A memo about Liberal party fortunes in Quebec was accidentally leaked yesterday, causing a lot of fuss.
Here's the thing: All the parties do it.
As evidenced by my December 1 article Conservative Ontario Targets Signal Poor Strategy. In this article and in a linked story from the London Free Press it shows the Conservatives are focusing their hopes on 20 ridings in Ontario, on top of the 23 they have there currently.
It's simple numbers:
The Liberal memo says they have a chance to win 30 of Quebec's 75 seats or %40
The Conservatives are focusing on 43 of Ontario's 106 seats or %40.5
I guess that %0.5 means the Liberals are in real trouble.
Fact is this story is much ado about nothing, all the parties take stock of what seats they should focus their efforts on and which they need to be worried about. It makes as much sense for the Liberals to pour resources in to Laurier Sainte-Marie as it does for the Conservatives to pour resources in to Toronto Danforth. It's called Realism, Realism. Non pervasive element in today's modern American cinematic vision. (Classic John Travolta Swordfish Quote -Ed.)
Then there is the argument that says "Oh but the memo says 3 cabinet ministers are in trouble." Yes, and? Everyone already knew that, what's the big story? There are a few high profile Conservatives who are in trouble as well. The best known probably being Helena Guergis, and they've already lost their "Surruptitious Audio Taping Critic" Gurmant Grewal.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
3 comments:
I agree here. Parties that focus on winneable ridings rather than every riding tend to better. The Alberta Liberals only increased their share of the popular vote by 2% in 2004 over 2001, yet doubled their seats because they focused on winneable rather non-winneable ridings. In Britain, the Tories only went up by 0.6% yet gained 50 seats since they saw their numbers fall on average in non-winneable ridings, but rise by larger amounts in winneable ridings. I don't think Helena Guergis is in as big a trouble as some other Conservative candidates in Ontario since this riding went Reform in 1993 and was one of the best showings for the Ontario PC in 2003. The only reason she won by only 100 votes was due to Paul Bonwick's personal popularity, while this time around, this was the last riding to nominate a liberal candidate so if it was highly winneable they would have nominated someone earlier. The only high profile Tory candidates I see as being in trouble are Loyola Hearn, Rob Nicholson, and Nina Grewal. Most of the ones in trouble are generally lower profile MPs.
I hope they all get beat.
I hope all the ones from the Reform/Alliance side get beat, while I would be fine with those from the PC side getting re-elected. At least the party would move back to its historical right of centre roots rather than the far right positions it has taken recently. I am myself a Tory in the true sense (Stephen Harper is no Tory, he is reformer), but there is no Tory party right now, there is simply a Reform Party pretending to be a Tory party.
Post a Comment