved of his performance. So they'll just continue to give us a de facto Harper majority.

That being said it's important to note than the Liberal vote is so much more concentrated now than it used to be that even in a Mulroney '84-style landslide situation Rae would be a shoo-in.
 
and i think Dion is going to be in a real test in the new year.. he has an opportunity on a silver plate for him right now to show he can be a leader and he better do something about it. Ignatieff was showing some signs of brilliance when he was filling in for Dion while dealing with the Nuke issue. But Dion was doing well in Bali as well.. so after Christmas... he better turn it up and show Canadians he can do better.

He's been taking a lot of english lessons lately too.. and his accent is becoming easier to comprehend... whcih probably will help a lot.
 
King of Kensington said:
I don't think the Liberals really believe they're ahead of the Conservatives. Although it is unusual I think there is a lot of vote-parking in the Liberal camp. Although best PM polls are problematic - the PM is always chosen PM (even Martin was "best PM" over Harper in the '06 election) Stephane Dion has a lot of problems - Jack Layton is more personally popular than Dion and a majority in an Angus Reid poll disapproved of his performance. So they'll just continue to give us a de facto Harper majority.

That being said it's important to note than the Liberal vote is so much more concentrated now than it used to be that even in a Mulroney '84-style landslide situation Rae would be a shoo-in.
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Of course Martin got best PM. He's a far better PM; far more qualified in every way to be the PM than Stephen Harper.

Layton isn't really more personally popular than Dion. There's your vote parking. People who are generally liberal and despise Harper, but who also want to register their disapproval of Dion's performance.

Harper's certainly a long, long way from a majority. I think that the most recent poll likely most accurately reflects the current situation. Some Liberals may not think the Liberals are ahead (most likely the sky-is-falling group in Quebec) but a lot of Ontario Liberals have been begging for an election to get Harper out of there ASAP.
 
unimaginative2 said:
Of course Martin got best PM. He's a far better PM; far more qualified in every way to be the PM than Stephen Harper.
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And yet Martin was a grade-Z one at that. Not to mention as finance minister in the 90s he did more than anyone to dismantle the welfare state and the egalitarian/redistributive aspect of the federal government while at the same time cutting taxes in favor of Bay Street and the wealthy. He is a small-"c" conservative - thankfully he was never given a majority government.
 
unimaginative2 said:
People who are generally liberal and despise Harper, but who also want to register their disapproval of Dion's performance.
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If you're generally a small-"l" liberal why would you want to vote for a party that has flushed whatever "liberal" principles it ever had down the toilet and gives Harper a defacto majority? You do raise a point though - "Generic Liberal Leader" would greatly outpoll Dion in the best PM category (Even Mulroney might have gotten "best PM" in a poll in 1992 but I digress...)

The problem of course is ultimately the lack of proportional representation which makes people feel unable to vote for the party of their choice, but rather vote strategically.

ETA: I'm not actually suggesting that the NDP is likely to overtake the Liberals in terms of seats - but I do find it very difficult to believe that the Liberals will gain at the expense of the NDP.
 
Well, polling as well as anecdotal evidence says otherwise about NDP support. They're down, right across the country, and a lot of them are going Liberal. At an anecdotal level, I have many NDP friends who are voting Liberal next time. In Ontario alone, you'd have to be a real diehard NDP supporter to think they have any chance in Stoney Creek or Parkdale, or more than a slim chance in London-Fanshawe. They're not going to drop dramatically, to be sure, but they're not going anywhere fast.

I love the revisionist history about Martin. He managed to steer the country away from an imminent financial crisis while preserving all the major social programs. He also avoided cutting any taxes until the budget was balanced, and raised some (on the rich) to help eliminate the deficit. He also still kept enough money aside to introduce the National Child Tax Benefit. What should he have done? Made the deficit disappear without cutting anything at all? Waved a magic wand? Perhaps he could have followed the 1997 NDP campaign platform: increase spending, cut taxes, and reduce the deficit.

It's pretty ridiculous to suggest that the Liberal party is not liberal. Its major policy initiatives over the last 5 years of government were keeping Canada out of Iraq, ratifying Kyoto, legalizing same-sex marriage, moving toward legalizing marijuana, the Kelowna accord with the First Nations, rejecting missile defence, raising the minimum rate at which people pay tax, and introducing a National Child Care Program. Real conservative, all of them.
 
I think the NDP should seriously be afraid of losing their support not to the Liberals but the Green Party. A big segment that traditionally supports the NDP, younger voters, are flocking to the Greens, and they've been increasing in prominence over the past few years. This is being reflected in a lot of polls and if I weren't so intent on getting the Tories out of office come the next election, I would park my vote with the Greens, not the NDP, as I would do if the Liberals were a sure fire win.
 
I'm in the same boat, 299. I'd really like some electoral reform at the federal level involving preferential voting. It would allow people to vote for more fringe parties (such as Green) before shifting their vote over to a mainstream party...
 
Go Bob anyway! In addition to being a strong all-round politician/citizen, he's probably the most pro-urban major political figure this country's got at the moment. Watch, also, for him to quickly emerge as the media's 'go-to guy' in the next few months on a range of issues.
 
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