Scott's DiaTribes » Guelph

A Green Guelph?

Scott Tribe — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:43:32 +0000

It’s a little quiet out there today so far, so let me say I’m also going to place my money on the Guelph riding as being the riding where Green Party leader Elizabeth May will run for Parliament in the next election. There are several factors why this riding would be her best shot at winning;

- Mark Taylor has a list of reasons at his blog (he’s a Green Party supporter).

- Dan Arnold (known better by his CalgaryGrit blog and handle) also put out a list of ridings where Guelph ranked #1 in criteria (though interestingly, Dan figured she’d rather run in the Saanich-Gulf Islands Islands riding – ranked #2 in his list – against Conservative cabinet minister Gary Lunn).

- One of Dan’s commentators (who has a blog here) put out an equally compelling 3rd list of reasons why Guelph would or should rank #1 on May’s list of ridings to go in.

My own thoughts on the matter would be this: Green Party candidate Mike Nagy did very well there in 2008 – well enough that there was a big worry that enough votes would be drained off by Nagy from the Liberals and Frank Valeriote that the Conservatives under Gloria Kovach would sneak up the middle (which would have been a very depressing result, as Kovach would have been one of the best parroters of Harper rhetoric in the Commons if she’d made it in, but I digress). With an established base of volunteers, a pretty environmentally conscious riding containing a university that is known to be a bit lefty in its political orientation of its students, plus the fact May has shown that she can increase Green votes and turnout substantially in ridings she runs in, Guelph looks to be a good bet for her and the Greens to choose.

Some have made the point (like Dan) about May allying herself with the Liberal Party under Dion, so why would she run against a Liberal incumbent? Her allying with the Liberal Party, however, came under Dion’s leadership, and I’ve gotten the impression May hasn’t exactly been enamored with Ignatieff. I’m basing that on the belief she didn’t like Iggy’s decision not to go forth with the coalition option last January, or more likely Iggy’s seemingly softening Liberal views towards the tarsands. Regardless, if the number 1 goal of the Greens is to now get May elected, then from her strategists point of view, it shouldn’t matter who is the incumbent in whatever riding they choose, if that riding has the most favourable criteria for her to have a shot at winning.

It won’t surprise me at all if that riding chosen is Guelph. In fact, it might surprise me if she doesn’t pick it.

UPDATE @ 5:00 pm: Impolitical opines here – not a bad assessment/argument about why May should try the Gulf-Saanich Islands rather then Guelph.

PPS – Kudos to Frank Valeriote in Guelph, and his team.

Scott Tribe — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 05:59:04 +0000

I’m pleased to see in a sea of 519 blue that in the riding of Guelph, which is where I went to University, Frank Valeriote held off Gloria Kovach and kept Guelph Liberal. There were fears that the Greens might split the vote, and allow the Cons to go up the middle and Mike Nagy did well, but I’ve seen Frank’s organization and ground game,� and i know some of the people on it..and it ultimately was them and a very hard working and enthusiaqstic candidate in Mr Valeriote that got the job done there.

Vandalism in Toronto to Liberal supporters mirrors exactly what occurred in Guelph

Scott Tribe — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 13:58:50 +0000

Well, we have another story in today’s Toronto Star over vandalism targeting Liberal supporters in that city:

Toronto police patrolled a midtown area overnight, after vandals cut brake lines on at least 10 cars parked at homes with Liberal election signs on their lawns. Affected residents live in the riding of St. Paul’s, in a swath of the city around Eglinton Ave. between Bathurst St. and Mount Pleasant Rd., and had Carolyn Bennett signs on their property. The cars were also damaged in other ways; some were scratched and keyed with L signs. Phone and cable lines of some homes were cut.

This is chilling, because this is EXACTLY what was done to Guelph Liberal supporters during the Guelph byelection campaign. Here are some pictures in the Guelph vandalism blogpost I did on that particular story.

This appears to be a concerted campaign of intimidation tactics aimed at Liberal voters. Call me paranoid, but I find it highly suspicious that the tactics would be almost the same in both cities (no spray-painting of houses was done in Toronto apparently). Do I blame any formal organized political party for actively doing this? Of course not, but it appears some folks are taking things into their own hands. I also mirror what Impolitical said at her blogsite; these disgusting criminal acts will not work at intimidation of those of us proud to call ourselves Liberals.

UPDATE @ 11:00 am: A press release sent to me from the Carolyn Bennett campaign indicates there was graffiti spray-painted at the Toronto homes as well. One of Ms Bennett’s campaign workers informs me that one house had spray-painted on it �B.Rae lies� and another said �McGuinty lies�.

