The general tone of media coverage of polls and the upcoming federal election is that the Liberals can win no better than a minority. The lead for the story the Globe story on Saturday March 27 on the poll was: “Prime Minister Paul Martin's leadership is providing little help for Liberal support still mired in minority-government territory…” This is a reasonable guess at the outcome. However, my own seat calculation actually has the Liberals winning a small majority so I think the Globe’s estimate should be more qualified.
I have three ways of translating poll numbers into seats, and all yield, in the case of the Reid poll, similar but not identical numbers. My core estimate is as follows:
Liberal 157
Conservative 78
NDP 18
BQ 53
A bare majority would be 155 seats. Given the errors inherent in polling & seat estimates, 157 would be right on the line between minority and majority. A very slight shift in opinion would either yield a comfortable Liberal majority or a weak minority.
Some further observations:
1. I have the impression that there may be a good deal of latent anti-Liberal sentiment that might not be fully captured by any of the polls. Any long-established incumbent government tends to accumulate voter grievances, and the Martinites efforts to distance themselves from the Chrétien era simply can’t completely overcome this phenomenon.
2. One problem facing the analyst like myself who must rely on published polls is that there are relatively few, and most are from a single source: Ipsos-Reid, the company that polls for the Globe and Mail. In general, I think the Reid polls are ok but I do think they overestimate Green and “Other” support. For example, the Globe poll reports 5% for the Greens and 4% for “Others”. The NDP will be running on a very Green type platform. You can’t really tell for sure but it is possible that Reid is underestimating NDP support. I am guessing that they include the Greens in their ballot question. In 2000 the Greens received 0.8% of the vote and “Others” received 1.5% so this poll is estimating a huge increase in these two categories. I am skeptical.
3. I think the Conservatives are a great deal weaker overall than is the impression conveyed in media reports. When the Mulroney PC coalition split up between ’88 and ’93, it divided into three parts, not just two. Add Bloc support to Conservative support and you get 37% compared to the Liberals’ 38%. If the Mulroney coalition could be recreated you would get a race that is genuinely competitive. But the Mulroney coalition is still in two distinct parts, so for the Conservatives to be really successful they must win over large numbers of Liberals.
4. This poll was taken too soon after the budget and the election of Stephen Harper to really capture the impact of either.
That is enough for now. I haven’t been posting much partly as a consequence of problems with my back and neck.
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Tuesday, March 30, 2004
Wednesday, March 10, 2004
Minority or Majority?
I have been otherwise preoccupied for awhile, in part reconstructing my forecast model with data from the transposition of the 2000 results to the new electoral boundaries.
I do have a simple version of my forecast model up and running, although it requires more tweaking.
When I input a weighted average of the last three nationall polls (the last two Reid polls plus the Ekos poll) I get a Liberal minority government based on winning 152 seats (155 needed for a majority) with 74 for the Conservatives, 26 for the NDP and 56 for the Bloc. Just the most recent Reid poll gives the Liberals a majority.
Despite the media focus on the Conservatives, it appears to be the Bloc that represents the greatest threat to the Liberals. Quebec also appears to be Martin's best opportunity to forge a comeback. To accomplish this he must take the attention of Quebecers off the scandal and focus it elsewhere. Quebec political trends are always difficult to devine and the current moment is no exception but it appears to hold the key to the next election.
The Liberal slide was significant in the West but only in relation to recent trends. The Liberals are still running ahead of their 2000 showing west of the Manitoba-Ontario border. The new Conservative Party is currently doing well only in Alberta and even there they are weaker than they were in 2000.
Majority or minority? One thing seems certain. It is the Liberals we are talking about not the Conservatives.
I do have a simple version of my forecast model up and running, although it requires more tweaking.
When I input a weighted average of the last three nationall polls (the last two Reid polls plus the Ekos poll) I get a Liberal minority government based on winning 152 seats (155 needed for a majority) with 74 for the Conservatives, 26 for the NDP and 56 for the Bloc. Just the most recent Reid poll gives the Liberals a majority.
