In the wake of Tuesday's near-miss election for the NDP, Green supporters were quickly made the Dippers' whipping boy, the sine qua non excuse for their failure.
A UBC analysis explodes the self-serving myth, seized upon by the Dippers in the aftermath of the vote, that the Green vote helped the Liberals retain power and cost the New Dems the election.
The Liberals took 40.9 per cent of the popular vote compared to the NDP's 39.9 per cent.
“There were three cases where the Greens seems to have directly or indirectly hurt the NDP,” said Harrison. Greens won two former NDP ridings and helped a Liberal to win in a third by siphoning off NDP votes, she said.
“But in eight other ridings, the increase in the Green vote share came disproportionately from the Liberals share and allowed the NDP to win when they arguably wouldn't have otherwise.
“The NDP would have done worse in this election if it were not for the Green vote,” said Harrison.
This invites us to revisit Mark Leiren-Young's opinion piece in The Georgia Strait in which the long-time NDP supporter asked why a Green should support the NDP at all.
As nervous NDPers ask why any “progressive” would trust the Greens, I can’t help wondering why any environmentalist would trust the NDP?
...
It wasn’t the Socreds or Liberals who declared environmentalists “enemies of British Columbia,” it was the NDP’s Glen Clark.
Carole James cynically campaigned on a campaign to axe BC’s globally admired carbon tax—torching her party’s environmental platform to kick off her bid to run the province.
B.C.’s former future Premier, Adrian Dix, was so committed to the NDP’s environmental stance that he called an audible on Kinder Morgan mid-campaign.
Followed by this prescient observation:
In a two-party race the NDP has historically been DOA, so even if the BC Liberals helped pump the Greens tires to split the Not So Liberal vote, with the Tories out of the game the B.C. NDP desperately needs Weaver in play to provide a home for voters who would rather be dead than orange. Why does nothing rhyme with orange? If you took the Greens off the ballot tomorrow, Clark could likely take million-dollar bribes on live TV, kick a dog or three, and still cruise to victory.
So suck on it, Dippers. You lost despite the Greens, not because of the Green vote.
Anyong...No doubt there will be interesting times ahead.
ReplyDeleteOne of the strongest impelling factors in the Liberal showing is the core of people who have attached their economic wagons to the Liberal train and have stuffed beans in their ears so they won't have to look at the seamier side of the shenanigans of Clark & Co. In mid-April, I had a conversation with a relative of a very dear and reasonable friend who was over from North Vancouver for a birthday celebration of said friend and who, it turns out, would never vote anything but BC Liberal or whatever successor party that promised to behave the same way, despite corruption, environmental degradation, the pillage and destruction of the commons and the enormous social deficit accumulated by the Campbell and Clark régimes. This because they are the party that represents a continuation of a privileged status quo for her and her co-religionists (Cult of Croesus) and nothing should be allowed to upset her well-appointed and fully stocked apple cart. While it was a polite enough exchange, the stubbornness and opacity of the discourse was enormously frustrating, and the resulting sense of devastation through inflexibility and short-sightedness is a most daunting prospect.
ReplyDeleteThat's a disheartening account, Danneau.
ReplyDeleteMy riding remained safely in Liberal hands, the only riding on Vancouver Island they took. I attribute that to the average age of our citizens. It's a retirement community. Many are newcomers from other regions and provinces. I think that voter profile tends to be drawn to establishment parties. We had a federal Tory here, an evangelical chiropractor, who kept getting re-elected although he did nothing - nothing at all - for our riding. He logged his pensionable time and retired.
The imported ancient Albertans have become a sore on Vancouver Island.
ReplyDeleteTheir golf communities are quite bizarre and creepy.
Unreasonable people leading unnatural lives.
The First Nations must have felt the same way when the white man first settled here.
TB
I haven't forgotten DR.(!) James Lunney, and you and I had the pleasure of sharing his company, though you could probably count his appearances this side of the Hump on the digits of a double amputee. I recall having a conversation with my stepson wherein I compared him to Major Major Major Major of Catch-22. Lunney was an evangelist, but he surely didn't read the same Bible my very religious wife reads. I haven't met a single person who regrets his departure, a truly nasty bit of business.
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