Apparently, we’ve got people who can�t tell the difference between federal and provincial levels of government or the people running in them.

UPDATE 2 @ 11:50 am: The official Carolyn Bennett press release posted at the Liberal website talking about this despicable incident.

UPDATE 3 @ 12:38 pm: David Graham, who is a Guelph blogger, notes another similarity in this pattern:

To add to the “coincidence,” the Guelph attack took place exactly eleven days before by-election voting day, and the Toronto attack took place exactly eleven days before the general election voting day

UPDATE 4 @ 5:46pm: Impolitical now has a blog up that says Parkdale-High Park Liberal supporters were also targeted. This is getting ugly.

“Ye reap what ye sow”

Scott Tribe — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 18:59:46 +0000

Christian Conservative, better known now as Andrew Prescott, riding president of the Guelph Conservative Party, has finally resurfaced a week or so after his cover was blown, with a blogpost bemoaning “gotcha politics”.

I find it rather ironic he’s moaning about gotcha politics when he engaged in it first. You might remember he got ticked off at a post done at Far and Wide and decided to blurt across the internet Steve V’s identity. Actually, let me change my first sentence: I find him extremely hypocritical.

Not only that; he’s missing the point entirely. First, he hid or tried to hide his association with the Guelph Conservative Party. Even on Gloria Kovach’s picture site, he was listed as a mere “volunteer”, rather then that he was a bigwig in the Conservative Party.

Secondly, you’ll note he protests in that blogpost of his about his disclaimer where it says his views don’t necessarily represent those of the Conservative Party. Again, He’s missing the point; The point is not whether his views represent the CPC’s views or not – the fact is he threw a big stone when he lived in an even bigger glass house. I might also add it just shows once again that Conservatives love flinging and smearing the mud around, but when it gets thrown back in their face, they cry and whine about it.

UPDATE@5:08pm: Jeff over at Where’d That Bug Go also responds to Andrew’s hypocritical blogpost, with his own take.

KLRvu polling methodology update

Scott Tribe — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 12:45:59 +0000

Well, we’ve had quite a few of blogposts on the KLRvu pollsters and their polling numbers for Guelph throughout the blogosphere (including yours truly), and even one by David Akin looking at them. All this publicity no doubt thrills Allan Bruinooge, the head of the polling company, to no end.

I mentioned on Friday that I’d written the polling firm asking them of the 3396 households they polled in Guelph, how many of those refused to answer, hung up, etc. I received this response in email from Mr Bruinooge, and to be fair to him, I’ll quote his reply in full. He explains that the 3396 figure is the final number of respondents out of the numbers that they called:

To your question of the 3300+ households that have taken part in the poll they are 9% of the total population sample. If you do the math, what is total population sample if we know the number of respondents are 3396 which is approx 9% of it? 9%=.09 .09/3396 = 9/339600 which equals 37,733 is the total population of the sample. Hope this helps, I do apologize for not putting the total pop in the press release instead I was using the text:

“This poll was completed in two rounds on July 27th and August 13th,sampling over 3396 random residents of the Guelph constituency representing nearly nine percent of all households with a 95% confidence level and a margin of error of 2%.”

…and that was to mean all the phone numbers with households available in the federal riding of Guelph.

“The response rate of 9% is typical of the polling methodology .”

So, according to Mr Bruinooge, they called over 37 000 Guelph households, and 3396 of them responded, for the party percentages that they eventually listed in their news release. He also claims in that last line that 9% is typical for this type of polling. I’d be rather interested to see what SurveyUSA and Rasmussen – two major polling firms in the US who are polling the Congressional and Presidential race using a similar robo-calling method as KLRvu does – claim to be standard response rates to their polls.

So, it’s an interesting new tidbit of information that I hadn’t seen listed at some of the other blogs who had mentioned this story, so I thought I’d bring it up. That doesn’t mean I’m no longer sceptical of the numbers, of course, but I do thank Mr Bruinooge for responding to my question.

Friday bits and bytes

Scott Tribe — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 17:18:50 +0000

Bit:

David Akin has done a pretty good investigative piece on the KLR Vu Guelph poll that caused some interest and controversy a couple of days ago when it was released. I’ll note here as I did over there at David’s site that I did send an email to the polling firm asking them how many of the 3396 respondents they polled refused to answer or hung up. I’ve yet to receive an answer back from the firm.

