- This week’s by-election results ... suggest that voters are not too much concerned ...Ezra Levant has similar thoughts:
- The PM’s chief of staff advanced his own money that was cycled on a fast track to the national treasury. It was the reverse of embezzlement. ...
- there is something very peculiar about a system that, as in the Duffy case, allows an RCMP corporal to publish such an inflammatory series of allegations against a distinguished figure of the private and public sector such as Nigel Wright. ...
- especially unbecoming, and has failed to impress anyone an all political sides, has been the swift evolution of Harper’s and Gerstein’s and others Conservatives’ references to Nigel Wright [throwing him under the bus] ...
- overall, this remains pretty thin gruel as a scandal. ...
Saturday, November 30, 2013
Senate "scandal" - much ado about not much
Conrad Black on the Duffy/ Wright affair:
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3 comments:
Finally, some reason and common sense. Let's face it, the media torqued this story so out of proportion that it became ridiculous. I'm glad Black mentioned the by-elections because that was the media's agenda all along, attempting to manipulate voters into voting for the idiot boy Turdeau... Fail! Only in the collectivist minds of the diseased corrupt media party would paying back the taxpayers become a "scandal". The media party is fast becoming an irrelevant attack dog of the radical left, I guess you can only scream "scandal" so many times before people ask for proof before the lynching.
I couldn't agree more.
While one needs to be careful about reading too much into the by-elections, the Tories did hold their two seats but saw more than a 10 point drop and contrary to what some say the Tories since Harper has come to power have generally maintained or increased their vote share in by-elections. In fact Andrew Coyne pointed out the average of those four ridings for the Tories in 2011 was 39% (more or less what they got nationally) while this time it was 28% (close to what the polls say). There were only 40 ridings nationally where they cracked the 60% mark in 2011 and Brandon-Souris was one of them so if barely winning in a safe riding like that, it would suggest they would lose several more vulnerable ones. In 2011 they got over 70% in Provencher and it was one of only 18 ridings where they got that high. Just for comparisons, their share of the popular vote was worse than in 2004 when they lost in all four ridings. You have to go back to 2000 when the Liberals won a majority to find an election where the Tories did worse. The only sort of good news is the NDP outside of Manitoba (where they have an unpopular provincial NDP government who will likely be defeated in 2015) held their numbers and the Liberals in Bourassa and Toronto Centre did worse than Paul Martin did either times.
Now a lot can change between now and then. After all in BC in 2012, the BC Liberals lost two safe ridings (Port Moody-Coquitlam and Chilliwack-Hope), but were able to reclaim them in 2013. However, three things happened to allow this.
1. The NDP under Adrian Dix showed they weren't ready to govern whereas in 2012 he had faced little scrutiny. Whether Trudeau will go this way is certainly possible but one of the golden rules of politics is you never underestimate your opponent.
2. The BC Conservatives thanks to infighting and inept leadership imploded and almost all of this went over to the BC Liberals. Federally there is no other party on the right splitting the vote like their was provincially.
3. The BC Liberals learned from the losses and made the necessary changes and were able to improve their public perception, so if the Tories won't do that, they also need to do the same.
Their poll numbers nationally suck, however in the Nanos weekly trackings all three parties have over 40% who would consider voting for them meaning any party in theory could get a majority if they can convince all of those or the vast majority to vote for them.
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