Despite the media focus on the Conservatives, it appears to be the Bloc that represents the greatest threat to the Liberals. Quebec also appears to be Martin's best opportunity to forge a comeback. To accomplish this he must take the attention of Quebecers off the scandal and focus it elsewhere. Quebec political trends are always difficult to devine and the current moment is no exception but it appears to hold the key to the next election.
The Liberal slide was significant in the West but only in relation to recent trends. The Liberals are still running ahead of their 2000 showing west of the Manitoba-Ontario border. The new Conservative Party is currently doing well only in Alberta and even there they are weaker than they were in 2000.
Majority or minority? One thing seems certain. It is the Liberals we are talking about not the Conservatives.
Wednesday, February 18, 2004
Post Auditor-General's Report Polls
The Ottawa media are salivating. After a decade of boredom the collapse of Liberal support in recent polls (two Ipsos-Reid, a National Post/Compas and a CROP poll in Quebec) has built expectations of a competitive election and, who knows, maybe even a change in government.
However, a key factor one would expect to find in this dramatic narrative is missing. The thing that strikes me about the latest polls is the weakness of Conservative support. Nationally, compared to the 2000 election the Conservatives are down from the combined Alliance-PC vote of 37.7% to 27% in the latest Ipsos Reid poll even though the Liberals themselves are down 5 points from 2000. Some analysts are obtusely refusing to aknowledge the reality that the Conservatives are just not as strong as some think they should be.
The Conservatives are weak for a number of reasons. First, they are dead in Quebec and not likely to revive. Quebec, however, was key to the last PC majority won in 1988. It also appears that, as the idea that the new party is a Reform-Alliance takeover sinks in, support in Atlantic Canada is weakening. The Conservatives registered 37% in the January Reid Poll but just 32% in the most recent poll. NDP support in 2000 in B.C. was unusually depressed by the unpopularity of the Glen Clark/ Ujjal Dosanjh government. The NDP now appears to have taken back a more traditional level of support there, probably mostly from the Conservatives.
The two parties that have gained support are the NDP and the Bloc. The NDP, in particular, are being overlooked partly because the media has spent years consigning the party to oblivion, before its phoenix-like rise from the ashes after electing Jack Layton as leader. It has risen from 8.5% in the 2000 election to 17% in the latest Reid poll, which I actually think understates the real level of NDP support. Reid started adding the Green Party to its ballot question about 18 months ago, because so many people were volunteering support for it. Since then Layton took over as NDP leader, started recruiting from the Green Party leadership, and adopting an aggressively Green agenda. I suspect many of the Green Party's adherents are younger voters who will probably gravitate to the NDP once an election is called. Add say 4 out of the 5 Green points to the NDP and suddenly its poll number is 21%, a level I think is more realistic and relativly high compared to recent history.
All this points at the moment to a Liberal minority with exceptionally strong showings by the NDP and the Bloc. But this muddies the media narrative and complicates the story.
However, a key factor one would expect to find in this dramatic narrative is missing. The thing that strikes me about the latest polls is the weakness of Conservative support. Nationally, compared to the 2000 election the Conservatives are down from the combined Alliance-PC vote of 37.7% to 27% in the latest Ipsos Reid poll even though the Liberals themselves are down 5 points from 2000. Some analysts are obtusely refusing to aknowledge the reality that the Conservatives are just not as strong as some think they should be.
The Conservatives are weak for a number of reasons. First, they are dead in Quebec and not likely to revive. Quebec, however, was key to the last PC majority won in 1988. It also appears that, as the idea that the new party is a Reform-Alliance takeover sinks in, support in Atlantic Canada is weakening. The Conservatives registered 37% in the January Reid Poll but just 32% in the most recent poll. NDP support in 2000 in B.C. was unusually depressed by the unpopularity of the Glen Clark/ Ujjal Dosanjh government. The NDP now appears to have taken back a more traditional level of support there, probably mostly from the Conservatives.
