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Winnipeg North byelection: What happened? What now?
November 30, 2010 - 1:32pm
I thought this was supposed to be a safe NDP seat?!
Any time someone called it a safe NDP seat during discussions here, that was corrected.
It was unquestionably a seat the NDP should have won. But not a safe seat. I'm hard pressed to think of a seat anywhere, except maybe Vancouver East, that could be called a safe seat for the NDP if the incumbent has left. People can name a few others maybe, but there are few if any that are very unlikely to be lost when an MP steps down or if there is some tidal wave against the NDP, or whatever.
Here is what I alreadt said in the by-elections thread:
Lots of mitigating factors. But the NDP shouldnt even have let Lamoureux get close, let alone win.
And some of the motigating factors are organizational: the recent loss of Judy W-L, and Lamoureux's organizational depth.
But I still think this has to be chalked up as an organizational failure. Whatever lack there was locally could and should have been made up for by the party.
I dont begrudge Jack Layton's visits to Dauphin and the profile devoted to them. But the fact that there wasnt the same in Winnipeg perhaps speaks to a general underestimation of the needs there: that with Winnipeg in the bag they could afford to throw a lot into Dauphin.
That kind of second guessing is endemic. But you dont have to second guess the comparative allocation of resources to simply say that there may have been a fundamental error made in judging the WN race.
and...
Again on the organizational front:
There is a consistent pattern where the Liberals beat the NDP in places where NDP levels of support should prevent that.
Winnipeg North, Dartmouth-Cole Harbour, and Dartmouth East provincialy.
In all those cases you have not only strong NDP support, but in the area Liberal organizations that are generally weak. But if a Liberal candidate comes along who bucks that general organizational weakness, he can dislodge the NDP.
In the provincial election Andrew Younger beat the NDP incumbent despite a tidal wave sweeping the NDP to power. That was a classic case of excellent and well established personal organization up against the opposite.
In Winnipeg North, and Dartmouth-Cole Harbour when Mike Savage got in, the NDP organizations were not weak. But they were beat by organizations that were very good, and determined.
Not to mention that it looks like Lamoureux knew how to run a very good campaign, was determined, and pulled it off.
Lamoureau is a former leader of the Provincial Liberals so he could be construed a high profile candidate. Hopefully, we regain the seat at the next election.
was he ever leader of the Manitoba Liberals? I thought he ran for the leadership and lost to John Gerrard?
I also read that Lamoureux is quite "controversial" within Manitoba Liberal circles and there are reasons why they never let him have much profile outside his riding. It sounds like he is sort of a "Rob Ford minus the ultra rightwing ideology" and is a good ward-heeler who brags about phoning a thousand constituents a week and being a bit of ambulance chaser when it comes to looking for occasions to make cheap populist outbursts, but he doesn't know much about policy, and given that the Manitoba Liberals are basically now just a party of sherry-sippers in River Heights - Lamoureux is wayyy to trashy and uncouth to ever have been allowed to play a leadership role.
I have the following questions/observations:
1. Losing this seat is a blow to NDP morale in Winnipeg in the short-term - but realistically if there is a federal election in the Spring, there is a reasonable chance that we could win the seat back given a much higher turnout and the possibility of being lifted up by a strong national campaign. Also, there is little time for Lamoureux to establish himself as an incumbent if there is a general election soon and in a general election, people will be much more likely to feel that they are choosing between Jack Layton and Michael Ignatieff than between Lamoureux and Chief. Also, there is no way that Tory support will be a piddling 10% in that riding in a federal election - they could easily rebound to their traditional 20% or so.
2. Does Chief run again or failing that does Judy W-L make a comeback?
3. There will now be a provincial byelection in Inkster. Can the Manitoba Liberals win there with someone other than lamoureux running?
I think one lesson (and there are likely others) is that the Liberal brand is very durable and should never be underestimated. Give the Liberals one element for success (in this case, a strong local candidate who knows how to win elections in hostile turf) and it can be enough to beat us in one of our strongest ridings across the country.
I know there are lots of examples across the country of Liberal vote being higher on election night than NDP campaigners thought it would be. It's a powerful brand with a lot of latent (and blatent) support.