Byte:

I was told by StageLeft that he had heard on Ottawa Radio CFRA this AM a Conservative-sympathetic host responding to Stephane Dion challenging Harper to state what his views on abortion were in this manner: Dion was trying to change the channel because he was “desperate” not to talk about the Green Shift.

What nonsense.

Let me remind those CFRA folks that this question came up during Garth Turner and Dion’s 66 minute town hall meeting which almost exclusively talked about the Green Shift – Dion is certainly not trying to run from that policy. Here’s the video. You’ll need to watch the video for a time before the question comes up – it was one floor question out of many there on the Green Shift:

The only one trying to change the channel here is the Conservatives and supporters like CFRA radio, for not wanting to discuss a very touchy topic for them – since they know Harper’s opinion is likely not within the mainstream of current Canadian opinion. Some brave leader, as Red Tory says.

UPDATE: Nice post over here by Jeff. Apparently the Cambridge Times thinks Gloria’s already gotten elected in the Guelph riding. Yeesh. I hope that isn’t a sign of how objective they normally are.

An encouraging poll result in Guelph, but the race is far from over.

Scott Tribe — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 15:00:31 +0000

Byelections normally don’t get polled, so there’s been some question as to how the races in these 3 byelections have been developing. I noted a column today from Thomas Walkom in the Star where he said Guelph was one of those ridings that theoretically, the Conservatives should be able to win because of its demographics and economic situation. So, this first poll I’ve seen on the Guelph byelection if accurate will be a bit of a downer for the Cons. in this riding. On the other hand, its very encouraging news for the Liberals and Frank Valeriote’s campaign in Guelph:

Frank Valeriote looks to become the next Member of Parliament for Guelph, based on the most recent polls completed by KlrVu Research. Over thirty six percent of voters have indicated their support for the Liberal candidate, and he retains a 10-percentage point lead over nearest competitor Gloria Kovach of the Conservatives who has 26.35% of the voters polled…”The biggest surprise in this poll is the dramatic fashion in which the Green Party has overtaken the NDP in just two and half years. The Greens came in at 19.2%, up 11 percent from their 2006 tally, whereas the NDP have dropped from 22% to 17.7% during the same period. Also interesting, it seems the Green support is coming from all of the parties, not just the NDP.” Stated Bruinooge.

Take a look at the polling sample size this company did:

This poll was completed in two rounds on July 27th and August 13th, sampling over 3396 random residents of the Guelph constituency representing nearly nine percent of all households with a 95% confidence level and a margin of error of 2%.

That’s a massive sample size – as big as a national sample size. If true, that is a pretty good lead for Frank Valeriote and the Liberals with a couple of weeks to go.

Now, my thoughts on this poll: It’s an unknown polling company, at least to me, so folks need to be careful not take this poll as Gospel. You’ll also note that their methodology that they used is automated touch-tone polling. Some people have issues with this, but a couple of pollsters in the US are using this – such as SurveyUSA – and their polling results have been pretty accurate, so I’m not one to discount that methodology.

The bottom line however is that the race isn’t over – it’s far from over – and my suggestion to the Liberal team is to continue to work on the ground as if you’re 10 points down, not 10 points up.

UPDATE@ 1:00pm: It’s been pointed out in comments that this polling company is the same firm that was used by pro-life groups a month or so back to try and justify that a majority of Canadians opposed Henry Morgentaler’s receiving the Order of Canada, which was questionable to say the least, since only 7000+ respondents out of 157,115 called actually responded to this poll question. So with that new information, one could take this poll with a massively big grain of salt, since we have no idea out of the 3400 households that this polling company called how many of those actually bothered to respond to the poll without hanging up when they heard what it was (It doesn’t say at the news release how many did actually answer the questions).

The other angle would be that one could say that despite questions of the pollster’s objectivity and apparent strong ties to the Conservatives, it’s still a pretty bad result for the Conservatives in Guelph if a possibly partisan pollster still has them trailing by 10%.

UPDATE 2@3:57pm: For a somewhat different take, check out Blogging a Dead Horse, who charges this is a bogus poll, but he feels that it was released to attack the NDP with.

Bridge watching

Scott Tribe — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 17:59:50 +0000

So if you’ve been reading around the news and the blogs, you know that the Conservative government and Lawrence Cannon conveniently announced that they’d be soon building a new bridge in the St Lambert riding, which by the way has a byelection in a couple of weeks.

