2008 Canadian by-elections

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There's something of a tempest brewing for the Liberal nomination in Desnethé-Missinippi-Churchill River between Ralph Goodale's supporters and David Orchard's campaign, who supported Dion in the leadership convention. Dion's pretty burned about selecting his own candidates because of Outremont, but Orchard's got ground support in the riding that Goodale doesn't. Goodale's also trying to court the same woman the NDP is courting for their candidate.

Needless to say, this riding will be the one to watch on the 17th, assuming there isn't a general election beforehand which is looking more and more likely every day.

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Will the provincial voting patterns really give much indication to the by-election campaign or result? The last three proved, if anything, that the ground campaigns matter more than ancient voting patterns.

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The Hasidim live in the northeast of the riding. It's not in the heaviest NDP-voting region (that's the Plateau and Mile End) but just a little north of there in the very long and thin catchment areas (sorry, can't think of the term for those jurisdictional boundaries) where NDP support isn't as strong.

The heaviest Liberal areas are the Plateau and Centreville in the south and the immigrant enclaves in the north - Jamaicans, Italians, and Portuguese, mostly.

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I have no breakdown patterns for the areas in question so I have no idea whether or not the Hasidim voted as a bloc. My best guess is that most of them didn't bother to turn out (only 25K voted out of a typical total of 40K) and that those who did voted Liberal or NDP based on how much they liked Mulcair.

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What's the impact that David Orchard is going to have on the race? Will he depress Liberal turnout enough for the Conservatives to take it?

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It was my understanding that he was making a fuss about getting passed over for the nomination. The way the media portrayed it, it looked like he had at least partial support in the riding from his own network. Knowing his maverick style of politics, I could see him running as an independent or just telling his supporters to stay home. Considering how close the race was last time, it could easily effect the outcome.

Alternatively, will Joan Beatty's NDP past bring back some of those votes to the Liberals?

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DMCR has an ex-NDP provincial politican running for the Liberals which should help them, as should the recent scandals in the news that have reflected badly on the Tories.

Unlike Verily, I don't agree that the NDP could win in Westmount-Ville Marie or that they should even bother making it a target. The riding is too upscale, even in its poorest sections, for the NDP to have much appeal. It's also rather weak on the soft-nationalist bloquiste vote which delivered Outremont to Mulcair in 2007.

Don Valley West is more of a decent shot for the Tories than Westmount-Ville Marie is for the NDP, though I still don't think the Tories would do well there on a federal level unless they had a star candidate. Perhaps a Cadman family member?

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Fair enough, but weren't the NDP supposed to win 4-5 seats in Alberta and 14 seats in Ontario?

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Well that was quite a night. I fear Earl is stalking me as his moniker changed to a Green from Ireland just as I land in the Emerald Isle for a week of vacation. Get out of my head, Earl!

Maybe it's the Guinness talking but I have some thoughts on the results. Despite succeeding in 3/4 polls this is really quite a disappointing result for the Liberals. The margin of loss in DMCR was large enough to be more than just infighting because of Orchard, though that in an of itself was a poor showing and a bad precedent for the conduct of the national campaign forthrcoming.

Equally, the margin of victory in Vancouver-Quadra was so tantalizingly low that the Liberals have to start seriously worrying about some the Tories making major inroads into their support base. If I can make a request, can someone please start on the Vancouver-Quadra results map very soon. I'm eager to see where the Liberals lost votes and where the Tories picked them up. If Dion's prognosis that it was a shift to the Greens because of the environmental issue then its probably not too dangerous. However, if its Tories making headway in immigrant communities then the Liberals are in deep trouble.

The only uniformly bright side of the night has to be the success of the Green Party apparently at the expense of the NDP. Granted, as a by-election the results are only so indicative of larger trends, but the results do carry some ominous forecasts for the NDP. Slipping from 3rd to fourth is the opposite direction they should be going, considering the weakness of the Liberals and their strategy of delivering three strikes to the Liberals for every two they give to the Tories. If the NDP is forced to change tactics to defend the flank being attacked by the Greens they will begin to stretch themselves too thin to be effective. The result, sadly, would be a loss for just about everyone save the Tories, who will still lose votes, but not in the places where the elections are close enough to make a difference.