2011 Canadian Provincial Elections - Wrap-up phase.

[Verily]

I think the collapse of the Liberal right wing helped to destroy the Liberals. Who is left on that front? Many of those infamous right wing Scarborough MPs either retired or were defeated.  With the election of Bob Rae as interim leader, they can say  goodbye to their right wing. I'm disappointed that Rae agreed not to run for leader, agreeing to serve only the interim. Not because I like him - far from it - but because it would further destroy the Liberals, continuing in the footsteps of Dion and Ignatieff. But I suppose tradition dictates they go French this time, so we will see either Trudeau or LeBlanc be leader. Or maybe even Garneau.

Trudeau might help the Liberals in the GTA, but that's about it. And that's their best hope.

Trudeau would kill the Liberal Party in Quebec for another generation, too.

He would also hurt them in the West and with the West's growing population it is a lot harder to write off the West than it was 30 years ago.  He might regain the immigrant vote which would at least re-establish the GTA as a Liberal stronghold and also pick up a few more Montreal area ridings and parts of the Lower Mainland.  I would argue Dominic Leblanc though comes from the right area.  From a rural riding in New Brunswick which was their worst Atlantic province and in fact their vote in that province wasn't that far off the national average as well as it is the most Conservative province east of the Ottawa River and perhaps even outside the Prairies.  He is also young enough that he could go through multiple elections so it wouldn't be about winning, but rather gaining seats each election and maybe after three or four rounds finally winning.  He also seems quite articulate which is in contrast with the last two or even three leaders.  For all the rot in the leaders, one of the problems the Liberals had is none of their last three leaders connected with the average voter.  By contrast I think Chretien was someone who connected quite well and had a very good political antennae thus why he won three majorities.

I feel like picking a leader from the Maritimes risks the Liberals looking too much like the latter-day PCs and becoming further marginalized to just that region.

[Verily]

Indeed. The NDP needs to win more than the cities, but not much more. If they won the 9 urban Regina seats, the two suburban Regina seats, 8 of the 9 urban Saskatoon seats (not the really SKP one), both Moose Jaw seats, both Prince Albert seats, Battlefords, and the far two northern seats, they're already at 26 seats, out of a required 30 to win. Then there a bunch of northern seats that, on a even split, are fairly marginal.

The problem for the NDP is that the SKP is very popular, not that they have some sort of trouble. In fact, ultimately this election result should be a relief for the NDP; this was the sort of election where a third party could have swooped in and knocked the NDP off the opposition perch, but that didn't happen. (On the other hand, maybe that's not surprising, since this election result happened because the SKP is very popular rather than because the NDP is very unpopular, which it isn't.)

[Verily]

Rural implies agriculture as the major economic driver in the electorate

So no rural districts in the US House of Representatives then. Nice to have that cleared up.

Maybe NE-03 and KS-01, but yeah. Point well made.