United right?
In the 2004 federal general election, the Conservative Party, now progressive-free, saw its vote decline, compared to the combined total of the former Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservative Parties, in 274 of 308 ridings.
In the 2006 federal general election, the Conservative Party increased its vote, compared to the 2004 election, in 280 out of 308 ridings.
But here's the kicker: in 2006, the Conservatives under Stephen Harper still have less support than the combined CA-PC support in 2000, in 188 out of the 308 ridings in Canada.
Harper, in 2006, was not able to secure as big a vote share as Day-Clark did in 2000 in 25 ridings in Atlantic Canada, 77 in Ontario, 17 in Saskitoba, all but two in Alberta, and everywhere in BC.
Why hasn't "the Right" "united", at least outside Quebec?
posted by WJM @ 4:47 PM
15 Comments:
Are you still a Liberal staffer, or Liberal worker or now a researcher for Todd as a backbencher??
LMFAO
While it was always said that there was fear that vote splititng was happening in many ridings, very few Conservatives ever claimed the votes would be completely stacked upon one another in a merged party.
That merged party is now in government. Your party isn't. And yet you're trying to portray the re-unification of conservatives as a failure . . .
Wally, you're turning into the Iraqi information officer:
"Oh glorious victories for Paul Martin! We won! We Won!"
Are you saying that 36% of Canadians are not progressive simply bceause they voted CPC?
If you're going to claim that the CPC is non "progressive" you should offer an explanation instead of an unfounded claim.
Better yet, Wally, instead of staying in attack mode re the Tories, offer some positive suggestions about how your own Liberal Party can win back the trust of Canadians . . .
Hey, if Stephen Harper can infiltrate the PC party, swallow it whole and then dump the P and keep the C, then I think it's highly possible that Jack Layton can infiltrate the LIberal Party, dump the LPC and rename it LDP and be off to the races!
JACK LAYTON FOR LIBERAL LEADER!
JACK LAYTON FOR NDP LEADER!
JACK LAYTON FOR Liberal-Democrat Leader!!
While it was always said that there was fear that vote splititng was happening in many ridings, very few Conservatives ever claimed the votes would be completely stacked upon one another in a merged party.
The supposed "split" in the "right-wing" vote was the underlying premise behind the need to unite the two parties.
With each of the two post-merger elections, the evidence is becoming less and less compelling that the "right-wing" vote was truly split by the existence of the former PC and CA/Reform parties.
That merged party is now in government. Your party isn't. And yet you're trying to portray the re-unification of conservatives as a failure . . .
Absolutely. The "new" Conservative party has failed, in two consecutive elections, to match the previous support levels enjoyed by the two parties which supposedly merged to form it.
I'd call that a significant failure, given the "unite the right" rhetoric.
Why hasn't Harper been able to do alone what Stock and Joe Clark were able to do separately?
(Oh -- and your post on Joe Clark? Boy, it must be hard dragging around all that hate all day.)
"Oh glorious victories for Paul Martin! We won! We Won!"
Not at all. But it's still interesting, and poses many good questions, to compare the last two elections, riding-by-riding, with the 2000 one, when the "right" was still in need, supposedly, of "uniting".
Do you have any possible explanations for the phenomenon?
Are you saying that 36% of Canadians are not progressive simply bceause they voted CPC?
No, and man, you and the strawmen. It's like a big ol' strawman orgy at your house, isn't it?
I'm saying that it's curious that the Conservative Party, two elections in, still isn't as successful as the two separate parties were. I'm trying to grasp why that is.
As a member of that party, do you have any thoughts on the subject?
If you're going to claim that the CPC is non "progressive" you should offer an explanation instead of an unfounded claim.
If you're going to suggest I "claim" something, you might wish to back it up.
Is "Progressive" now part of the party's name? No.
Are there many former Progressive Conservatives who no longer feel comfortable in the Harper Party? Yes. I had a long and interesting chat with one last night, as a matter of fact.
That's what I was getting at tehre, not that I need to justify anything to you.
instead of staying in attack mode re the Tories,
Since when is a mathematical observation an "attack"? It's pure psephology, LIam.
offer some positive suggestions about how your own Liberal Party can win back the trust of Canadians . . .
I don't own a Liberal party. I have many such suggestions, but I'm not going to tell you!!!
Right of centre parties aren't entirely made up of right wingers. Activists and donor bases were dived by the creation of Reform/CA. It wasn't exactly a slice-off. Some of the founders never had anything to do with the PC's, but they soon attracted membership, voters, donors and splite efforts.
