Canadian Federal Election 2015: Canada Votes -- Liberals In, Tories Out

[CarltonTheBear]

Are they really, or is this really based on him saying he'd want to? I have a hard time believing anyone connected to the Conservatives would support someone who only has municipal experience as a federal party leader.

A Toronto city hall reporter wrote that a "coalition of conservative voters" are urging him to run. Granted, I'm sure it's just a small pocket of people in Etobicoke who are still fiercely loyal to the Fords for some reason.

 

[bustaheims]

A Toronto city hall reporter wrote that a "coalition of conservative voters" are urging him to run. Granted, I'm sure it's just a small pocket of people in Etobicoke who are still fiercely loyal to the Fords for some reason.

Ahh. Yeah, that's pretty much it. He'd have absolutely no shot. There are large segments of the Conservative party that want to distance themselves from the Fords as much as they possibly can. And, if by some craziness, he did win their leadership, it would virtually guarantee another Liberal majority.

 

[Kin]

Yep,  I think this was Trudeau's to lose from the start.  He ran a pretty safe campaign, and people were tired of Harper's Conservatives.

I don't think that really meshes with what we saw in the polls. The conservatives were in the lead as recently as a couple of weeks ago. You're right, the Conservatives pretty clearly had an incumbency problem and chose to run a pretty constant stream of negative advertising as a result which had some effectiveness intermittently but you can't win a campaign just by calling the other guy a weiner. Their problem was they had no second gear outside of making a mountain out of religious hats.

Having Trudeau in that chair honestly scares the hell out of me...

You know, a friend of mine swears by marijuana as an effective way to ease anxiety.

 

[Kin]

Truthfully, in the long-run, this loss could be the best thing to happen to the Conservatives. If they're smart, their leadership will move away from the old Reform party side of things and move back towards the centre and the PC elements of their party. A more progressive Conservative party with someone more likeable than Harper could have a very real shot in the next election.

Maybe. But that assumes that they could do that while holding onto whatever is left of the social conservative bones of the Reform base. I think one of the things that will come out of any Conservative leadership campaign is just what an effective job Harper did to satisfy both constituencies in an effort to be electable. If a new Conservative leader swings the party further to the center an a far-right party emerges as a result then that new party could really throw a monkey wrench into any chances of a future Conservative government even if they only muster Green Party levels of support.

I'm not trying to editorialize here, regardless of leanings there's just a simple math problem. In the three elections the Conservatives won they never hit 40% and the three parties running to their Left(ignoring the Bloc for a second) consistently made up 55-65% of the electorate. Those victories were made possible because of a lack of strategic voting on the Left(and, if I can editorialize for a second, some objectively terrible Liberal leaders).

So any chance the Conservatives have in the future depends on one of two things. Either they somehow figure out a way to make up for the fact that, conservatively speaking, they've got a 20-30 point swing to make up in terms of the political landscape of the country or hope that voters have a terribly short memory and forget about the actual consequences of not voting strategically.

 

[Heroic Shrimp]

 

[princedpw]

Truthfully, in the long-run, this loss could be the best thing to happen to the Conservatives. If they're smart, their leadership will move away from the old Reform party side of things and move back towards the centre and the PC elements of their party. A more progressive Conservative party with someone more likeable than Harper could have a very real shot in the next election.

Maybe. But that assumes that they could do that while holding onto whatever is left of the social conservative bones of the Reform base. I think one of the things that will come out of any Conservative leadership campaign is just what an effective job Harper did to satisfy both constituencies in an effort to be electable. If a new Conservative leader swings the party further to the center an a far-right party emerges as a result then that new party could really throw a monkey wrench into any chances of a future Conservative government even if they only muster Green Party levels of support.

I'm not trying to editorialize here, regardless of leanings there's just a simple math problem. In the three elections the Conservatives won they never hit 40% and the three parties running to their Left(ignoring the Bloc for a second) consistently made up 55-65% of the electorate. Those victories were made possible because of a lack of strategic voting on the Left(and, if I can editorialize for a second, some objectively terrible Liberal leaders).

So any chance the Conservatives have in the future depends on one of two things. Either they somehow figure out a way to make up for the fact that, conservatively speaking, they've got a 20-30 point swing to make up in terms of the political landscape of the country or hope that voters have a terribly short memory and forget about the actual consequences of not voting strategically.

In a nutshell, what are the substantial long term policy differences between the liberals and the ndp?  (not a rhetorical question. I'd like to know) From a distance, sitting here in the US, the parties look pretty similar.  So to me, it appears, as you say, that the vote on the left is split.  Consequently, the country has been governed more towards the right than the majority actually desires.

 

[L K]

Some Conservatives are trying to get Doug Ford to run for leadership. That'll be fun.

Are they really, or is this really based on him saying he'd want to? I have a hard time believing anyone connected to the Conservatives would support someone who only has municipal experience as a federal party leader.

They do know that Doug lacks an ounce of charisma, right?  Doug is less of a drug/alcohol liability than Rob, but Rob would honestly have a better shot at winning an election because of his personality.  Dough doesn't have a personality.  He honestly comes across like the muscle from a gang.

 

[bustaheims]

They do know that Doug lacks an ounce of charisma, right?  Doug is less of a drug/alcohol liability than Rob, but Rob would honestly have a better shot at winning an election because of his personality.  Dough doesn't have a personality.  He honestly comes across like the muscle from a gang.

Yeah. He makes Harper look like the life of the party.

 

[Kin]

In a nutshell, what are the substantial long term policy differences between the liberals and the ndp?  (not a rhetorical question. I'd like to know) From a distance, sitting here in the US, the parties look pretty similar.  So to me, it appears, as you say, that the vote on the left is split.  Consequently, the country has been governed more towards the right than the majority actually desires.

In terms of this election, this is a pretty good primer on what the various parties have said on the bigger issues(although it may not be as small of a nutshell as you were hoping for):

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/elections/party-platform-comparison/article26758784/

 

[princedpw]

In a nutshell, what are the substantial long term policy differences between the liberals and the ndp?  (not a rhetorical question. I'd like to know) From a distance, sitting here in the US, the parties look pretty similar.  So to me, it appears, as you say, that the vote on the left is split.  Consequently, the country has been governed more towards the right than the majority actually desires.

In terms of this election, this is a pretty good primer on what the various parties have said on the bigger issues(although it may not be as small of a nutshell as you were hoping for):

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...58784/[url] [/quote] This is great.  Thanks!