Posted on 01/05/2006 5:35:15 AM PST by Heatseeker
But beware of panicked Dippers defecting to the Grits in BC and Ontario!
THROW THE BUMS OUT, CANADA!
The horrid gun control laws in Canada may be part what is fueling this....
Canada Ping!
Please FReepmail me to get on or off this Canada ping list.
Thanks for the link, GMMAC!
Yesterday, in a Nationwide poll conducted by a VERY liberal thinkthank said that 59% of Canadians wanted a change in Gov't...
...that's up 12% points from November :D
Not only that, but panicking opposition Liberals defecting to the Conservatives, or leaving that sinking ship to sit as independents, in the next Parliament.
With these numbers, the Conservatives would get about 50 seats in Ontario, and so would the Liberals - almost all of them in the Toronto area.
It's quite breathtaking if you look at a map of Ontario with those results...despite the fact the province is almost evenly split, the map looks like solid blue from Lake Superior southward, until you see the red pockets represent the GTA plus a few other isolated seats in Hamilton, central London, Kitchener-Waterloo, Guelph, Kingston and central Ottawa. Windsor is NDP orange, the rest is solid blue for the most part...
I just love this sentence.
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Note the centre-right's lead about half a month before the poll?
One News Colmar Brunton poll: 4 Sept 05
Sep 6, 2005
The election campaign is heating up with National taking a commanding lead in the latest One News Colmar Brunton poll.
National has shot up six points to 46%, Labour drops five points to 38%, creating a eight point gap two weeks out from polling day.
The Green Party is down one point to 6%. New Zealand First steady on 5% - they polled just a little under that but the figures are rounded out.
The Maori Party is up one point to 2%, while Act is down one point to 1%. United Future and Destiny New Zealand both have 1% support.
How would this translate into seats if it was an election night result? Allowing for Jim Anderton, Tariana Turia and Peter Dunne holding their electorate seats, National would be the largest party with 56 seats. It would be five short of a majority, so it would need NZ First's six.
Labour would have 46 seats - it has one pledged from Anderton's Progressives. The Greens would offer seven, but even with two from United Future and two from the Maori Party, it's still not enough. Labour would need the Greens and NZ First - a combination that is simply not going to happen.
NZ First is technically polling just under the crucial 5% threshold and leader Winston Peters is behind in his electorate, so what would happen if NZ First didn't make the cut?
National with 59 could form a majority with United Future's two seats.
Labour on 49 would need every other party - the Progressive's one, the Greens' seven, the Maori Party's two and United Future's two seats then become crucial.
It's a combination that may not happen, but judging by this poll it's a scenario worth considering.
In the preferred prime minister rankings, Helen Clark drops five points to 40%. Brash is up four to 31% while Peters is steady on seven.
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Note the description of the right having the basics right, but making a lot of mistakes in not marketing savily enough and the left in power with the inpeccible spin machine and the anti-American rhetoric that the right "will sell the country out to Uncle Sam"?
15.09.05
By Simon Hendery
The election campaign curtain comes down tomorrow as party faithful dismantle hoardings and remove billboards across the country.
The Electoral Act prescribes a few hours free of political advertising so the electorate can ponder its options in peace.
But before then, the advertising industry cast its votes on who has won the battle of the campaign.
The general consensus appears to be that - of the two major parties - National has run a slicker advertising campaign, making more effective use of an all-important tool: humour.
"It's been quite a bitchy campaign," was one marketing academic's assessment. "There have been some really good ads but I'm not sure if they've swayed my opinions."
Anna Chitty, media director at advertising agency FCB, said National's telethon take-off television adverts had made them appear "not so starchy and straight as they may have in the past".
"It's been clever and it's all about recognising that the people they are talking to are smart."
Chitty said the telethon theme was effective at grabbing viewer attention, something that was notoriously difficult to achieve in political marketing where people were either highly apathetic or extremely opinionated.
Labour's campaign had been more traditional and, therefore, less effective at engaging through humour.
Mike Cunnington, managing director of AIM Proximity's Auckland office, said the early executions of National's red and blue billboards had been particularly effective, although he thought the later versions had been a bit weaker.
"Good political advertising needs to be really simple," said Cunnington, who was head of marketing and fundraising for Britain's Labour Party in the lead-up to Tony Blair's rise to power in 1997.
"The real trick is to find the simple messages that tap on the underlying views of the party rather than trying to get into the details of the policies."
He said Labour's billboards had been too reliant on quoting Don Brash, a strategy which required a relatively high level of political knowledge and processing compared with National's "in your face messages".
Cunnington found the National telethon ads "a little bit silly" and questioned whether they portrayed the party as it would want to be seen in government. He said as the incumbent, Labour was right to push a "don't go back" message.
"Possibly they haven't quite got on the front foot, despite the fact there have been some quite hairy media things for National to manage."
Whybin TBWA managing director Dave Walden said both parties campaigns had been "presidential" with advertising playing only a secondary role.