Stock and Joe did nothing seperately except elect Liberals. Stephen Harper has succeeded in doing something different. Feel free to continue spinning that as you see fit. Ask Tom Rideout what good higher popular vote did for him in 1989.
Right of centre parties aren't entirely made up of right wingers.
Zackly!
That's why BC, absent a Reform/Alliance protest party to vote for, has started to do what it used to do to protest-vote: go NDP.
Stephen Harper has succeeded in doing something different.
He still has not succeded in doing anything like the "we would have won X number of seats" hypothesis.
Why was that hypothesis so wrong?
Ask Tom Rideout what good higher popular vote did for him in 1989.
Not much, considering his popular vote was lower than Peckford's was in 1985.
The NL Tories lost less than 1% between 85 and 89, but still won the popular vote at 47.5% to Clyde Wells' 47.0% or so of votes cast . . . Yet Clyde won 31 of 52 seats. . .
As for pro-merger "hypothesis" there was no single prediction about how many seats would be won. It's wrong to suggest there was.
The Conservative Party's support in B.C. increased this election from 29.61% in 2004 to 37.32% in 2006. It lost seats there, not support.
correction -- CPC's 2004 pop vote result in BC was 36.25%.
It's also worth noting that the average level of popular vote support in actual elections for the old Progressive Conservative Party, before the creation of the Reform Party, was 35.9%.
Harper's 2006 election 36.25% popular vote showing is above the unhindered "Progressive Conservative" average support level.
wow
sensitive people governing the country now, sheesh
anyway, take a scroll through the old resp govt league archives and find the date when Liam turned off of "attack mode".
glass houses. stones. etc.
I welcome Mark to scroll through it more closely. I actually advocated positive policies most steps along the way. That I also criticized a government that stood against many of those policies was secondary to the fact that I believed in something.
You should try it some time.
As for pro-merger "hypothesis" there was no single prediction about how many seats would be won. It's wrong to suggest there was.
It's not wrong at all.
There were numerous articles in the press and commentary on the internet, from October 25 1993 until 2004, saying that if only the Reform/Alliance and PC vote hadn't split, "we would have one X seats", X being the number of seats in which the two party's combined vote was larger than that of the eventual winner.
I'd be interested in seeing some of the other hypotheses, from BEFORE the parties' merger, as to how many additional seats, less than "X", they would have won by merging and ending the supposed "vote split".
The Conservative Party's support in B.C. increased this election from 29.61% in 2004 to 37.32% in 2006. It lost seats there, not support.
As you note in your correction, the CPC's vote in BC increased a spectacular 1% overall in BC.
At 37.3%, it's not only lower than the separate parties' pre-merger levels, it's lower than the "United Right" or the old PC party got in any election since 1972.
Riding-by-riding across BC, the CPC is still polling below the 2000 results of the two separate parties in 36 ridings.
BC has 36 ridings.
And in 11 ridings, the CPC vote has decreased from 2000 levels in two consecutive post-merger elections.
Sorry, you ain't gonna polish that turd.
What's the significance of 1972?
As it stands, the average election pop support result of the old pre-Reform PCPC is lower than Harper's 2006 result. Pretend as if that isn't the case all you want Wally. But it is.
What's the significance of 1972?
It's the last time the federal "conservative" party(ies) did as poorly in BC as Harper has in the past two general election.s
As it stands, the average election pop support result of the old pre-Reform PCPC is lower than Harper's 2006 result.
Why are you only looking at the old PCPC vote, though?
Two parties merged, remember?
"Unite the right!", remember?
Pretend as if that isn't the case all you want Wally. But it is.
You're the one who's living in a pretend world.
Wally, I'm looking at the vote for Conservatives that is normal in Canada. It stands to reason that two parties can each respectively cover more ground on the spectrum and attract more voters. The old PCPC legacy party, by the late 1990s, was attracting a lot of the anti--just-about-everything-Conservative vote from the David Orchard types -- who fit more with the NDP than the Tories anyway. Of course they weren't going to stay with re-unified Conservatives. They weren't with them before. They only joined to try to hijack the party. they failed.
All in all, the merger led to a net improvement over what the pre-CA/Reform Conservatives had as base support.
You're insisting on taking one view of the merger and implying that it's the only view of how the merger would work. You're setting up a false standard by which to judge it.
Most practical advocates of the merger, including the emmissaries who negotiated the AIP agreed at the time that the merger was about re-uniting a larger group of activists, donors, and members under a set of principles that would be acceptable to most, not all. You're choosing to ignore that. Or maybe you didn't know that. I'm not sure which.
The goal was to once again provide an electable alternative to the Liberal Party of Canada. Prime minister Harper would be right if he suggested it worked!
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home