2008 Federal Elections Results

[CerebusClone]

I agree...a party should change to reflect the voters wishes. This has been the MO of a unified Conservative party for years...same as it has been for the Liberals.

It's only a recent issue where people are this fearful of the Conservatives which I think simply has more to do with a few polarizing issues and the fact that in "fracturing" their vote people saw the fringe elements from the Reform. A similar fringe element exists on the extreme left too...but typically it's not very politically correct to say anything bad about a group fighitng for a cause...which of course allows all sorts of bad policy to be presented without the tough questions.

I agree in part, but mostly I think the role of government is to do what's best for the country and its people, and sometimes that goes against the [current] wishes of the general population. Too many people only think very short term and for their selfish individual interests, and get very easily influenced by everything they hear or see from the media, advertising, mouth-to-mouth...

The government has access to more ressources, knowledge, experts ... and are therefore theoritically in a much better position to make decisions and set priorities. Obviously the wishes of the population must always remain a strong factor, but there are many other things to also consider.

[nhfarber]

Well, this is all personal opinion on my part...Chretien stayed on too long and divided the party into 2 groups of supporters.

From what I heard Martin was initially promised the reigns about 1 year into Chretien's last term. He decided to hold on to power and Martin got ticked off. Don't know how true that is but it's what I heard from some Liberal party members.

The way I heard it was that the transition of power from Chretien to Martin was supposed to happen after Chretien's 2nd term. But the Martin folks started to get antsy and began putting pressure on Chretien (both privately and publicly). This is where the feud developed, Chretien decided to run for a 3rd term as a direct result of the Martin people trying to forcefully bring him down as the leader. Had they stepped back and not pushed him during the 2nd term he would have walked off into the sunset and allowed Martin to take over much earlier.

[Zowpeb]

The way I heard it was that the transition of power from Chretien to Martin was supposed to happen after Chretien's 2nd term. But the Martin folks started to get antsy and began putting pressure on Chretien (both privately and publicly). This is where the feud developed, Chretien decided to run for a 3rd term as a direct result of the Martin people trying to forcefully bring him down as the leader. Had they stepped back and not pushed him during the 2nd term he would have walked off into the sunset and allowed Martin to take over much earlier.

Either way I think this rift is what still plagues the Liberals to today...even today the party is still very fragmented internally.

If this hadn't happened would Harper have won his first minority?

If not, would Adscam have lingered for so long?

Would they have been left with more funding support?

Would they be sliding to new successors with smoother transitions?

Would there be a much clearer picture of who the Liberal "stars" are?

A lot of the ills facing the Liberals just appears to trace back to Chretien leaving Martin as a bit of a lame duck. Too bad because Martin was primed for the role going into that 3rd term. It always appeared to me that Chretien was trying to hang Martin out since he left him in as Finance Minister for so long...typically a post that the PM leaves a capable internal opponent in with the hope they've left them just enough rope to hang. It must have been a shock to Chretien when Martin was riding a wave of support thanks to being finance minsiter during a period of unparalleled economic growth...of course, now we know it was largely built on a US economy that was using leveraged money and credit...lol.

[Quebecois]

Even the Green Party was pretty right of centre prior to Elizabeth May becoming the party leader and running her party into the ground...lol.

because Mulroney destroyed the right wing for a decade after he left office

I don't see how May ran the party into the ground. Say whatever you want about her (I'm not a fan) but the Green's had their most successful election to date no?

I'd also argue that it was Preston Manning who destroyed the Right for a decade...Mulroney obviously didn't help but I bet the Liberals don't even get a majority in 1997 without a divided Right....in fact the Liberals might not have even won that election with a unified Right.

[Colin]

Martin's ego rivalled that of Clinton, except his politicking skills couldn't match those of Clinton. He was a great economy guy, that's about it. As for Preston Manning and the RefOOOOOORRRRRMMMMM Parrrrrty - I miss him. The best joke in Canadian politics perhaps ever.

[Zowpeb]

I don't see how May ran the party into the ground. Say whatever you want about her (I'm not a fan) but the Green's had their most successful election to date no?

I'd also argue that it was Preston Manning who destroyed the Right for a decade...Mulroney obviously didn't help but I bet the Liberals don't even get a majority in 1997 without a divided Right....in fact the Liberals might not have even won that election with a unified Right.

I would question whether Manning would have even had the opportunity if Mulroney wasn't so villified...

As for May, I think the Greens would have won a couple seats with a better leader.

She thought the travel by train was a great idea and that led to 2-3AM campaign stops...how many people made them?

She pushed Green party voters to vote Liberal and thus made her party look like an unimportant, single issue, party that really didn't matter on the national stage. WHY would she really want in the national debate if she actually felt it was most important to keep the Conservatives out of power??? Further, if she believed this policy why would she move her parties non-environmental policies from the right of centre to the fairly left of centre? She could have taken some of the Conservative votes directly and instead ended up splintering some of the NDP and Liberal voters in key ridings.

No one seems to want to say anything bad about May because she seems smart and nice, she was an underdog and she represents an overriding issue that you can politically argue against. The reality is that, in terms of political strategy, she did a crap job for their party. She ended up becoming a Liberal party mouthpiece at times, became fixated on taking down the Conservatives more then winning some ridings, ran her own seat in a highly respected Conservative riding (another ridiculous move IMHO), the list of blunders is fairly long...

I would estimate that their percentage of popular vote was going up simply because climate issues were one of THE issues of the election. If the Liberals were a disaster and the Conservatives STILL couldn't get a majority then what does that really say about the Greens not being able to win one seat? At the very least they could have had May run in a soft riding with more climate concerns then others...with climate issues garnering the attention they do, May garnering attention as this surprising and intelligent leader, and good growth of their popular vote you would think that, as the leader and voice of her party she could have won her own riding...going against McKay was a major mistake.

[Jean]

O look at this. One more Liberal and one less Bloc in the House

Liberals take Brossard from Bloc

That's quite a difference in beetween election night and the recount.. someone really screwed up on E-night