Quebec General Election 2012 (4th September)

[DL]

PLQ/CAQ battle around Quebec City.

http://www.lapresse.ca/le-soleil/actualites/politique/201207/30/01-4560814-lutte-electorale-plq-caq-a-quebec.php

Why is the QC area so rather right-wing? 07 a large number of seats went ADQ, now its CAQ who is gaining traction? most prov. capitals tend to have a centre-left tilt to them. Interesting, anyone know?

That is usually the case - since rightwing parties tend to go to war against public sector unions and civil servants - who in turn tend to be a large part of the population of capital cities. However, Quebec city is an odd exception. Ottawa is a also a bit of an exception - once you get past the NDP fortress of Ottawa Centre and the Liberals fortresses of Ottawa-vanier and Ottawa South - all the other ridings in Ottawa and its 'burbs are very conservative.

[DL]

Tommy: Henri-François Gautrin (Verdun). François Gendron (Abitibi-Ouest) is a PQ MP, the father of House, being an MNA since 1976.

Gautrin was never involved with any provincial wing of the NDP in Quebec...he was the leader of the Quebec section of the federal NDP back in the 70s when Lewis and then Broadbent were leaders.

[DL]

Here is what i predict - the CAQ party will soon overtake the Liberals and that will cause even more Liberal voters to start to vote "strategically" for CAQ just to stop the PQ (like the way last year there was a flood of federal Liberal voters going NDP the moment the NDP started to overtake the Liberals)...I think we will end up in a minority situation where the PQ has the largest number of seats followed by the CAQ and the Liberals are reduced to being an anglophone rump. The PLQ will then make a deal with Legault to block Marois and we will have a CAQ minority government.

[DL]

We're not even halfway through the campaign. Plus the debates starting Sunday. That's Charest's best and probably last chance to go on offense.

Of course anything can happen and its early. I'm just going out on a limb and saying what I think will end up happening. My impression is that there are two kinds of people in Quebec - 1) people who hate Charest and would rather have red hot needles inserted in their eye balls than vote for him - those people are all already voting PQ or CAQ or for a minor party and 2) people who think Charest is the worst Premier in the history of the province but are willing to hold their nose and vote for him because they don't want the PQ to come and in start playing referendum politics. There is literally NO ONE outside of the Quebec Liberal caucus and (I presume) Charest immediate family - who actually think Charest is a good premier. I think Quebecers have made up their minds about Jean Charest and now its just a question of whether there will be stampede by what's left of Liberal voters to the CAQ to stop the PQ.

[DL]

It's not clear to me if Leger actually conducted riding polls in those seats or if is basing that on extrapolations of his poll results by sites like too close to call or 308.

[DL]

Two questions.

2.  How come Quebec City is more conservative than most of the province.  It went mostly ADQ in 2007, will probably go mostly CAQ on Tuesday and also went largely for the federal Conservatives in 2006 and 2008 (and even last election despite losing all seats to the NDP they averaged 10% more than their province wide average).

There was a long article about the Quebec City mystery" a few days ago. It seems to be a combination of people in suburban QC resenting their neighbours who work for the Quebec government (there are two solitudes in QC, if you are a civil servant you hate CAQ/CPC and if you are NOT a civil servant you resent the people who are), that plus for some reason there are some very rightwing populist talk radio hosts in QC that seem to have a major influence on people.

[DL]

Are all the polls in, or are we expecting some more?

I wouldn't be surprised if Forum did one last poll and released it tonight or tomorrow. Remember how they did that one final poll on the eve of the Alberta election that suddenly showed Wildrose losing steam?

[DL]

I think Justin Trudeau should run for the Quebec Liberal leadership. Let's face it, being leader of the federal Liberals is a dead end job if ever there was one, but as leader of the Quebec Liberals he could easily be premier of Quebec! Besides what old be better than running against Marois and the Pequistes as "Super Just" the savior of Canada!

[DL]

I'm a bit surprised at QS getting almost a quarter of the vote in Laurier-Dorion, better than in all but 3 other ridings. Has there recently been significant migration of student/hipster types north into Villeray?

Villeray is quickly becoming the new trendy neighbourhood and it's very, very left-wing.
It is the neighbourhood where people were on balconies to hit on foodware during the height of the strike.

Its also the core of the federal riding of Papineau which is currently represented by one Justin Trudeau but which would be an almost perfect NDP riding in Montreal. Without Justin T., Papineau would have gone NDP in a landslide