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Originally Posted by The Jabroni
This is very cool, vid!! 
I like how you chose the colour scheme of what could be the Liberal Democrats. Very similar colour scheme of the Liberal Democrats in the UK, if that was what you were going for. |
It is. Yellow isn't just used by Liberal Democrats in the UK, it is used in many other countries' Liberal-Democrat parties, and it is, along with purple, the only basic colour left in our political landscape, so it helps to distinguish them from the other parties, as well.
Quote:
Originally Posted by VANRIDERFAN
If Ralph retires before the next election then it could be pretty interesting. Also there are a lot of NDP members who loath the thought of merger with the Liberals. One of my co workers feels that at the least the conservatives are a known entity while the Liberals are (his words) slimy weasels who steal our ideas who act like they care.
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It isn't just the Liberals that steal ideas from the NDP. Harper's budget does it too, taking just under half of their demands. He didn't meet them but he obviously saw some merit in including them or he wouldn't have tried.
The NDP have been a good source of ideas, but that doesn't mean they're going to be good at governing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by VANRIDERFAN
Finally why is the centre left/left apocalyptic about the future under the Harper majority. Do they really, really deep in their bones think that their lives are in peril because of a Conservative victory? Some of vitriolic anger directed towards the people who voted for the Harper is quite amazing and really doesn't add much to the debate that must happen if we are going to be able to afford full medicare, pensions, environment etc.
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I guess the left is tolerant as long as you agree with them.
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This happens from the right as well, feeling apocalyptic to the left. Many left-wing Canadians look at Stephen Harper, especially the things he said in the 1990s, and see a man who reflects the "scary" events happening in the US at the hands of Tea Partiers. Just like you would look at a communist state and feel nervous about political leaders here who lean in that direction, people on the left in Canada feel the same unease towards Harper's Conservatives, and both sides lash out with insults as a result of the fear of the bad things that could happen.
The reality is, Harper is just the leader of the party. When Chretien was Prime Minister, not all Liberals voted the same way on everything. The same will be true with Harper's majority government. A lot of the Ontarian MPs, who form the largest bloc in the party, are pretty centred and would likely oppose most of the things the left wing is scared of, if Harper is reckless enough to even carry them out. He knows that a lot of the opinions he held in the past aren't popular nationwide and if he wants to be more than a one term Prime Minister, he'll have to keep those opinions tempered.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse
Sorry to be repetitious, but as others have said, excellent job! I guess this explains why you haven't been online much for the last week or so. I still miss you, but I'm very impressed by the results.
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This was just a weekend project, I've got a lot of other things going on during the weekdays and haven't had much time for computer stuff.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MrOilers
All the blue and orange makes Canada look like a giant Oilers jersey.
Nicely done!
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bdog
While interesting, it's definitely not surprising. A close look at the Green's platform shows that while very diverse in their policies, a lot of them can be interpreted as fiscally conservative (i.e. lowering income taxes, lowering business taxes, full cost pricing - essentially internalizing externalities so prices accurately reflect costs, which is about as free market as you can get). So, I'm guessing that many progressives (who may still be fiscally conservative) would vote Green over NDP (who they might perceive as wreckless spenders) and over the Liberals (who they still hate from a few decades back)...
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I've always said that the biggest mistake the Greens have made under Elizabeth May is not emphasizing their economic policy enough. A lot of people still think that they're just focused on one thing when they really have a more well rounded platform than the other three parties in opposition.
If the Conservatives were a bit more moderate, and Jim Harris was still the leader of the Greens, a 155 seat Conservative minority would easily become a 156 seat Conservative-Green coalition majority. In my fantasy world...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dado
In creating the 'Liberal Democrat' vote, I'm not sure I would have just combined the Liberal and NDP vote together because I really don't think that's reasonable since many Liberal voters will head right rather than left.
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I know that, and I have mentioned it, but the vote might not split the same in every riding. Combining the two votes into one was the clearest, simplest and easiest method to show how this would play out. Once you start adding complex formulas to split the Liberal vote out based on local level political ideas, not only does the workload for such a project increase significantly, but you bring in a lot more uncertainty than simply saying "this is what the results would be like if everyone who voted for NDP and Liberal voted for the same unified party". A map showing combined PC and Alliance votes would likely be similar. going back to 2000, who could have predicted how that vote would be redistributed? There would likely also be some sort of continued Liberal party among the Fringe parties, just like the Progressive Canadians came out of the Progressive Conservatives after the right was united. There would still be a Liberal Party in some form, but it would be much smaller, probably irrelevant.
You also have to consider the drop in the Green vote in this election. A lot of us who previously supported Greens voted NDP in the election. We might not in the next one, and that could bring their numbers back down. There were also some Conservatives who dislike Harper's leadership style and voted NDP this time, so predicting political situations becomes even more difficult. Over the course of this election I supported all but the Liberals at some point in the campaign; a lot of people swing like that, and you can't predict it very well.
Like I said, if I had the skills and the programme to do it, creating an algorithm than can carry out the process you describe could produce a more accurate map in seconds. I did this by hand. (Tedious but very relaxing.) This is nothing media companies couldn't do; they just didn't.
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Last night I remembered
this thread from the US Election Atlas forum. They use GIS data provided by Elections Canada to display results right down to polling stations, meaning you can see the level of support for a political party right down to the neighbourhood level in your riding. The maps aren't as pretty but they're even more informative than mine. Hopefully they continue their project after this election.
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