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why did strategic voting turn into voting Liberal?
October 21, 2015 - 6:05pm
does anyone know why strategic voting led to 180 something liberal mps and 99 conservative and 44 ndp mps? thats not staretgic voting. can someone explain to me what happens?
I mean are canadians too lazy or dumb or apathetic to figure out what strategic voting is, or they were lying when they said they perfer the NDP working with the liberals?
I think this documentary sums up the "Liberal" or Democrat" problem from a socialist point of view. It also explains why so many people are happy to continue switching between the same two parties.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzULm4d8h8w
As for strategic voting, it is usually code for vote Liberal. They tried it last election, they tried it this election and they will try it next election.
cool i will watch it.
and its disturbing to me trhat even some ndp supporters dont mind a liberal majority, they dont seem to know or care the fact that the ndp will have no role or power bascially in the next four years, i truly dont understand, why do people say they want the ndp and the liberal to work together and then give liberal a majority , bascially absolute power!
No, it's not strategic voting. It was Anyone But Harper voting, which then morphed into Liberal bandwagon voting. Liberal voters, some of them quite literally (because I've talked to some) don't understand that strategic voting has to be decided at the riding level. They see the national polls and think that a bandwagon approach will rise the tide enough to flood the country red. In this case, they were not far off the mark, because that's kind of what happened. But that's just normal voting. That's not strategic voting.
And it's not true that strategic voting is code for Liberal voting, as the Lead Now effort has shown. They just got flooded out by the tide, I guess. Still, I think there is some consensus that strategic voting did occur in BC and did win or save some seats.
I always like B.C better than Toronto.
Strategic voting unfortunately requires co-operation among the different factions. NDP may not benefit as much from it, as Liberal voters I suspect just tend to go with their first choice anyway, maybe secretly thinking because Lib is an old-guard, established party, and therefore more successful at ursurping. But I think I was seeing some co-operation in the urban ridings, and on Vancouver Island. The message was definitely getting through more this election. It was almost ubiquitous in any conversation about the election.
This is an interesting article that provides insight into the perception errors prior to and during the election. Not really about strategic voting, but explains more the underlying dynamics of the Orange wave in 2011. It comes to the same mushy conclusion that the mushy middle was the wrong approach for the NDP (which I don't agree with) but it explained for me a lot of the dramatic swings we've seen in the last two elections.
http://jimquail.com/2015/10/20/the-real-story-line-behind-the-2015-elect...
From Nanos, Oct 16:
And from Ekos, same week:
And you also tried it, from Tom Mulcair on down. Lavigne's 100/35 being a prime case in point - trotted out by Peggy Nash and Tom himself.
Had you been winning, you would have been the prime benificiaries. You lost out on it because of the campaign not the concept.
i think the mainstream media did alot of damages to the NDP by protraying their policies as m ore right wing than the liberals. if this election taught me anything, its the liberal and conservative owned media and how they can destroy a party and create finction like the trudeau fighter. theres alot of media manipulation and what i am suprised is alot of people want to believe in a beautiful lies, but perhaps i am not suprised. its the same reason people are so fundamentally religious sometimes.
It took a little while for JT to get comfortable campaigning and communicating but he quickly remedied his problems and was a force afterwards. I'm willing to bet that a regular one month campaign would have led to a CPC minority with an NDP official opposition. Harper miscalculated with his scheme to outspend and Mulcair though competent just isn't exciting or energetic.
Look Toronto had a huge brain fart politically and not the first time, but its a great city, with a lot to offer, this sad act of stupidity on its part doesn't change all that the GTA has to offer, just because its politically foolish.
To error is human, to forgive is divine.
True and in a sick way that might have been a sign of approval or in some cases simply incompetence. A detailed looked a policies would have show that the NDP's policies were more leftwing, but just more slower to get off the ground too. People didn't want to wait.
Yes I think $15/day daycare would be one of those.
i talked to a liberla dn this is what true blue liberals sound like and thats why i will never vote liberals and they are not on our side.
Most Canadians parked their votes with the NDP last go 'round because they didn't think the Liberals were quite ready yet. The result was another Harper victory. This time around we were determined not to make the same mistake. At the slightest whiff that the Liberals offered a credible alternative to Harper those votes would go back home to the Liberals. Which is what you saw happen. NDP followers were getting WAY ahead of themselves thinking central Canada would really give responsibility of governing this federation to Mulclair and his band of merry men and women. It has ZERO to do with Trudeau's name or family. In fact, those things hurt him at first and he won despite that, not because of it. Sorry you're so disappointed, but if you are serious about seeing your ideas enacted by a federal government, you should seek to influence one or another of the two major parties and leave the NDP behind, like Bob Rae did.
It's the economy stupid.
When people are offered an economic platform that is rightly or wrong perceived as to the right of the Liberals, they tend to vote for the real thing.
This "balanced budget" stuff was pure crap. Whatever campaign war room types thought up that should be given the heave-ho. People are wisely quite okay with running deficits right now after years of austerity under Harper (and before that under the Liberals). When someone comes along and offers them something other than austerity (even if it is bullshit), people will go for it.
