Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Fall Federal Election

I am not thrilled at the idea of a federal election because I do not see much change coming from it.

I will be posting my estimates of the seat distribution I come up with using the modeling I have set up on my computer. The factors I take into account are the following

  1. Party past results
  2. Current polling numbers - though weighting them based on time, size and pollster accuracy.
  3. Party readiness for an election

As I can quantify other aspects of the election, I will.

Based on what I have outlined above, the result I would expect at this time is as follows

  • Conservatives - 135
  • Liberals - 104
  • NDP - 23
  • BQ - 45
  • Ind - 1

This really does not leave us any better off than where we are now.

I am not sure what the core election issue will be, but I am certain that if the carbon tax is the issue, this will harm the Liberals in suburban Canada. BC is Canada's most environmental province and here we have the NDP condemning the Liberal carbon tax. I am not sure how this will play out in the election, but I think this could push a lot of green voters away from the NDP to the Greens and the Liberals.

Senate Reform - arguing against voting for our representative is an almost impossible task to sell to most of the public. The Liberals have painted themselves into a corner on the issue and could alienate a lot of people who hold traditional Canadian values of fairness.

The Conservatives also have the advantage that they have upper hand on economic issues and as times get bad, people want a party that will be able to guide the economy the best.

The NDP meanwhile is going to spending all its meager resources defending the 30 seats they hold at the moment. The NDP is only competitive in less than 50 ridings in the country and they hold 30 of them. If there is any tide against them, they lose seats.

More in the weeks to come.

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