By-elections giving Layton pause?

We here at the Star aren't sure what to make of the fact that NDP leader Jack Layton turned down Richard Brennan's request for an interview yesterday. We were even more perplexed when Layton did manage to turn up, via broadcast feed from Washington, on Don Newman's Politics broadcast.

Newman tried several times to pull Layton off his message track, which seemed to be that the NDP was far more interested in talking about its September, 2007, win in Outremont, rather than this week's slump in the by-elections.

Here's one statistic from that evening that may be the source of some internal strategic discussions at NDP headquarters right now, even if Layton is a bit shy about talking to the Star right now.

In the three urban ridings where by-elections were held on Monday night, the Greens and NDP collected roughly the SAME number of votes.

The NDP won 3,299 votes in Toronto Centre, 1,084 votes in Willowdale and 4,064 votes in Vancouver Quadra. Grand total: 8,447 votes.

The Greens won 3,263 votes in Toronto Centre, 1,325 in Willowdale and 3,792 votes in Vancouver Quadra. Grand total: 8,380 votes.

That's a difference of less than 100 votes.

Comments

[quiesttonpapa]

Does is bode well for Canada to have a viable fourth party? Will this be cause for more 'vote-splitting'? Is this upswing of support for the Greens based on voters not knowing where else to put their mark? I would love to hear what your thoughts are.

My one experience with hearing Elizabeth May speak live started out well and ended with me handing the Green literature back to the person that had given it to me. By the end of her speech I was completely turned off by her rhetoric. of course, this could of been due to the forum and issue at hand (it was an Ani DiFranco concert and she was postulating against nuclear energy).

[Not-a-Harper-supporter]

I appreciated the positive campaigns the Green candidates ran. They added constructively to the discussion of issues and they exposed the downside of a lot of the partisan mud-slinging we see. For people who are strongly attracted to the Green Party platform and/or do not feel they need to vote strategically for one of the two large parties in order to influence which party forms the government, voting Green would be an obvious choice.