Central Nova by the Numbers
Stéphane Dion, who is not progressive, has allied with Elizabeth May, who is not progressive, ostensibly to prevent progressive vote-splitting. As Andrew Coyne notes in tomorrow’s National Post column, this maneuver is clearly directed against the federal NDP, which is progressive.
It is worth recalling the 2006 election results in Central Nova, the riding where Dion has pledged to prevent a Liberal from running against May:
Conservatives – 41%
New Democrats – 33%
Liberals – 25%
Greens – 2%
(Due to rounding, these numbers sum to 101%.)
If the true goal were to defeat Peter MacKay, the incumbent Conservative, then Dion and May would be backing the NDP in Central Nova.
Wow. This reads like … common sense.
I’d say that with this deal, May now has a shot… at beating the NDP for 2nd place in this riding. I would doubt it though.
Glad to finally read some sane reason amongst all the blog posts and comments today that suggest otherwise….
It is called liberal spin which is what they have become best known for. Sad commentary on a party that use to have meaning back in Trudeau’s day, whether you agreed with his policies or not.
This is a masterstroke of brilliance. Clearly 59% of the riding wants to tos Mckay. The Greens are sucking NDP support and now the Liberals will help May. She can coelesce the opposition support.
It would be wonderful to see the Mackay lose. He has been such a dud. Woof.
I would offer another complication: If Coyne can find any way at all to injure the NDP, he will do it. I suspect he does not even need to think about it, it may come intuitively.One could study the guy who worked out how pidgeons can be trained to conditioned reflexes.
But, back at the beginning, I believe it would be a good thing to send Mr. Mackay back to the Maratimes. For too long we have had to watch the painful drama of Harper visiting his endless paranoia against a possible competitor by keeping him close and keeping him surpressed. Mackay might actually be a good political force in his own back yard, now that the other side of his embarrassment has read herself out of the political equation.
And Dion has had the guts to do exactly what he said he was going to do, advance environment any way he could. Ã…nother year of unnpleasant planetary surprises will lead to a lot of people approving such priorities. What was it that Trudeau used to say about the Universe and how it behaved?