Unemployment jumps: for Liberals

As many as 30 nine people are said to be ex-employees in the ranks of Liberals tonight; not just former chief of staff Ian Davey and former communications director Jill Fairbrother. Or that's the buzz out there. It is looking like the dismissals are budget-related; too much staff for a long period of waiting for the next election. Anyone with more information is of course welcome to send it on here.

** Update: Via National Newswatch (on Twitter), apparently principal secretary Dan Brock is also gone.

** While 30 was one number out there tonight, I actually heard from an OLO staffer around 10 p.m. who said that nine people left today. Thanks!

You vote what you eat

 If the way to the voters' hearts is through their stomachs, Canadian politicians might want to have a look at this fun new survey in the U.S. It shows the differences between Conservative and Liberals' food and dining preferences. Among the findings:

Conservatives like Velveeta, Liberals like Brie

Conservatives like lots of meat on their pizza, Liberals prefer vegetables

What's for lunch? Conservatives say pizza, or macaroni and cheese; Liberals say Thai or Indian food.

What's for dinner? Fried chicken, meatloaf and steak for Conservatives; green curry, Ethiopian cuisine or a veggie burger for Liberals.

And they even decorate their kitchens differently -- Conservatives like a "country-style kitchen" while Liberals prefer something a bit more modern.

That's just a sampling of the findings. I'm not sure how scientific it is, but it sure sheds a whole new light on that old wisdom of "dine with the right, vote with the left."

Ignatieff: a "role model" for Flanagan

Tom Flanagan, Stephen Harper's former chief of staff, has a tendency to be bracingly honest; a trait that guarantees him outsider's status from the government his old friend is running.

Here's his newest candour, in an interview with  Winnipeg Free Press columnist Frances Russell. I'm wondering, in light of this interview,  if the Liberals want to engage his services as an ad writer.

"I actually have a lot of admiration for Ignatieff," Flanagan said in an interview Friday. He was in Winnipeg to lecture on political ethics and campaign strategy at the University of Manitoba.

"Michael Ignatieff to me is a world-famous scholar. I'd like to be a world-famous scholar. I'm not, so Ignatieff to me is a role model... I think he is a quality guy and I think Canada's lucky to have him as Liberal leader. I have the same views about Stephen Harper and I think we're lucky to have all of our leaders."

Yet Flanagan defends his party's perpetual ad campaign characterizing the Liberal leader as "just in it for himself" and "just visiting" Canada. Asked if he personally agrees with his party's characterization of Ignatieff, he replied: "I don't necessarily think that." But he insisted it was up to Ignatieff to repudiate the "just visiting" claim. And he doesn't know why the Liberals "don't make their own plausible case" against the prime minister. "It wouldn't be hard to write the ads."

Unofficial Liberal reaction

A mini-roundup of some not-so-happy Liberals out there in the blogosphere this morning.

The World Famous Dan Shields: "This is not perfect."

James Morton, at Morton's Musings: Well, this is a bit of a wake up call. Obviously the Conservatives are doing something right and we need to work hard to rebuild the base in Quebec. It seems our vote improved a bit over the last election but, give due where due, the Conservatives came in first.

Rob Silver, at his Globe and Mail blog: "A bad night for the Liberals."

End (sort of) to Liberal silence

End (sort of) to Liberal silence

It's something, anyway. Following is Ignatieff's brief statement on the by-elections.

OTTAWA – Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff made the following statement following the results of yesterday’s four federal by-elections:

“I want to congratulate all of the winners in yesterday’s by-elections.

“I also want to thank Ken Beck Lee, Robert David, Marcel Catellier and Jim Burrows for carrying the Liberal banner.

“The by-election results last night show that we have a lot of work ahead of us. Canadians want an alternative to the Harper Conservatives. Our job in the months ahead is to earn the confidence and support of Canadians.”

 

Liberal silence

Conservatives and New Democrats have had a lot to say since last night's by-elections. Liberals, not so much.

 Whether this is a function of their current backroom troubles (no one still sure whether communications director Jill Fairbrother is coming back to her job, ie) or the old, if-you-have-nothing-nice-to-say rule, it's probably time to hear from them.

Who won, who lost

By their vote share, let them be judged.  In a previous post, I laid out where the share of the vote went in the 2008 election and how we should look at the by-election results on Monday. So here's how it looks; putting the previous, 2008  results against what we're seeing in the returns as of around midnight. In short, good news for Conservatives and the NDP, not so good for the Liberals or the Bloc.

 

 

 

 

New Westminster-Coquitlam:

NDP: 41.6 per cent

Conservatives: 38 per cent

Liberals: 11 per cent. 

