On day of LeBlanc endorsement, poll shows Trudeau could recreate Liberals

[CHIMO]

On a day when Justin Trudeau’s Liberal leadership bid won the support of Dominic LeBlanc — a scion of Canada’s Liberal establishment — a new poll came out that suggests he could reshape the country’s political landscape.

The latest Canadian Press Harris-Decima survey released Friday says 36 per cent of those who took part in the poll across the country last week said they would be certain or likely to vote Liberal in the next election if Mr. Trudeau is at the party’s helm.

The poll says he would get “significant support” east of Manitoba, with 40 per cent of those surveyed in Ontario, 43 per cent in Quebec and 48 per cent in Atlantic Canada indicating they would be certain or likely to vote for the Liberals if Trudeau is leading the party.

“Justin Trudeau — more than any other prospective candidate we tested — holds the best prospect for a revival of the Liberal party,” said Allan Gregg, chairman of Harris-Decima. “In fact he is the only candidate we tested that has the potential to broaden the Liberal vote beyond its current base.”

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/on-day-of-leblanc-endorsement-poll-shows-trudeau-could-recreate-liberals/article4591559/

[Ken Burch]

1. What's the POINT of recreating the Liberals?

You already have a REAL official opposition in the NDP that can win and, unlike the Liberals, disagrees with Harper MOST of the time.

What possible justification could there be to push Canada back to the Liberal-Tory non-choice?

Any Liberal government that ever gets in again will be as far to the right as Chretien was in the Nineties...and it's worthless to replace Harper with THAT, for God's sake.

[CHIMO]

2. The Same

Point of creating the NDP!

What possible justification could there be to push Canada back to the NDP-Conservative choice?

The scorched earth policy that the NDP implemented with the Liberals will now come home to roost. One gets more with honey than vinegar! So do you keep pissing vinegar? Or do you unite to get rid of Harper?

[Ken Burch]

3. The Liberals were never truly interested in uniting-they just wanted the NDP to go away

Last edited Sun Oct 7, 2012, 05:59 AM - Edit history (2)

And hand over the voters the Liberals felt entitled to.

The Liberals post-election merger proposal was never going to treat the NDP faction with respect, or admit that the NDP had now proved itself the stronger force. Your party would have demanded to be treated as the dominant faction in the "merged" entity and insisted that it be led by a former Liberal, with the NDP getting nothing at all out of the bargain.

Liberal bloggers like Warren Kinsella floated the "merged party" idea just so that, if the NDP took them up on it, they could do blog headines reading "NDP disbands...admits it could NEVER win" and then claim the merged party as "Liberal Party 2.0" or something.

To this day, the Liberals STILL care more about getting rid of the NDP than they do about anything else...they care more about that than they do about beating Harper-just as they did in 2011, when, even though they KNEW from halfway into the campaign on that the race was between the Cons and the NDP, they still demanded a "strategic voting" campaign that was based on the NDP deferring to the Liberals and treating them as their natural political superiors...and, in the end, the results proved that there wasn't any significant number of ridings where the Liberals would have beaten the Conservatives if only the NDP had given up on the race.

And you didn't see Liberals calling on their voters to back NDP candidates in Conservative-NDP marginals...in fact, Bob Rae actually sabotaged that idea by doing a major campaign rally in Saskatchewan, a riding the Liberals were already doomed to only take one seat in, just to undercut the NDP in tight races there.

And no, the reasons for the existence of the Liberals and the NDP are NOT the same.

The NDP has core values(as did its predecessor, the CCF)...it represents people no other party stands up for...workers and the poor...thus it always has a reason to exist. The ONLY rationale for the Liberals was to win elections. 2011 proved they can't do that federally anymore. Rather than accept the situation, they've spent the last year arguing that the NDP breakthrough didn't count and wasn't real because(wait for it)they broke through with the votes of francophones...as if nobody but the Liberals or the Bloc has any right to win francophone votes.

If he ever does become prime minister, Justin Trudeau will just be Paul Martin with more hair. He won't be to the left of the last Liberal government on anything. And that, by itself, makes "Justinmania" worthless.

[juliantuwim]

4. Keep a Liberal Party

If, we. like our neighbour to the south become a two party so-called democracy, it is my belief that the right wing will outnumber our social democrats who are on the right of the international social democratic movement. As long as the brand name Liberal Party exists people who would otherwise vote for our Christian fundamentalist who art in Ottawa will vote for the less liberal than it used to be Liberal Party. So keep the brand name and split the right wing vote.

[Ken Burch]

5. There is that.

Although you might also see a federal equivalent of the old British Columbia "coalition" form of politics, in which you get various center-right groupings(in B.C. this started with the Liberal-Conservative coalition in the 1940's, was re-branded as "Social Credit" from the 1952 through 1991, and then rebranded again as the "B.C. Liberals" from the mid 1990's onward).