Sunday, June 20, 2010

Elizabeth May Running Fast?

I think Jane Taber needs to put a little more creative thought into her headlines, "Elizabeth May running as fast as she can" doesn't exactly move mountains, as I doubt she is even capable of a brisk walking pace. It should be "Elizabeth May riding her adult tricycle as fast as she can"; as she spends the summer in a futile campaign to unseat Gary Lunn (her victory will be literally impossible unless the Liberals pull their candidate). There is much dissention in the Green ranks, as Slick Lizzy is insisting again on trying to defeat a Tory Cabinet Minister instead of running where she has the best chance to win. It was remarkably stupid to run against Peter MacKay, and had Dion not pulled the local Liberal, then that 14% gap between her and pistol Pete would have been even larger.

She owes Taber a favour. The media has pretty much been ignoring May this session, either than or she has been so consumed with the internal turmoil that she hasn't been talking. Evidently taking Elizabeth out of the news cycle and off the television is great for Green poll numbers, if you believe that EKOS results are an accurate reflection of Canadian popular support. If you see a poll with the Greens at 14%, something is wrong. Based on my own studies in election math and probability theory, I would estimate that the Greens chances of reaching double digits in the next election are less than 10%.

For the record I attended a Town Hall meeting featuring Gary Lunn during prorogation (when the Tories were meeting with constituents and Liberals were on vacation), and I was very impressed by his intellectual acumen. My own MP John Weston had to repeatedly defer questions to Gary (though John is a rookie MP and Gary is a veteran and a Cabinet Minister).

1 comment: