Victory
June 29, 2004
I was part of the NDP campaign team, but I am pleased to see a Liberal victory because it meant a Conservative defeat here - a defeat for someone that was too well-polished, and just gave me a bad feeling in his manner as a person - never mind his policies as a Conservative. Job now as an NDP member is to do my little bit to keep the Liberals honest, and build the NDP presence in our riding.
Voter turnout nationally was said to be not much higher than last time, in spite of tons of media coverage and all the efforts to increase the vote. One comment I heard was that it's not enough to panic and agonize at election time on how to get people out. What is needed is a way between elections to get Canadians more involved in the political process.
Here's our local results. We did pretty good considering our budget was probably less than 5% of the Conservative juggernaut. Doubled our share from last election. Way to go Crystal!
DISTRICT: Ottawa-Orléans
Candidate..........Party....Vote Count...Vote Share...Elected
Marc Godbout.....LIB.........26383 .........44.99%........X
Walter Robinson.CON........23655 .........40.34%
Crystal Leblanc..NDP...........5905..........10.07%
Dan Biocchi.......GRN...........2699............4.6%
Last Update: June 29, 1:25:34 AM EDT 231 of 231 polls reporting
I think you've hit on it here. What's needed is for people to learn to care in between elections, well...and to keep the conservatives (I can't even bring myself to capitalize it) beaten down. The Mike Harris "we know what's good for you and don't need your approval" style of governement demoralizes voters. It's hard to believe that suddenly...once every four years the politicians are really listening.
On the other hand, active polititians who are in the community listening all the time....Who wouldn't vote?
My local NDP Candidate, Peggy Nash, came very close last night, next time for sure.
Good for Ed eh? He's back!
Posted by: Stephanie | June 29, 2004 at 08:54 AM
Thanks - I feel another post coming on - on how to continue voter involvement.
Posted by: ravens | June 29, 2004 at 09:55 AM
A Conservative minority might have been interesting... it might have forced them to act moderately, thereby splitting them up again.
I'm disappointed so many potential NDP voters chickened out and voted Liberal. on the other hand, the NDP almost doubled their seats. Yay!
Posted by: john | June 29, 2004 at 12:30 PM
Good point - will be interesting to see what the Conservatives will do now that they have the time for a policy convention.
I'm hoping that locally we find a lot of NDP'ers that may have voted Liberal, but now that they're done with that bit of strategy, they're ready to help build a strong riding association.
Posted by: ravens | June 29, 2004 at 01:00 PM