So in otherwords, the NDP can't sit back and rely on Ignatieff screwing things in order to make gains in the next election. Not that I think the NDP is doing that as an institution, but those of us in the trenches need to guard against complacency.
Generally I agree with your point - but the "Liberal brand" has never been particularly strong in Manitoba - if it was that strong - you wouldn't have had the generic Liberal candidate winning 8% of the vote in that riding in the '08 election. Lamoureux probably could have won a very big chunk of votes just running as an independent.
No, I think there is some latent strength to the Liberal brand in almost all parts of Canada, Manitoba included.
If you look at the electoral history in Winnipeg, voters have turned to the Liberals from time to time. Under Sharon Carstairs, the Liberals won a pile of seats when voters turned on Howard Pawley. When the NDP was nearly wiped out in 1993, Winnipeg North (and perhaps other MB seats?) went Liberal. And even when the Liberals haven't won - they generally have a pretty decent showing in parts of Winnipeg.
My point is that even where the NDP are strong, the Liberals are often a second choice for many NDP voters. In some cases, the Liberals may even be the first choice of NDP voters - but because the voter believes the NDP has the better chance of winning, has a stronger candidate, or some other reason - they cast an NDP ballot.
Liberals are resilient. They are difficult to slay. Give them any small advantage (like a strong local candidate a la Lamoureux) and their odds of winning increase.
Actually believe it or not Winnipeg North first went Liberal in 1988 when Rey Paghtakhan upset David Orlikow - and that was in the contest of the NDP having its best showing ever with 44 seats nationwide - so go figure.
Point of information: is Rey Paghtakan the only Filipino-Canadian ever elected as an MP?
It's pretty clear Iggy-mania had nothing to do with it...but still, this is still not good for the NDP. Certainly there are questions to be asked. Did the NDP take this "safe seat" for granted? And is it possible that anti-Native prejudice had a role?
I'm not sure, but the discussion about Rey Paghtakan reminds me of an important point. In 2004, the ridings in Winnipeg were re-drawn and it lead to an amalgamation in the Winnipeg North area whereby both RP and Judy W-L had to run against each other as 2 incumbent MP's, with Judy W-L prevailing.
Therefore, considering that the Liberals did occupy some of the riding until RP's defeat in 2004, it's understandable in retrospect that there is still some Liberal support in the area which lead to Kevin Lamoreux re-taking the riding for the Liberals.
Vancouver East, BC's safest NDP seat, also went Liberal in 1993. Granted both happenings occurred during general elections but nobody saw this coming.
Vancouver East was lost during the Liberal sweep of 1993 and during the NDP's worst election in history when it only won 9 seats. It's not totally surprising in retrospect that it fell during that election. It was won back in 1997 and will likely stay NDP for the foreseeable future until Libby Davies retires. Libby is very popular and well-liked by her community. I don't think it's in any danger to the Liberals until it becomes vacant and/or until Liberal support goes back up to majority levels.
I don't know if there was an organizational failure or not, since I had nothing to do with the campaign. But that does need to be reviewed at the highest level by the federal and provincial NDP. Figure out what went wrong and learn from it.
Wouldn't it be pretty much unprecedented for an MP who quit their seat one year to then run again the following year to take it back?
If Judy W-L did that she would face a lot of criticism from her political opponents and the media, as well as by some members of the public. It was her resignation that lead to the cost of a by-election in the first place, and she would need to have a good explanation as to why she was running for the seat again that she just gave up.
There was once was an MP who quit their seat one month to then run again the following month to take it back. It was her resignation that led to the cost of a by-election in the first place, and I, for one, never understood her explanation as to why she was running for the seat again that she just gave up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamilton_East_%28electoral_district%29
Sheila Copps did that so she could say she faced the electorate after flip flopping on the GST.
She had enough support that it was grandstanding. It would have been more interesting if the entire party did it.
Well, there used to be the custom that, after a new Canadian prime minister picked his Cabinet, ALL the newly-appointed ministers resigned and fought by-elections in their ridings, thus giving the electorate, in theory, a chance to directly ratify the new government.
Anybody know when and why that practice was abandoned?
What happened? The Conservative vote collapsed and went Liberal.
Scott, you are in part right. But the other thing that happened in Winnipeg North last night is simply that NDP vote did not come out. Lameroux did not win the election last night, the NDP lost it.