The two parties that have gained support are the NDP and the Bloc. The NDP, in particular, are being overlooked partly because the media has spent years consigning the party to oblivion, before its phoenix-like rise from the ashes after electing Jack Layton as leader. It has risen from 8.5% in the 2000 election to 17% in the latest Reid poll, which I actually think understates the real level of NDP support. Reid started adding the Green Party to its ballot question about 18 months ago, because so many people were volunteering support for it. Since then Layton took over as NDP leader, started recruiting from the Green Party leadership, and adopting an aggressively Green agenda. I suspect many of the Green Party's adherents are younger voters who will probably gravitate to the NDP once an election is called. Add say 4 out of the 5 Green points to the NDP and suddenly its poll number is 21%, a level I think is more realistic and relativly high compared to recent history.
All this points at the moment to a Liberal minority with exceptionally strong showings by the NDP and the Bloc. But this muddies the media narrative and complicates the story.
Sunday, February 01, 2004
Polls and Media in American Politics
I don't normally think much of New York Times columnist David Brooks, but I like this column from Saturday January 31. I think he is absolutely right about the self-reinforcing tautological character of modern American politics. Here is an excerpt:
"Let us review the Democratic presidential primaries so far:
In the beginning, John Kerry surged to a big lead in the New Hampshire polls because he seemed so electable. He had plenty of experience, lots of money and big hair, and, as somebody said, he looks like an animatronic version of Abraham Lincoln. But then Howard Dean raised a lot of money, and New Hampshire voters figured that he was bringing so many new people into the process that he must be electable — and if he was electable, then they should probably support him because they wanted somebody who could beat George Bush.
So Dean's poll numbers rose, and the news media noticed his momentum, and other voters noticed how much great press he was getting. And that led to a self-reinforcing upward spiral of electability as more people concluded that he was electable because so many other people were concluding he was electable. People around the country saw that Dean was doing so well in New Hampshire they, too, concluded that he must be electable, a perception that led to an impressive rise in the national polls, which only enhanced his electability.
All this time, Kerry had not changed his views particularly, and he had not changed his campaign style, though he might have changed the bags under his eyes, depending on whom you ask. But savvy Democratic voters wanted to vote for somebody who could win the most votes in November, and they decided that since Dean was ahead of Kerry, therefore Kerry must be less electable, so voters moved away from Kerry. So Kerry's support plummeted, and the more his support plummeted the more he looked pathetically unelectable."
And so on. You get the drift. We see polls for candidates soar on news that they are doing well in the polls or have just won a primary.
The issue for Democrats this year is supposed to be the ability of a candidate to beat Bush, but this self-reinforcing process has happened before.
It well explains Howard Dean’s rise and fall. The one missing element in Brook's analysis is that Dean’s most serious problem was being the subject of numerous free media and ad attacks in Iowa (the ads were from Gephardt). This drove his negatives way up. Kerry, who was behind in the polls, was overlooked. He did have effective positive ads, (You can see them on John Kerry's web site ) but in effect he backed into his success because the two leading candidates hacked each other to death.
The process of success begetting success means that the lazy, superficial news reporting, combined with inattention on the part of voters, creates an extraordinarily unhealthy political process where success is built on a foundation of nothing more than prior success.
The media speaks frequently of “momentum”. What is momentum exactly? Is it not the self-reinforcing tautological process described by Brooks? Simply defining momentum reveals shallowness of the process.
More from Brooks:
“Suddenly Kerry, who had not changed his views particularly, nor his campaign style, began to see his poll numbers rise in Iowa because Dean seemed a little less electable. Then other Iowa voters began to notice the momentum behind Kerry, which made him look still more electable, so more voters decided that maybe Kerry was the man to support after all.
And, what do you know, Kerry won the Iowa caucuses, and from that moment on the election turned into a postmodernist literary critic's idea of heaven. It became an election about itself, with voters voting on the basis of who could win votes later on.
It's the tautology, stupid.”
