Canada 2011 Official Thread

[minionofmidas]

Yeah, as in "why now and not in any of the other months between the last election and now"?

[minionofmidas]

Paul Martin was not to the left of the Democratic Party's center of gravity. Not by any stretch of the imagination. (Jean Chrétien or Pierre Trudeau, otoh...)

[minionofmidas]

Of course, the Greens are more "Where Moderate Heroes go to throw their votes away".

[minionofmidas]

God, I don't hope anybody actually reported this? Megasilly.

[minionofmidas]

Tories steady, Grits drop, dippers on a roll.....

To fairly minor extent, both of that.

In other words, default Canadian election season.

[minionofmidas]

Quick question: why didn't the NDP surge much further in 2008 when there was a lot of anger towards Harper from the left and with the Liberals having such of a weak/unappealing leader and campaign message?

He wasn't as unappealing as his immediate successor and predecessor... to those inclined to support Dippers, that is. Though it was hard to imagine him as Prime Minister.

[minionofmidas]

If the NDP allows for some reason a Tory majority I'll be pissed. And if the NDP allows my retard MP to be reelected they can all go DIAF.

Oh come on. If through any circumstance there ends up being a Conservative majority there is only one party to blame and it's the Liberals for

existing past their due date.

Which was the day the ti gars bowed out.

[minionofmidas]

Apparently the Tories are scared of the NDP now: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PYTd52pT28&feature=youtu.be

"He'll do it again"? Certainly they mean "He's probably doing it again right now"?

[minionofmidas]

Anglos: NDP 45%, Cons 26%, Lib 20%, BQ 4%

Sample is probably very small, but, if that true, Liberals would lose some safe seats in the west half of Montreal, the ridings "whose would elect a red post box".

Yeah, looks like the post boxes might conceivably be repainted orange.

[minionofmidas]

I was worried, I misread "seeing" as "seeking"...

Well, "seeing" has some interesting meanings too, in this context.

These are not for you to decide.

We discussed Canadian early results on this website in 2004, 2006 and 2008.  The world did not come to an end.  And nobody ended up in a Canadian prison.

Have a look at the 2008 figures. The only thing we had was seat totals for the Maritimes. People wondered aloud if the ABC strategy had backfired, cause apparently no one was online to tell them there were reasonable Tory targets in New Brunswick.

[minionofmidas]

I think you missed the point entirely.

[minionofmidas]

I think you missed the point entirely.

That the quality of the aggregate info available wasn't good enough to split Newfoundland from the other Maritime results?  Or our analysis sucked?

That the results we (well, some posters who were posting on the forum at the time, whose identity I would have to look up. Though I do seem to recall Meeker was among them, might be wrong though) were very, very incomplete ones, just a headline seats leading tally. Nothing to satisfy an election junkie in any way. The dam on real results coverage broadly held.
Now, that doesn't mean the same thing will be true in 2011 - Twitter wasn't around then - but don't get your hopes up.

[minionofmidas]

I was worried, I misread "seeing" as "seeking"...

Well, "seeing" has some interesting meanings too, in this context.

These are not for you to decide.

We discussed Canadian early results on this website in 2004, 2006 and 2008.  The world did not come to an end.  And nobody ended up in a Canadian prison.

Have a look at the 2008 figures. The only thing we had was seat totals for the Maritimes. People wondered aloud if the ABC strategy had backfired, cause apparently no one was online to tell them there were reasonable Tory targets in New Brunswick.

I notice a wtfworthy error of mine. No idea why I wrote "figures". I meant to write "thread".

Yeah. Go figure that one out.

[minionofmidas]

Haven't found Dave yet but found this gem from ag...


Re: Canada 2008: Official Thread
« Reply #800 on: October 14, 2008, 06:20:10 pm »    

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Your understanding is correct. They can't monitor everything perfectly, but they do prosecute anyone who they catch spreading results into provinces where voting is still open.[/quote]

And the remarkable thing is, it seems to be working, at least for now. At least, my, admittedly far from thorough, but more than perfunctory search hasn't uncovered any violators. The most that I've seen is people saying "I will be discussing this on Twitter".  Can't believe it - 30 million law-abiding citizens and no freedom fighters among them Smiley

What can I say: Canadians.

[minionofmidas]

Counting the next morning, as some areas in Britain do.

[minionofmidas]

The Angus Reid poll has Harper's approval at 36%-50%... in a normal political system he'd be headed to a landslide loss.

Clear majorities would also be dissatisfied with either a Tory minority or majority government. Though a Lib-NDP coalition is also only slightly more popular and a Lib-NDP-Bloc coalition is opposed by 60% of the country.

Looks like they should just form a Grand Coalition.

[minionofmidas]

Nice.

Can't wait for polling day. Can't comment much on here - I fear I might jinx things.

[minionofmidas]

If the election results follow the current polls, we'll see some losses for Conservatives, more losses for the Liberals, bad losses for the Bloc, and NDP pushed to second place. Elizabeth May might also win. In such a scenario the Conservatives will hold a reduced plurality while the Liberals and NDP combined hold a clear majority.

It's a safe bet that Ignatieff and Duceppe will step down as party leaders. Harper will continue as Prime Minister and will introduce a budget which grants no concessions to the opposition parties, and continue to scaremonger about coalitions.

Here's a question: if that budget is voted down and the Governor General goes to Layton (as leader of the second party) to form a government, how will Harper react? Will he resort to childish antics?

I think he made that very very clear in 2008. He'll prorogue parliament, indefinitely if need be.

[minionofmidas]

Applying the "if it weren't in Quebec" test, Saint-Maurice-Champlain should also be a target.

Forget these kinds of tests. What we're looking at by now is: Any seat in Québec, except for those where voters are accustomed to choosing tactically between Bloc and Liberals, or between Bloc and Conservatives based on the last two elections, or where the Bloc or Liberal incumbent is personally popular or the NDP candidate is an obvious dud, is likely to go NDP at this point. It is possible that this actually does not apply to Anglo Montréal, in which case it's even truer of the remainder of the province.
The NDP will be the largest party in Québec in terms of seats; whether it will win over half of them remains questionable.

There. I've put myself on the line. Though Nick said it before me.

Foucaulf, Dan might be a bit of an anti-NDP hack, but he did describe that scenario as a Tories' best case. As such, it seems perfectly reasonable.

[minionofmidas]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

A bit value-impacted by the lack of a question as to whether it's a positive opinion in absolute terms.

[minionofmidas]

And it's not as if, elephants in the room aside, much of Quebec wasn't natural social democratic territory.

[minionofmidas]

Somebody ought to do a trendline to show how long the campaign would theoretically need to be until the NDP overtakes the Tories.

[minionofmidas]

Arthur losing to the NDP? Oh how sweet would it be.

[minionofmidas]

You don't have to apologize for your hideous views, this is a nonpartisan politics forum.

[minionofmidas]

The non-French-speaking barmaid who's on holiday in Vegas isn't winning.

Shame really. More waitresses in parliament would be a good thing indeed.