On Sunday, the always provocative labradore dissected the NDP performance in the last general election.
The NDP gains in votes, and seats, came almost entirely at the expense of the Tories. The Liberals stubbornly refused to believe their own obituaries.
According to the script, this wasn't supposed to happen.
And it's not just a matter of raw vote- and seat-counts. Straits and White Bay North released itself from the Liberal clutches it fell into in the late by-election, but did so without rushing back to the Tory fold. Clyde Jackman saw his political career flash before his eyes, and the NDP was strong enough to be competitive in several of the St. John's area seats it didn't win. Apart from raw margins, another indicium of the potential winnability or convertability of a district is whether the second-place party is strong enough to win polls within the district. The NDP did so in at least four Tory-held St. John's seats Tuesday night, and enough of them that it was leading in suburban Cape St. Francis in the first hour of the count.Whence the source of the nervous-nelliness.
Labradore’s colourful charts don’t convey the full sense of the shock on the ground.
Your humble e-scribbler has had way too many direct and indirect accounts over the past week of good Tories who watched the telly gobsmacked on Tuesday last as the NDP ate Shawn and Ed and Bob.
They never saw it coming.
The shock is profound.
They really didn’t see the NDP second-place strength in the other metro seats otherwise they’d be flinging themselves out the nearby windows.
The Tories will have a very hard time dealing with the NDP insurgency. The NDP policies are the same ones the Tories have been pushing since 2003.
Since the NDP voters are apparently former Tory voters – for the most part – the old Tory scare tactic of NDP financial irresponsibility just won’t find any purchase with those who will likely be looking to change votes and parties next time out.
- srbp -
