Outremont and reluctant troops
Just how close is the by-election in Outremont, Quebec? And can Stephane Dion influence the outcome? I don't mean influencing voters. I mean influencing people in his own party to pull for a win in that traditional Liberal riding.
There are three federal by-election in Quebec, with voters going to the polls on Monday. It looks very bad for Stephane Dion and the Liberal Party:
Outremont
NDP 38%
Liberal 32%
Bloc 14%
Green 8%
Conservative 7%
Other 1%Roberval-Lac-Saint-Jean Conservative 43%
Bloc 37%
Liberal 12%
NDP 4%
Green 4%Saint-Hyacinthe-Bagot
Bloc 49%
Conservative 32%
NDP 7%
Green 6%
Liberal 5%
Other 1%
A shutout in Quebec could fatally wound Stephane Dion as Liberal Party leader.
Outremont is the most important. First, it is the closest race as far as the Liberals are concerned, and it is a riding that has aways voted Liberal, except in 1988, when Brian Mulroney's Progressive Conservatives took the riding from John Turner's Liberals. That parallel itself is the most worrying for Stephane Dion -- if it is noted that he is as effective a leader as John Turner was, well, he's finished.
Either in a spurt of electoral energy, or more likely in a panic, the Liberals are pushing hard in Outremont:
The possibility they might lose has the party hitting the emergency button.
"I'll give you an idea of how much of a panic the Liberals are in," Fife said. "They told all their workers in Ottawa to get to Montreal this weekend. They need them on the ground to bring out the vote in Outremont."
How many voters are going to make a difference? According to Elections Canada, there are 63,728 registered voters in Outremont. Let's go a bit high and say there will be a 70% turnout, meaning about 45,000 votes are going to be cast. According to that poll, 17,100 are likely to vote for Thomas Mulcair of the NDP, and 14,400 for the Liberal candidate, Jocelyn Coulon. That's a 2,700 vote gap. The Green Party vote right now represents a pool of 3,600 votes. In past elections, Green represented parked votes, but not anymore. A significant share, perhaps more than half, of that will stay Green at the polls, and only the remainder will split between the NDP and the Liberals.
It is going to be hard to find 27 busloads of Liberals to avert disaster.
And that's if the Liberals go all out. That's where my thoughts are focused. All those Liberal workers from Ottawa and perhaps other places are converging on Outremont. But really, how many will that be? What I mean by that is that how many will want to help Stephane Dion survive this test?
Liberals who backed Bob Rae or Michael Ignatieff will see a Liberal humiliation in Outremont as their guarantee that Stephane Dion will be finished as a leader. Dion would likely stick around through a general election (the Liberal Party constitution doesn't provide for leadership reviews in the wake of a by-election loss), but Ignatieff and Rae and their teams would be planning and plotting for the inevitable leadership convention.
To make sure that happens, you have to wonder just how Liberal volunteers will not be responding to the call to go to Outremont. And how many will have been told quietly by Ignatieff's and Rae's people to take the weekend off.
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Comments
Remember Elizabeth May's deal with Dion? Presumably May will encourage Potential Green voters to vote Liberal.After all the Greens have no chance, right?
But then in Saint-Hyacinthe-Bagot Dion's Lib's is trailing the Greens. Should Dion be asking Libs to support the Greens in that riding?
I just bring all this up for those who still think Dion's deal with May was good politics. I doubt many of them are reading this here anyways but it is still humourous.
But to get serious, I think polling in individual ridings can be widely unpredictable.In the KW area in the last provincial election the local newspaper (KW Record) ran huge headlines about a crushing defeat for the tories in all area ridings.On election day a week or so later the Record had egg on their face since most seats stayed solidly tory.
On the other hand, don't you think the NDP can do the same? That is bring in workers for the final push this weekend.A win for them would be as stunning as a loss for the Libs.
Posted by: David at September 15, 2007 08:44 AM
Desperate Dion Liberals are trying to plug the hole in the Outremont dike by rushing in additional troops from Montreal environs and as far as Ottawa ... and this is only for one riding.
How will Liberals manage if there is a general election and all their Montreal past strongholds must be defended???!!!
If Liberals lose Outremont, that will be Dion's Waterloo ... and he will lose all credibility as a leader in Quebec and Canada...!!!!
Liberal party workers should just let Outremont go, and precipitate a crisis that can only be resolved with Dion abdicating by the end of the week.
Posted by: Observer at September 15, 2007 11:33 AM
Steve - you must have pissed off Kinsella too much with your comments about Dion. He HAS dropped you from his blogroll..
Posted by: mjolnir at September 15, 2007 12:15 PM
Steve - you must have peeved off Kinsella too much with your comments about Dion. He HAS dropped you from his blogroll..
Posted by: mjolnir at September 15, 2007 12:16 PM
I know I'm off the blogroll. But as far as I know, WK and I are still on good terms. I notice he has put Stephen Taylor on the roll, so there are rooms for Dion critics on the list. In any case, it's just politics.
Posted by: Steve Janke at September 15, 2007 05:31 PM
Sorry about the double comment, the first time I hit "post" I got some kind of cryptic error from your site, so I hit it again and the screen just hung there for ages, so I closed the laptop and went out for awhile, thinking that the comment didn't post.
I thought it odd that he'd drop you and keep others on, but whatever, Kinsellas sounding a little shrill these days and I don't go over there that often..
cheers!
Posted by: mjolnir at September 15, 2007 11:53 PM
Iggy Prof. doesn't need agents to tank Liberal hopes in Quebec ridings...I suspect that come election Quebec will sweep the CPC to majority as they are convinced it is a good caretaker government and Dion is just as buffoonish as he always was.....my gawd he's detested in Quebec.
Dion's LPC leadership win is stark proof the Chretien-Desmarais cartel still pull party strings.
Posted by: WL Mackenzie Redux at September 16, 2007 10:40 AM
I would not like to be Jason Cherniak on Tuesday morning.
Posted by: Brian in Calgary at September 16, 2007 01:55 PM
When would you ever want to be Jason Cherniak?
Posted by: Colin at September 17, 2007 12:27 PM
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