Comparing ridings to states is comparing apples to oranges. We should be talking about a 10 province strategy to be consistent.
There are three major parties in Canada and not two. Now, I know this does not mesh with some people’s belief that the left right spectrum drives voting patterns, but historically, Western rural voters swing between the NDP and the conservative party de jour. Moreover, there are slew of working class neighborhoods (e.g., Surrey North, Nanaimo Cowichan) were voters do the same.
The Democrats garnered 42% in the South in 2004. The Liberals garnered 16.5% in the West in 2008. Outside of Vancouver, Victoria, and the southern part of Winnipeg there is no support for the Liberals to speak of. It is one thing to target every region of the country when you are flush with cash and have huge base of support in absolute numbers to work with; it is quite another when you are fighting it out with the Green party for 4th place outside of the urban centers. The Greens beat the Liberals in 8 seats in BC, 10 in Alberta, 2 in Saskatchewan and 1 in Manitoba. I dare say there was not a county that Nader outpolled Kerry.
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2 comments:
"Comparing ridings to states is comparing apples to oranges."
...No #$%#. And comparing the democrats to Liberals is comparing apples to oranges, but that doesn't mean anything.
"We should be talking about a 10 province strategy to be consistent." You repeatedly say things but don't provide any reasoning for them. Provinces are not equal to states, so how is that comparison equal to apples and oranges?
Provinces don't elect Prime Ministers, ridings do, coincidentally just like states elect Presidents.
Instead of just saying things, please provide some justification.
-scott
thescottross
>>>>> Provinces don't elect Prime Ministers, ridings do, coincidentally just like states elect Presidents.
No you are wrong. You vote for an MP. That is hardly the point though. As usual you have missed the forest for the trees. Dean’s point was that if the Democrats only focused on just at States the Democrats were competitive in 2004 and wrote the rest off to bad debts, fundraising numbers would be retarded and more importantly so too would the party’s potential to grow their base of support in these States. The way this has been translated into a Canadian context is that the Liberals should not be writing off ridings, but should aim to be competitive in all 308 ridings. This is no plan at all. It is pie in the sky. An ideal is not a plan. The Dean plan makes sense in so far as there are large pools of Democratic voters in the redest of states and party can use these pool of voters as beach head and slowly move out from where these voters are concentrated to counties beyond. The Liberals do not even have such a beach head in some places. So for them to think they can go the Democrats one better and be competitive in not just every province but every riding in every province is just plain stupid.
The Liberals should be looking to establish and or reinforce the beachheads in provinces in which they have historically not been strong. Edmonton and Calgary are a great case in point. Sooner our latter Albertans will follow the rest of the country and stop voting down strictly regional lines. Indeed, there may be signs that they may be starting to do just that. Edmonton Strathcona should have gone NDP given its demographic makeup and for once did. The Liberals should not, however, dream of being competitive in Wild Rose any time soon.
BTW, stop ending off with, The Scott Ross. It is fucking retarded. The Koby.
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