There is more evidence of this process in this post I found on the blog Daily Kos
"As many of you know, through the use of Google News, I have been monitoring total media coverage of every candidate since August. During that time, three campaign stories received by far the most coverage. In order, those stories were:
1. John Kerry's victory in the Iowa Caucuses (1/19-1/24)
2. Al Gore's endorsement of Howard Dean (12/07-12/14)
3. Wesley Clark's entry into the race (9/16-9/26)
All three of these stories were very positive to the candidate in question. With the date of these three stories in mind, examine schwa's remarkable chart that tracks the five-poll moving average of national polls on the Democratic field. What you will see in schwa's chart is that Clark moved up around ten points at the same time positive stories about the General were swamping the media. Further, you will notice that Dean also saw a roughly ten-point upswing during the news cycle when he was endorsed by Gore. Now consider Kerry's national poll movement immediately after the Iowa caucuses:
Fox News
Kerry before Iowa: 7
Kerry After Iowa: 29
Newsweek
Kerry before Iowa: 11
Kerry after Iowa: 30
Q-poll
Before: 8
After: 30
Overall, Kerry saw a national bounce of around 20 points immediately after he won Iowa. Considering what appears to be a clear correlation between massive, positive news stories and huge swings in nationwide Democratic preference in all three of these cases, I draw the following, depressing conclusion: Democrats are Dittoheads who will do whatever the Political Opinion Complex tells them to do. "
It provides empirical evidence for Brooks’ analysis perfectly.
I think the most striking example of this process historically was the race for the Republican nomination in 2000. Then Texas Governor George Bush had the same name as his ex-President father. The name recognition drove up his polls which led to money, endorsements and even better polls. But the early numbers were probably based on simple confusion with Bush the elder. Would the U.S. and the Republican Party be better off today if the nominee in 2000 had been John McCain? We can never know, but a fairer, more reasonable process might have produced exactly that outcome.
"Let us review the Democratic presidential primaries so far:
In the beginning, John Kerry surged to a big lead in the New Hampshire polls because he seemed so electable. He had plenty of experience, lots of money and big hair, and, as somebody said, he looks like an animatronic version of Abraham Lincoln. But then Howard Dean raised a lot of money, and New Hampshire voters figured that he was bringing so many new people into the process that he must be electable — and if he was electable, then they should probably support him because they wanted somebody who could beat George Bush.
So Dean's poll numbers rose, and the news media noticed his momentum, and other voters noticed how much great press he was getting. And that led to a self-reinforcing upward spiral of electability as more people concluded that he was electable because so many other people were concluding he was electable. People around the country saw that Dean was doing so well in New Hampshire they, too, concluded that he must be electable, a perception that led to an impressive rise in the national polls, which only enhanced his electability.
All this time, Kerry had not changed his views particularly, and he had not changed his campaign style, though he might have changed the bags under his eyes, depending on whom you ask. But savvy Democratic voters wanted to vote for somebody who could win the most votes in November, and they decided that since Dean was ahead of Kerry, therefore Kerry must be less electable, so voters moved away from Kerry. So Kerry's support plummeted, and the more his support plummeted the more he looked pathetically unelectable."
And so on. You get the drift. We see polls for candidates soar on news that they are doing well in the polls or have just won a primary.
The issue for Democrats this year is supposed to be the ability of a candidate to beat Bush, but this self-reinforcing process has happened before.
It well explains Howard Dean’s rise and fall. The one missing element in Brook's analysis is that Dean’s most serious problem was being the subject of numerous free media and ad attacks in Iowa (the ads were from Gephardt). This drove his negatives way up. Kerry, who was behind in the polls, was overlooked. He did have effective positive ads, (You can see them on John Kerry's web site ) but in effect he backed into his success because the two leading candidates hacked each other to death.
The process of success begetting success means that the lazy, superficial news reporting, combined with inattention on the part of voters, creates an extraordinarily unhealthy political process where success is built on a foundation of nothing more than prior success.
The media speaks frequently of “momentum”. What is momentum exactly? Is it not the self-reinforcing tautological process described by Brooks? Simply defining momentum reveals shallowness of the process.
More from Brooks:
“Suddenly Kerry, who had not changed his views particularly, nor his campaign style, began to see his poll numbers rise in Iowa because Dean seemed a little less electable. Then other Iowa voters began to notice the momentum behind Kerry, which made him look still more electable, so more voters decided that maybe Kerry was the man to support after all.
And, what do you know, Kerry won the Iowa caucuses, and from that moment on the election turned into a postmodernist literary critic's idea of heaven. It became an election about itself, with voters voting on the basis of who could win votes later on.