I worked as a volunteer for Chief almost from the start of his campaign. I think it was a very strong campaign, but when you don't get out the vote, you lose. I can tell you that the bad weather really played significantly against the NDP. The NDP won more then 50% of the polls, but not by wide enough margins. If the vote had come out, Chief would have won. Lameroux's base came out in significant numbers. But he can't win the riding in a general when the likelihood of normal turnout is both not only likely, but very probable.
As for the General, Lamoureux doesn't have a chance.
The Conservative candidate had a couple of big billboards but otherwise did not campaign and only gave one very brief media interview on a weekend broadcast. As previously stated, many NDP'ers stayed home, and Lameroux's pull with Sikh voting blocs paid off. Not likely to be repeated in a general election. Many Liberal party members will whisper stuff about him to other Liberal party members but not say anything public about him. He must have some serious skeletion in his closet because many in the local party will not talk to him. Just to the west side of the Osborne village, Liberal Senator Rod Zimmer and former Liberal MP, former Lt Governor John Harvard live right beside each other and they often have dueling faction Liberal party parties where certain people will go to Zimmer's house and others will go to the other, later event at Harvard's but they do not go to the each other 's vent (weird as the policy differences are pretty minute - Zimmer a Paul Martin Liberal, Harvard a Chretien Liberal); Lameroux will not get into either.
It isn't Iggymania, everyone still thinks he sucks but I think a tipping point has been reached which will work against the Cons and probably the NDP. There is going to be a pretty clear ballot question-the fact is the only way we see any change in the next election is if Harper is defeated.
Obviously this won't usher in an ultra-progressive Iggy government but it'll have some important effects on the political landscape and the framing of debate in this country. Harper will step down and his party will start bickering again, the NDP will probably get new leadership as well and since they tend to be far more progressive when the Liberals are in power we might see them turn back into an effective opposition. Layton's leadership and record was better when Martin was in power than during the Harper years. The only issue the NDP currently has as an effective wedge against the Liberals is Afghanistan and they've become increasingly less effective at using it. Ignatieff certainly could manage to fuck it all up but I think there has been a little improvement in his understanding of how to attack the Cons and really the bar isn't that high any more.
There's serious anxiety, a lot of it seems to exist outside of the mainstream babyboomer echo chamber, but it's there amongst the great undervoting demographics that the future of the country looks increasingly shaky and that there needs to be a political shift. It's been slow to happen in Canada but I think the point has been reached, although our political class has an inspired ability to make people tune out completely from electoral politics.
The PCs' Roch La Salle quit in 1981 to lead the provincial Union Nationale--upon losing, he ran for his federal seat again and won...
I don't think W-L has any intention to do that. Why is there this speculation?
Maybe because she's out of a job?
Maybe. Maybe she has other things to do, too.
This blogger has a really good interpretation of the byelection spin
http://tcnorris.blogspot.com/2010/11/by-election-post-mortem.html
"A small lesson from history. In the autumn of 1978 Prime Minister Trudeau deferred a federal election call and instead fifteen by-elections were held on October 16. Some called it a mini-general election at the time. It was a low point in Liberal popularity and the outcome was a Liberal disaster. While the results did tell us the Trudeau government would lose the next election, at the time it appeared as if the outcome would be an unprecedented Liberal disaster on the order of a 1958. Instead, Joe Clark's PC's won a minority that lasted less than a year before giving way again to the Trudeau Liberals. Less well-remembered is that two of the constituencies that switched from Liberal to PC that night in October 1978, one in Winnipeg (St. Boniface) and one in Toronto (Parkdale), went back to the Liberals just six months later in the 1979 general election.
By-elections in particular can be influenced by local circumstances and events as well as broader trends. One should be cautious in drawing overly broad conclusions from them."
EDIT - actually I checked and FOUR of the ridings the Tories won in byelections in 1978 went back to the Liberals six months later - the blogger forgot Eglinton and Ottawa Centre.
As some journalists pointed out today, one of the ironies of last night's results was that a few days ago Jack Layton and Brad Lavigne had said that these by-elections would send an important message to the parties and that whoever lost a by-election would have trouble building momentum before the Spring.
Some people show class when their opponents lose, and then there are Liberals.