Tuesday, December 30, 2008

9 Political Predictions for 2009

1. John Tory's days as Ontario PC leader are in the very low numbers, and will not survive past the end of the spring sitting of the Queen's Park.

2. The contenters for Ontario PC leadership will be Tim Hudak, Michael Chong, and Lisa Macleod.

3. Peter Tabuns will narrowly defeat Micheal Prue for Ontario NDP leadership.

4. Rodney MacDonald's minority PC government in Nova Scotia will fall, and be defeated by the NDP.

5. The NDP will defeat the BC Liberals in the BC provincial election.

6. Gilles Duceppe will step down as BQ leader, Pierre Paquette will take over the leadership.

7. The coalition will not be asked to take power, but it will not be formally disbanded either.

8. Elizabeth May will be forced out as Green leader.

9. No federal election in 2009.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

As to your #9, there is no mechanism within the Green Party to "force" Elizabeth May out. She will remain as Leader until the internal election for Leader in 2010. At that point, she will decide whether to run for another term.

Anonymous said...

"5. The NDP will defeat the BC Liberals in the BC provincial election."


Methinks that you are gonna eat crow on that one. :)

Firstly: The NDP has only won a BC election when the centre-right/right-wing was divided:

1. 1972 - Socreds lose with strong PC and Liberal parties against 20-year old arrogant regime;

2. 1991 - Disgraced Vander Zalm Socreds lose with strong Liberal party allowing NDP to sneak up the middle;

3. Liberals don't win when Reform party wins 2 seats in north and splits votes to allow NDP to sneak up the middle in neighbouring northern ridings; Liberals gain most popular vote;

4. Today, the only other strong party is the Greens and they likely take 3 votes from the NDP for every 2 votes from the Liberals. Another protest party against the others.

Secondly: The Liberals are ahead in opinion polls (Mustel and Ipsos) at this time compared to when they were behind the NDP during this time prior to the May, 2005 election;

Ipsos - 9 points;
Mustel - 2 points;

Thirdly: All opinion polls now show that the economy is foremost in the minds of BC'ers. And to that question, the Liberals lead the NDP by between 20 - 30 percentage points (Mustel, Ipsos, ARS);

Fourthly: The new seat redistribution is in favour of the Liberals. Eg. Under the new riding regime, the Liberals would have won 5 seats out of 8 in 2005 instead of 3; More Liberals seats in the Okanagan and the Fraser Valley, all fast growing areas;

Fifthly: Many NDP'ers dislike Carole James according to various left-wing blogs. In my circles, she is considered a flake and inept. Campbell is also disliked but has a much higher approval rating than James in terms of premier material in opinion polls.

Add that all up and you think the NDP will win in May, 2009??? Not even BC's moderate political prognosticators, Vaughn Palmer of the Vancouver Sun and Kieth Baldrey of Global BCTV believe that.

BTW, how do you analytically come to that conclusion??? :) Seriously???

Anonymous said...

And to:

"4. Rodney MacDonald's minority PC government in Nova Scotia will fall, and be defeated by the NDP."

You may not know, but the NS PC's have their "highest" approval rating in two years according to the latest CRA poll from two weeks back. At 59%... that's up ten points. Very comfortable approval ratings, which likely will be reflected in the polls over the next few months.

Combining that with current economic conditions and reluctance to politically experiment, that's also doubtful. :)

Anonymous said...

Now that Tory's found a seat to run in, Chong's chances to become PC Leader won't be until after 2011. If Chong does become leader, Ted Arnott could easily take over his federal seat, since they represent the same area.