It's the tautology, stupid.”
There is more evidence of this process in this post I found on the blog Daily Kos
"As many of you know, through the use of Google News, I have been monitoring total media coverage of every candidate since August. During that time, three campaign stories received by far the most coverage. In order, those stories were:
1. John Kerry's victory in the Iowa Caucuses (1/19-1/24)
2. Al Gore's endorsement of Howard Dean (12/07-12/14)
3. Wesley Clark's entry into the race (9/16-9/26)
All three of these stories were very positive to the candidate in question. With the date of these three stories in mind, examine schwa's remarkable chart that tracks the five-poll moving average of national polls on the Democratic field. What you will see in schwa's chart is that Clark moved up around ten points at the same time positive stories about the General were swamping the media. Further, you will notice that Dean also saw a roughly ten-point upswing during the news cycle when he was endorsed by Gore. Now consider Kerry's national poll movement immediately after the Iowa caucuses:
Fox News
Kerry before Iowa: 7
Kerry After Iowa: 29
Newsweek
Kerry before Iowa: 11
Kerry after Iowa: 30
Q-poll
Before: 8
After: 30
Overall, Kerry saw a national bounce of around 20 points immediately after he won Iowa. Considering what appears to be a clear correlation between massive, positive news stories and huge swings in nationwide Democratic preference in all three of these cases, I draw the following, depressing conclusion: Democrats are Dittoheads who will do whatever the Political Opinion Complex tells them to do. "
It provides empirical evidence for Brooks’ analysis perfectly.
I think the most striking example of this process historically was the race for the Republican nomination in 2000. Then Texas Governor George Bush had the same name as his ex-President father. The name recognition drove up his polls which led to money, endorsements and even better polls. But the early numbers were probably based on simple confusion with Bush the elder. Would the U.S. and the Republican Party be better off today if the nominee in 2000 had been John McCain? We can never know, but a fairer, more reasonable process might have produced exactly that outcome.
Monday, January 26, 2004
Belinda's Launch
Roy McGregor January 21 in the Globe on Belinda Stronach:
‘Oh dear oh dear oh dear oh dear.
"Paris Hilton has as good a chance of becoming prime minister as she has." "Bay Street pie --thin crust. She can't cut it." "All sizzle, no steak." "It would be embarrassing to see her on the world stage speaking." "She doesn't have the depth to do it." "She dropped the ball." "I never thought I'd say this -- but she makes Stephen Harper look pretty good."
All the above are not, believe me, the snide shots of a bitter columnist, but the comments of ordinary listeners to Belinda Stronach's very first media interview on her quest to become leader of the Conservative Party.
It was a disaster. For 20 minutes, on a day so cold even the streetlights froze, the young mother who would be prime minister appeared on Winnipeg radio station CJOB's popular "Adler On Line" and performed in such a manner that the kindest thing station workers could say of her when it was over was that they felt "sad" for her.
It was indeed a sad performance. She had the air of someone who has been so overhandled that she has no idea who she herself is or what she thinks. The result was that she came across as, sorry to have to say this, not very bright.”
On Saturday January 24 in its story on the Ipsos-Reid poll the Globe quoted Darrell Bricker of Ipsos-Reid:
Mr. Bricker said Canadians at least appear ready to take a look at Ms. Stronach. "Belinda Stronach seems to have had as good a launch as one could possibly have to start," he said, but added that most of the good reviews are sparked, so far, by little more than curiosity.
"It's basically buzz, but it's a good place to start," he said.
A good launch? An amazing comment, simply amazing.
‘Oh dear oh dear oh dear oh dear.
"Paris Hilton has as good a chance of becoming prime minister as she has." "Bay Street pie --thin crust. She can't cut it." "All sizzle, no steak." "It would be embarrassing to see her on the world stage speaking." "She doesn't have the depth to do it." "She dropped the ball." "I never thought I'd say this -- but she makes Stephen Harper look pretty good."
All the above are not, believe me, the snide shots of a bitter columnist, but the comments of ordinary listeners to Belinda Stronach's very first media interview on her quest to become leader of the Conservative Party.