St. Lambert is a BQ held riding from 2004, but was held by the Liberals for seven years prior. Perhaps they’re hoping that this will somehow allow them to peel votes off of both potential Liberal and BQ voters. There is of course also the danger that they’ll be seen as naked opportunists in promising this for political gain.

It would also be seen as too opportunistic and pandering to be announcing funding projects for the other 2 byelections at the same time, but I’m curious if the reason the Conservatives picked this riding to make this announcement means they’re more or less throwing in the towel on Westmount (which I think was a given anyhow) and more importantly, Guelph.

Dianne Haskett redux in Guelph: Gloria going 0 for 2 on candidates meeting?

Scott Tribe — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 14:16:34 +0000

We’ll see on� Tuesday/Wednesday if this is indeed confirmed what happened, but it appears Conservative candidate Gloria Kovach is already saying she won’t be at this Tuesday’s all-candidates meeting/debate.� Apparently, she feels her time is better spent at attending a “We Love Stephen Harper” rally in Kitchener, which last I looked isn’t in the Guelph riding.

However, what’s more amusing is that she’s trying to cover all bases in saying why she has to skip out on this meeting.� As Accidental Deliberations points out from the front-page article in the Guelph Mercury, Gloria isn’t sure what the exact excuse… er..� reason it is she won’t be able to attend this one:

Kovach said she will be campaigning in Guelph before attending the Kitchener rally with Harper that day, but was unaware of which plans would conflict with the candidates’ meeting.

The Jurist acidly comments at his blog: “Presumably Kovach’s staff is hard at work brainstorming and polling what kind of conflict will play best to explain her once again hiding from voters and the media.”� As a followup to that, I wanted to note something else: Gloria is saying in this newest newspaper article that she was at a previously scheduled appearance with seniors which is why she couldn’t make the first debate.� Her office initially released a press release last week saying the reason was because she was out campaigning/canvassing with Conservative MP Gary Lunn. So I’m wondering exactly which excuse reason she’s using now for that: Lunn’s appearance, or this meeting with seniors, or if the 2 are one and the same. The message at the very least is confusing coming from her campaign on that.

The Jurist also said at his blog that this appears to be a continuing pattern of Conservatives hiding away their own candidates to expose them to as little public exposure to themselves and other political party candidates as possible. Again, I can’t help but thinking how this resembles the strategy employed in the Dianne Haskett Conservative candidacy in London-Centre a couple of years ago.

The folks in the local press are noting these absences of Kovach as well.� In a blogpiece title (which I wish I’d have thought up first) called ‘Any time, any place . . . except Thursday, and Tuesday’, Guelph Mercury columnist Brad Needham posts a blog critical of Gloria and comes up with this classic line:

I think Gloria Kovach would be a great debater. I hope we get to see it at some point.

Again, I wish I’d have thought of that line first.� Some more from that blog entry of his:

If you’re going to talk the talk, walk the walk. Kovach has been quoted saying she’s willing to debate Frank Valeriote on issues at �any time and place.”..But don’t throw down the gauntlet of any time and any place, unless you qualify it with “that fits into my schedule.”

As I said near the top of this article, this story made Page 1 coverage of the Mercury. That’s not particularly good coverage for a candidate who already has had 1 round of less-then-flattering headlines in the Mercury over her absence from the first debate last week.

If she indeed misses Tuesday’s meeting/debate, expect a lot of the news and blog coverage to rightfully focus on her absence, and don’t be surprised if the other candidates bring that up to voters at the meeting and to the media� to emphasize that this appears to be the DIanne Haskett “peek-a-boo” strategy that Gloria and the national Conservative Party is currently employing.

When she does decide to show up at a debate (which the Merc article says will be the one held on Aug 20, in a setting where� I imagine she’s presuming she’ll have good voter support),� I expect there may be some in the audience and up on the podium� who question her on these absences, and whether we will expect more Dianne Haskett-like behaviour from her and the Conservatives.

Um, Gloria.. Guelph’s in Ontario, not Atlantic Canada.

Scott Tribe — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 18:13:38 +0000

Gloria Kovach, Conservative (installed) candidate for Guelph, seems to think Guelph is in the Atlantic Provinces or something, because she’s been busy issuing story releases at her site attacking the Liberals who are meeting there, as well as her concern for the Green Shift and its effect on Atlantic Canada.

I’m going to help Gloria out a bit:

Follow the arrow, Gloria! Guelph's here!

I hope that clears up for Gloria where Guelph is.� Again, not a good sign she’s going to be very good at local issues as an MP when she’s already worrying about Liberals in Atlantic Canada as a candidate.