Urban Vancouver

Ya, that really was something.

And the margin of victory went from 6% to 0.5% in the last handful of polls....will be interesting to know just where they came from....my guess is the new Creme de la Creme ringing UBC.

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(detailed blow-by-blow at my place for anyone interested)

Excellent results. A Liberal stronghold suddenly became extremely vulnerable. Next election, the Conservatives might just take Quadra...

The reason why the Conservatives came so close to winning was because
a) many Liberal voters went Green due to dissatisfaction with Dion/Murray and a strong and active Green campaign by Dan Grice
b) Strong campaign by strong candidate Conservative Deborah Meredith
c) I guess satisfaction by Quadra residents with what the Harper government has been doing

Seriously... 0.53% of a victory in a usual Liberal landslide riding (in 2006, the Liberals won over the Conservatives by 20%) is not really a victory at all... even though technically it is...

Btw, super low turnout is normal for byelections.

What is going to change if you are conservative or not. No one gives a damn about Vancouver or B.C MPs in Ottawa. No ones EVER talk about BC in Ontario , Quebec . And as a Quebecer I don't really feel that much of BC politics .... boring

Reasons for high Con numbers....

b) Strong campaign by strong candidate Conservative Deborah Meredith

You're really serious about that?

Maybe you're right if being 'strong' means not talking to the press or showing up at all candidate meetings because......

1) such decisions are made from above (according to Ms. Meredith's campaign manager)
2) coffee klatches are more important (Ms. Meredith's own explanation).

If such 'StealthCon' behaviour by a candidate is what brings them to the brink of victory I think we are in for a rough ride in this country.

(I do agree with (a) however, and would even go so far as to suggest that the Con's strategy to demonize Dion re: The Environment is not necessarily to garner votes for themselves, but rather to drive soft Lib votes to the Greens)

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Keep in mind that turnout was only about 33% of registered voters.

Deborah did not run a very visible campaign, but the Conservatives had a Toronto based call center identifying voters for about 4 months prior to the campaign and they have an excellent GOTV campaign ensuring that each and every supporter was delivered to the poll. Don't expect them to hold up their margins in a general election, nearly every single conservative in the riding was brought to the polls. Their only goal in this campaign was not to loose any supporters.

The Liberals definitely had a hard time delivering their supporters to the polls, but then again Liberals cannot deliver themselves to votes in Parliament. In a general election look for them to open up the spread but never to Stephen Owen style victories.

Our campaign was very active, but look for even greater support in a General Election. We had a much smaller GOTV campaign, and certainly lost potential votes to earlier poll closing hours or uncertainty about voting day.

-Dan Grice, Green Candidate.

I disagree.

How "active" a campaign doesn't necessarily mean how many all-candidate meetings a candidate attends. Deborah Meredith was out on the streets waving signs, greeting voters in Kerrisdale, doing heavy door-knocking, putting up an impressive number of signs. Honestly, I saw many houses that had Stephen Owen signs last election sport Deborah Meredith signs, so the reason why Deborah did so well is not necessarily the fact that usual Conservative voters went out to vote, but a large margin were former Liberal supporters. Plus, by-elections are a time when the electorate tends to vote against the sitting government; in fact, the opposite happened - Conservative support increased significantly. I think the Quadra Conservatives have momentum, and that trend will play out in event of a federal election. Keep in mind that Liberal Joyce Murray is not really popular in this riding and is a parachute candidate from New Westminster - that could have also affected the results.

No offense, Dan, but I think the Green vote may be deflated in a general election. I think you ran a strong campaign, but I think a lot of that support came from the Liberals, NDP and some Conservatives as protest votes. In the event of a federal election, while I think the Greens will maintain a strong core support, some of the support will go back to the Liberals, NDP, and Conservatives.

-John

i'm surprised people thought damn was a good candidate at all

haha... freudian slip. damn= dan