Will Jagmeet Singh win the Burnaby South by-election?

[wave46]

Originally Posted by acottawa

I am pretty sure luck plays a big role for a lot of politicians’ success. Trudeau got a court ruling in the middle of the campaign that tanked Mulcair. Harper happened to be leader when the Liberal Party pretty much imploded. The Ontario Liberals got several suicidal promises from the Tories in consecutive elections.

Jean Chretien and the federal Liberals benefited from the Reform Party and the PCs fighting it out for votes in Ontario, whilst the BQ monopolized Quebec outside of Montreal/Gatineau in the 1990s and early 2000s.

[flar]

Originally Posted by whatnext

Mulcair was an impressive parliamentarian and the House is worse off without him, but I never got the sense he was really an NDP believer. He came across much more as a Liberal. When you try and move the NDP to the right of the Liberals it is bound to fail.

Not necessarily. The NDP turns off their blue collar roots when they get into the identity politics and other mushy stuff associated with the left today. They only need to stay left on a few key economic issues, particularly workers rights and fair taxation.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by flar

Not necessarily. The NDP turns off their blue collar roots when they get into the identity politics and other mushy stuff associated with the left today. They only need to stay left on a few key economic issues, particularly workers rights and fair taxation.

Well they might as well just merge with the Liberals then.

[WoodlandCritter]

Originally Posted by whatnext

Well they might as well just merge with the Liberals then.

Well, the Liberals aren't Liberals anymore. So they might as well.

[casper]

Originally Posted by whatnext

Well they might as well just merge with the Liberals then.

I think there are quite dramatic differences between the Liberal and NDP that would make a merger difficult to say the least. The NDP is very pro organised labour. The Liberals are much more pro business.

That said, if the NDP self distrusted or merged with say the Liberals I think that would change the dynamics dramatically from the Green party.

The Greens are basically this weird cross of fiscally conservative will being anti-development and ultra-environmental. They basically destroy any concept of left-vrs-right politics.

[theman23]

Originally Posted by lio45

^ thanks for proving my point. During the campaign, for many weeks the NDP under Mulcair was stable at an incredibly impressive level (for the NDP).

Even Layton never managed to pull that off - weeks and weeks of sitting at such levels.

Yeah, fantastic job losing an election that was practically gift wrapped for him. Great stuff. You're clearly a man of high standards. Enjoy your Cambpell's chicken soup dinner.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by flar

Not necessarily. The NDP turns off their blue collar roots when they get into the identity politics and other mushy stuff associated with the left today. They only need to stay left on a few key economic issues, particularly workers rights and fair taxation.

Mulcair had little appeal to either the traditional blue collar union base or the urban progressive side of the NDP.

[ssiguy]

Originally Posted by whatnext

Well they might as well just merge with the Liberals then.

The Liberals and NDP have never had really large ideological difference but the Liberals had the name, the establishment, a strong Quebec base, and a more pragmatic approach. When I was young the NDP were simply known as `Liberals in a hurry` and in many ways it was and has always been true.

There is one danger about Singh that Trudeau, of all people, should be aware of and that`s writing him off as completely incompetent and not ready to govern. Harper made that very fatal mistake last time and was one of the reasons why the Liberals went from 3rd place in the polls to a strong majority in such a shockingly small amount of time. Remember those offensive Tory ads of 'Justin, he's just not ready' and 'nice hair thou`? Well unfortunately for the Tories the ads very successful but not how they had hoped. They manage to convince many that he just wasn't competent enough to run a G7 country and was only getting by on his name and good looks. They had set their standard of Trudeau so low that even seeming moderately competent made Trudeau look far better than people thought and when he did very well in the debates, it took everyone by storm and the rest is history.


The moral of the story is that if someone is incompetent, incoherent, and has no motivational skills {ie Singh}, let him implode on his own...…….someone falling of their bike is comical while someone being pushed off their bike is empathetic.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

The Liberals and NDP have never had really large ideological difference but the Liberals had the name, the establishment, a strong Quebec base, and a more pragmatic approach. When I was young the NDP were simply known as `Liberals in a hurry` and in many ways it was and has always been true.

There is one danger about Singh that Trudeau, of all people, should be aware of and that`s writing him off as completely incompetent and not ready to govern. Harper made that very fatal mistake last time and was one of the reasons why the Liberals went from 3rd place in the polls to a strong majority in such a shockingly small amount of time. Remember those offensive Tory ads of 'Justin, he's just not ready' and 'nice hair thou`? Well unfortunately for the Tories the ads very successful but not how they had hoped. They manage to convince many that he just wasn't competent enough to run a G7 country and was only getting by on his name and good looks. They had set their standard of Trudeau so low that even seeming moderately competent made Trudeau look far better than people thought and when he did very well in the debates, it took everyone by storm and the rest is history.


