"The Liberals new Rebel"
Firstly, Ya gotta love the power pose in that picture, amidst the leather jacket. Turner is one rebel without a cause - if I can put it so lightly.
I just finished watching the press conference - a lot of rhetoric except one particular part of Turners speech in that [and I paraphrase - as I have yet to locate a full trasncript of the speech]
‘I would agree to a by-election if the Prime Minister will call similar elections for Emerson, Fortier and Khan’
Which I’m sure the Prime Minister will reject - I mean Im not the biggest fan of Stephen Harper’s, but he’s not a political idiot. You don’t risk three shaky seats over some political dual put forth by Turner. But if Harper did agree (in some unbelievable stroke of luck for the Liberals) - the move would almost surely return Emerson and Khan’s riding’s to the Liberals - but that’s just dreaming. But kudos to Turner on a bright political play. Hes (to some degree) taken the pressure off his previous feelings of floor-crossing by offering to go into a by-election.
6 comments:
I agree it would be too risky. Never mind Outremont, which would also go Liberal as well and perhaps even Halton might go Liberal, which would be a huge embarassment. It is true Halton of the four is the only one the Tories can realistically win, but that is not a guarantee.
I should add though Vancouver-Kingsway is not a safe Liberal seat. Rather it is an NDP-Liberal swing riding. The only certain outcome is Emerson would come in third.
Good Call Miles,
I only feel “certain” about Vancouver-Kingsway because as you mentioned - the fact that it is a swing riding works well for the Liberals in this case.
I always feel quite bad for the "NDP Base" in that they tend to be forced into an ultimatum every election. Vote NDP and essentially help the CPC take/stay in power…OR vote Liberal and help get a party that is more ideologically close to your own - but in doing so you deprive your #1 Party (the NDP) of a vote.
I hope that logic makes sense...I guess in short the best way to sum up this rant is that the Liberals have a strong momentum in the weight of the Emerson election in that riding - if I was a betting man I would be comfortable in betting that the Liberals re-take Vancouver-Kingsway.
I agree Vancouver-Kingsway would be more likely to go Liberal, but I am only pointing out it is not as safe as some like to believe. If anything I think the riding is NDP at heart but unlike Vancouver East right next door, they are pragmatic enough to know the NDP cannot win federally, so they only vote for them if it is clear who will win federally.
Fair enough, that does make a great deal of sense. But its almost to early to speculate either way. Lets firstly see who the Liberals field as a candidate -then maybe we can bring some strong substance to this intresting debate.
In Vancouver-Kingsway, they've already chosen Wendy Yuan who sounds like a good candidate, but is not widely known. Lets see who the NDP puts up.
In the case of Garth Turner it will be interesting to see who the Tories put up against him. If they choose Charles McVety, he will win easily. If they were somehow able to get Ted Chudleigh to go into federal politics, I think it would be an uphill battle considering that he managed to survive the 2003 provincial election which was a bad one for the provincial Tories.
Hmmm, iv never heard of Yuan. Ill look into that name. That riding will have the attention of the whole country.
This next election is shaping up to be quite the political fist fight. I would love to see Dion with the likes of Kennedy, Rae, Findlay, Ignatieff, etc just go pound for pound with some big Tory names.
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