Thursday, October 5, 2006

jumping the margin.

I'm not going to say too much about this, but the difference between 30% of the vote and 9% of the vote is a pretty wide margin...
“We need to give voters in Alberta the faith that their vote can bring about a change,” she says, disagreeing that the Liberals have a better chance of defeating the Tories than her party does.
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15 comments:

  1. Idealistic PragmatistOctober 5, 2006 at 3:50 PM

    Fascinating partisan rounding technique, there. *grin*

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  2. AnonymousOctober 5, 2006 at 4:04 PM

    Actually, I don't think the Liberals have a better chance than the NDP to defeat the Tories. Neither of them stand a chance. :-)

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  3. AnonymousOctober 5, 2006 at 4:20 PM

    Rachel Notley might win in Edmonton Strathcona, but the NDP are a far shot for even forming Official Opposition.

    Under Brian Mason, this party has near zero growth potential and will probably have a difficult time retaining all of their seats in the next election. The Alberta NDP should dump Mason and take a new leadership under someone like Dave Eggen or Linda Duncan. Then we might see some actual effective oppositioning done by the NDP in Alberta.

    I'm not holding my breath.

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  4. michael in calgaryOctober 5, 2006 at 4:27 PM

    I agree that the NDP have been a fairly effective opposition under Mason in the form of protesting the loudest and getting the most media attention of the three opposition parties, but I havent seen them offer any substantial policy solutions and vision for Alberta like Taft's Liberals have.

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  5. spunkmunderOctober 5, 2006 at 4:36 PM

    However unlikely it may seem now, Alberta opposition politics can be fairly fluid.

    I don't think this would happen under Mason, but the NDP had 25% range support in the 1980's before the Liberals overtook them. Of course, the NDP will need to do a lot to displace the Liberals base across Alberta and become more than just an isolated urban Edmonton party.

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  6. DuncanOctober 5, 2006 at 6:13 PM

    If the last election is any indication, the NDP came in first in four constituencies, and second in only two others (Edm-Glenora and West Yellowhead). I think the NDP are a long way away from competing in the same world as the PC's and Liberals for the government.

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  7. timOctober 5, 2006 at 6:41 PM

    I was at the Edmonton Strathcona nomination meeting last night. Jack Layton was there and it seemed that the entire time they were asking us for money. it was kinda lame.

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  8. AnonymousOctober 5, 2006 at 7:41 PM

    The NDP are legends in their own minds...

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  9. SamOctober 5, 2006 at 8:00 PM

    It was kind of lame. I was kind of upset actually. I don't know why the NDs can't be satisfied being an effective opposition, that's all I'm looking for.

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  10. AnonymousOctober 5, 2006 at 8:10 PM

    I'm more interested in the difference between 9.79% and 9.10%...

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  11. JimOctober 5, 2006 at 9:03 PM

    Bleh. The NDP wastes too much time and resources attacking the Liberals.

    And that Jim Dinning = Kevin Taft remark is beyond the fucking pale. You think that Jim Dinning would ever write a book like "Shredding the Public Interest"? I used to be very receptive to the NDP--even going so far as to volunteer once--but they just piss me off more and more each year.

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  12. cory allenOctober 5, 2006 at 9:09 PM

    I know how you feel Jim. I used to vote and volunteer for the NDP in elections but their damn morally self-ritious, self-congradulatory attitude pissed me off to the point where I couldn't volunteer for them any more. It's a shame. there are some really good people involved in the NDP, they just fall into some nasty groupthink when become a unit.

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  13. christineOctober 6, 2006 at 11:31 AM

    THere's only one poll that matters and between every election period in Alberta there are polls that always say that the opposition is going to get steemrolled into nothingness. Yet, they never seem to come true. Didn't the last pre-election polls have the Liberals and NDP at 14% and 17%? Meaningless. They both ended up with different numbers.

    No one is thinking about an election right now. Wait until it starts to get revved up again. You'll see the Liberals support rise.

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  14. JimOctober 6, 2006 at 12:38 PM

    Yeah, what Christine said.

    The pre-election polls done by Leger and others had the Alberta Liberals barely ahead of the NDP in 2004, yet they still managed to get nearly THREE TIMES as many votes as the NDP did.

    Pre-election polls always give an unrealistically bleak picture of Alberta Liberal support, and usually a somewhat optimistic level of NDP support.

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  15. bradFebruary 18, 2007 at 12:26 PM

    Having just moved from Manitoba to Alberta, I'm surprised that the Alberta NDP haven't done the sensible thing and move towards the centre - where most of their potential votes are. Instead, Brian Mason seems content to keep the NDP on the tiny irrelevant left fringe of Alberta politics.

    Until the NDP move to Albertans, Albertans will not move to the NDP and the NDP will remain a non-player in Alberta electoral politics.

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