He was encouraged that both had used humour to connect with voters.
"A lot of political advertising has traditionally been someone talking at you, whereas this time, both parties have tried to be a little more entertaining, which is a good thing."
Walden said the billboards had been important to National because they had effectively crystallised the party's key messages in simple statements.
Two strange elements to the campaign were the billboard image of Winston Peters standing on the shore and the "highly retouched" images of Helen Clark "although you can't blame her for wanting to put her best foot forward".
Professor Peter Thirkell, a marketing specialist who is acting pro vice-chancellor and dean of commerce at Victoria University, said National's telethon campaign had been effective at gaining attention and reinforcing the party's central message around tax issues.
The party's billboard campaign had also been highly effective at getting across key messages, although the narrow focus of the campaign might have left them exposed. "I think a more proactive stance on two or three issues may have bolstered their position."
Labour's strong play on its experienced leadership team was a sensible position for it to have adopted.
The party's continued use of its pledge card was a useful tool, although the idea was "probably a bit passé now".
Labour had also lacked an element of excitement in its campaign.
Thirkell said: "Experience and credibility is a good platform but it has a tendency to be a bit backward looking."
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And then? In the actual election on 17 September:
Election goes down to the wire
Sep 18, 2005
Minor party support will be needed to form a government after Labour held onto a 1% lead over National with all of the nationwide party votes counted in the 2005 General Election.
All but the special votes were counted just before midnight on Saturday with Labour sitting on 40.7% and National on 39.6%.
The results mean New Zealand has a caretaker government, leaving Helen Clark in charge as Labour and National look to form coalitions.
New Zealand First finished up on 5.9% and the Greens pushed above the threshold on 5.1%.
Transferred into seats in the house those figures would give Labour 50 seats, National 49, New Zealand First seven and six seats to the Greens.
With 5% of the vote counted National were ahead by ten points and Massey University statistician Hugh Morton said at that point things were not looking good for Labour.
"Labour would want to be much closer to National at this stage if they were going to hope to win," Morton said.
However, at that stage he said he would not want to call it and the election was still in the balance.
Morton was correct with the gap closing to just 3% with 40% of the vote counted.
The Labour Party continued to steadily creep up on National as returns came in from the major urban centres like Auckland and Wellington.
The two major parties are separated by just 1% meaning at this stage neither Labour or National can claim victory.
On Saturday night National Party leader Don Brash said he is certainly not conceding defeat.
"In the next few days and potentially weeks there are two stages to go through. First of course the special votes have to be counted... But secondly whatever the special votes say there is the small matter of building a coalition government and it is not at all clear who will be able to do that," Brash said.
He says he and his colleagues will work diligently to put together a National led government.
New Zealand First - who have secured seven seats - has vowed not to form a formal coalition with either of the major parties but has promised to support whichever party wins a majority on issues of supply and confidence.
The main option for National in coalition is the Act Party.
Act had been teetering on obscurity during the campaign as polls showed the party sitting on around 2% support, while leader Rodney Hide polled behind National's candidate in the Epsom electorate.
On those results neither Hide nor any of his eight MPs would have made it back in parliament.
However, Hide took the National-held seat of Epsom, with 13,075 votes. Act also has 1.5% of the nationwide party vote, giving Act two seats in parliament.
Labour leader Helen Clark said the result has been positive for Labour.
"When our parliament went into a recess about six weeks ago labour held 51 seats on tonight's results we hold 50," Clark said.
She said it is a result two points up on where Labour won in 1999.
"Today people have given us the opportunity to negotiate a government again. My objective now is to begin negotiations which will enable us to lead a government which brings New Zealanders together."
Clark said she looks forward during the next two days to talking to the leaders of other political parties, to take Saturday night's result forward.
The Green Party had been hovering around the 5% threshold for the last month and their six seats will be crucial to a centre-left coalition led by the Labour Party.
Labour will also have the support of Progressive MP Jim Anderton, who once again secured his seat by winning Wigram.
The United Future party said during the campaign that they could work with either National or Labour after the election. And after picking up three seats both parties will be fighting for United Future's support.
The Maori Party exceeded expectations taking four of the Maori electorates including co-leader Pita Sharples taking the Tamaki-Makaurau seat off incumbent labour MP John Tamihere. That result may force National and Labour to reconsider their comments during the campaign that the Maori Party would be a last resort for both in any coalition.
Professor Matthew Palmer from Victoria University says the constitutional rules are straightforward and in this case where neither party can claim victory the Governor General will look for which party or group of parties can command confidence in the House.
"The thing about that is it really puts the onus on the politicians. The politicians need to tell us who they are going to support and who is going to form the government," Palmer says.
The election has also resulted in what is known as an overhang, with 122 MPs - that is because of the Maori Party win in four electorates, while getting less than 2% in the party vote.
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This happened in New Zealand just a few months ago. It will happen again in Canada.
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