It was a disaster. For 20 minutes, on a day so cold even the streetlights froze, the young mother who would be prime minister appeared on Winnipeg radio station CJOB's popular "Adler On Line" and performed in such a manner that the kindest thing station workers could say of her when it was over was that they felt "sad" for her.
It was indeed a sad performance. She had the air of someone who has been so overhandled that she has no idea who she herself is or what she thinks. The result was that she came across as, sorry to have to say this, not very bright.”
On Saturday January 24 in its story on the Ipsos-Reid poll the Globe quoted Darrell Bricker of Ipsos-Reid:
Mr. Bricker said Canadians at least appear ready to take a look at Ms. Stronach. "Belinda Stronach seems to have had as good a launch as one could possibly have to start," he said, but added that most of the good reviews are sparked, so far, by little more than curiosity.
"It's basically buzz, but it's a good place to start," he said.
A good launch? An amazing comment, simply amazing.
Saturday, January 24, 2004
New National Reid Poll
The Ipsos-Reid poll released today gives the Liberals an enormous lead: L – 48%, Cons – 19%, NDP – 16%, BQ – 10% (39% in Quebec) and 8% for others including 4% that is Green.
The poll still reports relatively strong support for the new Conservative party in Atlantic Canada at 37% compared to a PC + CA total of 41.5% in 2000. The new party is much closer to its 2000 total here than nationally where the current Reid national number of 19% is a huge drop from the Canada-wide PC + CA total of 37.7% in the last election.
This result, at first glance, seems counterintuitive. The likely explanation in my view continues to be (see my earlier posting on the December Reid poll) that the Conservative brand name is still strong in the Atlantic provinces, where one suspects many voters have not quite caught on to the idea being expressed widely that the new party is an Alliance takeover. This implies that the poll is overstating Conservative support here.
However, the new party’s numbers in some western provinces, notably B.C. (where they are only at 20%), are very weak, probably reflecting a negative impact from the Conservative brand name.
The Martin tilt to the right does seem to be bringing New Democrats home – after winning 20% in 1988 NDP support more or less collapsed in the 90’s partly as a consequence of weak leadership and unpopular provincial governments in B.C. and Ontario, but also as a consequence of fear of the Reform Party and the Alliance. My impression is that the Martin shift to the right combined with a perception that the new Conservative Party is a weakling is bringing NDP support home. My guess is that the poll overstates Green support and understates NDP support. Reid added the Greens to its ballot question about eighteen months ago for valid reasons (many respondents were volunteering the name), but since then Jack Layton has been busily wooing leading Greens into NDP ranks. The full effects of that strategy, however, won’t become apparent until after an election is called.
Using my forecast model based on the 2000 boundaries, I get the following results.
L – 208
Cons – 39
NDP – 20
BQ – 34
Once I have updated the forecast model with the transposed results I will post the new numbers.
Despite their large gains in popular support compared to the last election, the NDP’s gains are modest and will remain so as long as the Liberals’ popularity remains so strong.
The poll still reports relatively strong support for the new Conservative party in Atlantic Canada at 37% compared to a PC + CA total of 41.5% in 2000. The new party is much closer to its 2000 total here than nationally where the current Reid national number of 19% is a huge drop from the Canada-wide PC + CA total of 37.7% in the last election.
This result, at first glance, seems counterintuitive. The likely explanation in my view continues to be (see my earlier posting on the December Reid poll) that the Conservative brand name is still strong in the Atlantic provinces, where one suspects many voters have not quite caught on to the idea being expressed widely that the new party is an Alliance takeover. This implies that the poll is overstating Conservative support here.
However, the new party’s numbers in some western provinces, notably B.C. (where they are only at 20%), are very weak, probably reflecting a negative impact from the Conservative brand name.