Question: If the NDP wins by a bigger margin (as they expect), it's at whose expense?

Answer: The New Democrats did indeed increase their vote share, up to over 50 per cent, and it all seemed to come at the expense of the Conservatives; slightly at the expense of Liberals too.

**

Cumberland-Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley

Independent: 68 per cent

New Democrats: 12 per cent

Conservatives: 8.7 per cent

Liberals: 8.4 per cent.

Question: A simple one...Bill Casey's 68 per cent has to go somewhere. Who gets it?

Answer: The Conservatives got nearly 46 per cent; the New Democrats held on to second place, more than doubling their share of the vote and the Liberals climbed 12 percentage points at third place. This is the only riding where Liberals made gains, but increasing the third-place showing is not really great news for Ignatieff.

Hochelaga

BQ: 49 per cent

Liberals: 20 per cent

NDP: 14 per cent

Conservatives: 9 per cent

Question: If the Liberals slip into third place, who gets to be second?

Answer: The New Democrats get to be second and the results show an almost exact switching of places between the Liberals and the NDP. That's clear enough.

Montmagny-L'Islet-Kamouraska-Riviere-du-Loup

BQ: 45 per cent

Conservatives: 30 per cent

Liberals: 15 per cent

NDP: 5.3 per cent

Question: The Conservatives presumably want to keep second place, at the least, so will it be a strong second, or will Liberals/NDP chip away at it?

Answer: Big surprise of the night -- the Conservatives won it. The Bloc is second, and neither the Liberals nor the NDP are players here.

So much for the law

The Toronto Sun (no link provided, on purpose) has decided to flout the Elections Law and the specific warning that appears on top of the wire story they're posting about tonight's by-election results.  We have the same story sitting in front of us, with this specific instruction:

Eds:This story contains results from Cumberland-Colchester-Musquodo boit Valley in Nova Scotia, where polls have closed, and so - under the Canada Elections Act - should not be made available to the public in electoral districts where polls remain open. The latest polls in tonight’s four byelections close at 10 p.m. ET in Westminster-Coquitlam in British Columbia. DO NOT POST ONLINE BEFORE 10 p.m. ET.; With BC-Fed-Byelxns, Bgt

I suspect we haven't heard the last of this.

 

By-election benchmarks: vote share

Share of the vote will be the issue for all parties tonight in the four by-elections.  The NDP wants to go up; the Liberals can't afford to lose any votes (see previous post)  and the Conservatives will be trying to see if they're competitive in key regions.

Here's the vote share in the last election in all ridings... we'll be comparing and contrasting after 10 p.m.

New Westminster-Coquitlam:

NDP: 41.6 per cent

Conservatives: 38 per cent

Liberals: 11 per cent. 

Question: If the NDP wins by a bigger margin (as they expect), it's at whose expense?

**

Cumberland-Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley

Independent: 68 per cent

New Democrats: 12 per cent

Conservatives: 8.7 per cent

Liberals: 8.4 per cent.

Question: A simple one...Bill Casey's 68 per cent has to go somewhere. Who gets it?

Hochelaga

BQ: 49 per cent

Liberals: 20 per cent

NDP: 14 per cent

Conservatives: 9 per cent

Question: If the Liberals slip into third place, who gets to be second?

Montmagny-L'Islet-Kamouraska-Riviere-du-Loup

BQ: 45 per cent

Conservatives: 30 per cent

Liberals: 15 per cent

NDP: 5.3 per cent

Question: The Conservatives presumably want to keep second place, at the least, so will it be a strong second, or will Liberals/NDP chip away at it?

By-elections

I'll be covering the by-election results tonight (not public until 10 p.m. or later) but in the meantime, this blog is happy to receive all tips, reports, speculation, etc. about what's happening out there in the four ridings.

Given that the Conservatives have set this up as a test for Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff (which, as Globe blogger Rob Silver points out, might be a bit of a stretch), it might be a good idea to log here what kind of votes the Liberals received in these four ridings the last time voters went to the polls in October, 2008. 

In Cumberland-Colchester-Mosquodoboit Valley, Liberals came in third   fourth with 3,344 votes.

In Montmagny-L'Islet-Kamouraska-Riviere-du-Loup, Liberals came in third with 6,835 votes.

In Hochelaga, Liberals were second with 9,442 votes.

In New Westminster-Coquitlam, Liberals placed third with 5,615 votes.

All totalled, that's  a little over 25,000 votes. So perhaps that's a benchmark for tonight; though turnout for by-elections is notoriously smaller than it is for general elections.