The moral of the story is that if someone is incompetent, incoherent, and has no motivational skills {ie Singh}, let him implode on his own...…….someone falling of their bike is comical while someone being pushed off their bike is empathetic.

Do you seriously think that Singh could become PM after the next election? I'm wondering whether the Liberals won't attempt to pretty much ignore the NDP as much as possible in the upcoming campaign?

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

Do you seriously think that Singh could become PM after the next election? I'm wondering whether the Liberals won't attempt to pretty much ignore the NDP as much as possible in the upcoming campaign?

That would be a sensible strategy. Not sure sensible is a guiding principle of their campaign strategy though if the Burnaby gong show is any indication.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by casper

I think there are quite dramatic differences between the Liberal and NDP that would make a merger difficult to say the least. The NDP is very pro organised labour. The Liberals are much more pro business.

That said, if the NDP self distrusted or merged with say the Liberals I think that would change the dynamics dramatically from the Green party.

The Greens are basically this weird cross of fiscally conservative will being anti-development and ultra-environmental. They basically destroy any concept of left-vrs-right politics.

What's Big Labour these days? Basically private sector unions have been made nearly extinct by the conservative agenda, so it's just public sector unions. I doubt their members have much problem with the Liberal agenda.

[ssiguy]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

Do you seriously think that Singh could become PM after the next election? I'm wondering whether the Liberals won't attempt to pretty much ignore the NDP as much as possible in the upcoming campaign?

Of course I don`t and that was the whole point of my post. Singh is more than incompetent to lose the election all by himself so the Liberals don`t need to help him do it.

[Docere]

Former MLA Richard Lee is now the Liberal candidate. A more formidable challenger for Singh than Karen Wang.

[lio45]

Huh. Guess the Federal Liberals aren't as smart/wily as I thought them to be.

I was just about to congratulate them on their near-perfect setup - pick someone who you know will disqualify herself, then oops it's too late to replace her, and Singh gets elected in a binary election against the Tory, thus guaranteeing he will lead the NDP in the October election, and you have one less rival in those tight four-way Quebec races that will decide the result of the election.

[tablemtn]

What is the rate of "racial crossover" among voters in Sikh vs. Chinese candidates? Ie, if a Sikh and a Chinese candidate are running against each other, regardless of party label, what percentage of Chinese will vote Sikh, and what percentage of Sikhs will vote Chinese? The reason LKY largely rejected democracy for Singapore was due to his frequent observation that "elections" in Singapore would devolve into ethnic head-counts.

[wave46]

Originally Posted by whatnext

What's Big Labour these days? Basically private sector unions have been made nearly extinct by the conservative agenda, so it's just public sector unions. I doubt their members have much problem with the Liberal agenda.

There's remnants of them in the manufacturing and mining industries.

I'd say the salvation of the NDP lies in the low-paid service industry workers - they're the people at the bottom of the food chain. The problem might be that they're not a very unified bloc and I'm not sure if they have the same political participation levels as higher income groups.

The Liberals are too corporatist to appeal to them as a whole.

[casper]

Originally Posted by tablemtn

What is the rate of "racial crossover" among voters in Sikh vs. Chinese candidates? Ie, if a Sikh and a Chinese candidate are running against each other, regardless of party label, what percentage of Chinese will vote Sikh, and what percentage of Sikhs will vote Chinese? The reason LKY largely rejected democracy for Singapore was due to his frequent observation that "elections" in Singapore would devolve into ethnic head-counts.

For emigrants who have become citizens perhaps. I am not convinced race would be that much of a factor in deciding who to vote for.

For second generation Indo-Canadian and Chinese-Canadian I would be surprised if ethnic background of candidates area a major factor.

[Loco101]

Originally Posted by Loco101

A lot of people in Timmins think that Charlie Angus will soon be the next NDP leader.

But I still feel that Singh will win the BC riding with about 35-38% of the votes. It will be close but he's a party leader which means something more than just having an ordinary MP. Singh is also known as being a very good campaigner. I realize that Burnaby is not the same as Brampton but Singh has a chance given that the last MP was NDP.

That was my prediction on January 14, 2019.

I think I made it before the original Liberal candidate dropped out so it probably would have been closer if that hadn't happened.

With 92% of results in, Singh has 38.7% of the votes.

[JHikka]

Shoutout to the 43% of us that voted correctly in this poll

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by JHikka

Shoutout to the 43% of us that voted correctly in this poll

Yeah, that was really no surprise. A lot of posters let personal sentiment get in the way of a rational vote. Byelections are a great time to register a protest to the governing party, and Burnaby is ground zero in the Transmountain battle. The SNC affair just added one more log to the fire. For the same reason, if I were a Tory I wouldn't get too worked up about the high PPC vote. A protest led by an obnoxious high-profile local candidate, that won't be repeated across the country in October.

I predict having Singh in the house will boost NDP fortunes.