The Martin tilt to the right does seem to be bringing New Democrats home – after winning 20% in 1988 NDP support more or less collapsed in the 90’s partly as a consequence of weak leadership and unpopular provincial governments in B.C. and Ontario, but also as a consequence of fear of the Reform Party and the Alliance. My impression is that the Martin shift to the right combined with a perception that the new Conservative Party is a weakling is bringing NDP support home. My guess is that the poll overstates Green support and understates NDP support. Reid added the Greens to its ballot question about eighteen months ago for valid reasons (many respondents were volunteering the name), but since then Jack Layton has been busily wooing leading Greens into NDP ranks. The full effects of that strategy, however, won’t become apparent until after an election is called.
Using my forecast model based on the 2000 boundaries, I get the following results.
L – 208
Cons – 39
NDP – 20
BQ – 34
Once I have updated the forecast model with the transposed results I will post the new numbers.
Despite their large gains in popular support compared to the last election, the NDP’s gains are modest and will remain so as long as the Liberals’ popularity remains so strong.
Wednesday, January 21, 2004
Copps-Valeri
Elections Canada has released its transposition of the 2000 election results to the new boundaries. (I will be using soon them to update my forecast model.)
A glance at the results in the new riding of Niagara West-Glamorgan tells us the Liberals would have only won it by 3% over the Alliance with the PC's picking up 12%. It will clearly be a target this year and in the future for the C.P.C.
It is no surprise then that Toni Valeri wants to run in Hamilton East-Stoney Creek. About half the population of his old riding of Stoney Creek falls within the new riding. And because he is part of the Martin team, many local interests in the riding are gravitating his way.
The following excerpt is from the Globe's story on January 17 about the fight:
" "Union leader Joseph Mancinelli prefers to view it as a changing of the guard.
Mr. Mancinelli, president of the 3,000-strong local of the Laborers' International Union of North America, was a Copps supporter in the past, but is backing Mr. Valeri now.
He says Ms. Copps was a politician for a different time. The city needs to develop its inner core.
“Tony Valeri, like Paul Martin, understands these issues,” Mr. Mancinelli said. “Sheila, on the other hand — even though she's been a very loud and effective voice in Canadian politics — is not part of that team. She's not part of the Martin team and does not share in those same philosophies.” "
Valeri's strength comes from the fact that he is in cabinet, making Martin's claim that this is just a local riding fight disingenuous. Copps' public appeal for support made it clear she is dealing from a position of weakness in the on the ground membership battle. But it is one of the few resources she can bring to the bear. And Ms. Copps has the ability to exploit a narrative like this for its public relations value, very effectively.
Her problem is that the Martin strategy of looking for small 'c' conservative votes means he is note likely to see it as in his interest to be seen to be offering her a lifeline. She is no favourite of more conservatively-inclined Canadians.
A glance at the results in the new riding of Niagara West-Glamorgan tells us the Liberals would have only won it by 3% over the Alliance with the PC's picking up 12%. It will clearly be a target this year and in the future for the C.P.C.
It is no surprise then that Toni Valeri wants to run in Hamilton East-Stoney Creek. About half the population of his old riding of Stoney Creek falls within the new riding. And because he is part of the Martin team, many local interests in the riding are gravitating his way.
The following excerpt is from the Globe's story on January 17 about the fight:
" "Union leader Joseph Mancinelli prefers to view it as a changing of the guard.
Mr. Mancinelli, president of the 3,000-strong local of the Laborers' International Union of North America, was a Copps supporter in the past, but is backing Mr. Valeri now.
He says Ms. Copps was a politician for a different time. The city needs to develop its inner core.
“Tony Valeri, like Paul Martin, understands these issues,” Mr. Mancinelli said. “Sheila, on the other hand — even though she's been a very loud and effective voice in Canadian politics — is not part of that team. She's not part of the Martin team and does not share in those same philosophies.” "
Valeri's strength comes from the fact that he is in cabinet, making Martin's claim that this is just a local riding fight disingenuous. Copps' public appeal for support made it clear she is dealing from a position of weakness in the on the ground membership battle. But it is one of the few resources she can bring to the bear. And Ms. Copps has the ability to exploit a narrative like this for its public relations value, very effectively.
Her problem is that the Martin strategy of looking for small 'c' conservative votes means he is note likely to see it as in his interest to be seen to be offering her a lifeline. She is no favourite of more conservatively-inclined Canadians.
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