Also, the TPP has been a topic of discussion for the last 4-5 years. The NDP should have been talking about it from the get go. But they were afraid of being perceived as "anti-trade" and didn't talk about it until they were crashing in the polls and the deal was done.
The NDP needs the domestic equivalent of a Jeremy Corbyn campaign to shake things up. Return to those messy policy debates that the party apparatchiks just hate.
true,. if the media is gonig to attack us anyways, might as well
That was the approach of Jeremy Corbyn's campaign to lead the UK Labour Party. Despite a totally hostile mass media, his campaigned signed up a record number of new members to the Labour Party and he won the party leadership with 60% of the vote...mopping the floor with all of the other Blairite candidates.
Sorry, strategic voting means VOTE LIBERAL; NOTHING ELSE! Leadnow was more successful then they thought they would be; like Obi-Wan-Kanobee, they "became far more powerful then even they could imagine"! Well played Leadnow, you put the screws to us!
I believe they were involved in taking down the WTC and giving kids autism via vaccines too.
It's the economy stupid.!?
"It's the media, stupid! And the corporates behind the media!"
From a distance I was amazed to see the rapid change in electoral opinion from NDP to Liberals, and without any context of serious political iddues and differences?
No the elites stated they want the liberals, so it's the liberals!
I find it hard to believe that people just don't get it!
Re the economy? who are you going to vote for, if they all have the same politics, the same Central Bank politics, the same neoliberal politics...just some say things with a slightly teeny weeny little different tone of voice!
When enough of us start hurting enough...maybe, just maybe, we will look to try to understand why? And build something from the ground up to deal with it...like ridding ourselves of the parasitical global financial debt trap which is oozing the real working capital of the economy into the pockets of the elites...but of course this would mean weaning ourselves off the slavish dedication to so called progressive parties and to our fundamental faith in the integrity of the system!!
Agree. Stop believing their lies and backing their sellouts..
i want real change..how do we get it? i am so sad and angry..i just cant deal with it.
The NDP: presented a very "don't rock the boat" campaign presenting items that would all be very comfortable on a Liberal or even Conservative list. As soon as the NDP was in the lead it was all about "if you want to stop Harper vote NDP" and trying to ridicule Trudeau. Mulcair went with a "Stop Harper" campaign saying he needed fewer seats, as though he owned the ones the NDP already had.
Balanced budgets may not be right wing but the argument that deficits are leaving a burden on the next generation is. Saying he would consider the F-35s in a new bidding process emphasized his centrist approach.
Trudeau proved himself in the debates, so when the niqab issue came up, there was no reason to stick with the NDP. They were interchangable with the Liberals and the Liberals had a solid platform so why not go with them?
The NDP lost because they didn't give voters a reason to stick with them. That is not necessarily a bad thing. Had the NDP won their centrist position would have been cemented. Like Harper's social conservatives, the more progressive arm of the party would have been silenced.
and being on facebook alot, i noticed alot of liberals and they are massive bullies, and i read a story just a few days before the election, a bunch of kids were tearing off ndp election signs, and trudeau protrayed himself as a boxer /fighter and he tweeted pictures of himself boxing just before teh debate...does anyone feel uncomfortable with that? hes trying to impose his physical superiority over the leaders and i saw alot of that bullying and talking over tom mulcair during the debate, its going to get ugly. I will speak loud and proud against this bullying and i will not let the media tell me its mean and bad if we pick on little trudeau, i dont give a fuck.
i am going to fight them everyday for the next four years.
Our elections are decided by people who don't understand how our elections work.
In true Liberal fashion, Trudeau and his team lifted their campaign from that of Jack Layton in 2011 - hope and optimism (I think they might have missed the "love" bit). It proved even more successful for the Liberals than it did for the NDP.
Although the NDP offered a hodge-podge of initiatives, some of which definitely qualify as "left-wing" or "progressive" or whatever you want to call them, the overall campaign message sounded cautious, even conservative in the broadest sense of the term. Voters went for the "Jack" strategy.
I agree with radiorahm. It's time to cut loose those who masterminded the campaign and start to build a party that reflects the historical priorities of the CCF/NDP, while acknowledging the new reality in which we live. The Leap Manifesto might be a good place for us to begin the reinvention of the NDP.
Those who can't stomach such a change in direction should move on to the Liberals where they will be more comfortable. We can't build an alternative to the traditional parties, if we constantly have to look over our shoulders for "liberal" New Democrats who are committed to the central tenets of the market economy. Sorry, but if you want to drink the kool-aid, go to the party where they 'serve it fresh' every day.
While Jack Layton gets due credit for having run a hopeful, optimistic campaign in 2011, he neither invented that approach nor was he the most prominent exponent in recent memory. I rather think that you have to give that to Obama. And Liberals still look to Laurier's "sunny ways".
What Layton and Trudeau had in common was indefatigable energy, perceived youthfulness, a ready (and believable) smile.
"Strategic voting" sure didn't work in ridings like Oshawa, where the Liberal boost helped the CPC candidate defeat Mary Fowler. Not to mention all the CPC and Bloc wins in Quebec.