Today's poll question, what do you think a merged NDP-Liberal Party should be named? Although the Liberals were out in full force today to call Warren Kinsella ridiculous and laugh at his silly ideas, nobody can doubt Kinsella's connections deep within the LPC fabric and it is difficult to believe that he made the whole thing up. Is Kinsella leading a group of rebels within the Liberal Party conducting rogue negotiations to unite the left, or has he just lost his mind? Both are equally probable.
It was bizarre to see Iggy, Rae, Leblanc, and Jennings assemble in the Commons foyer for a staged photo op of them all laughing in harmony. You don't see that every day. Then we had Carole MacNeil and Rosemary Barton joking that it was hypocritical for Conservatives to criticize a merger considering that the Tories are a product of a merger.
Notwithstanding what the Liberals said about that merger at the time; the Alliance and the PCs combined for 38% of the popular vote in 2000 when the Liberals won their last majority and in 2004 the merged party received only 29% of the popular vote. The merged party received 824,000 fewer votes than the sum of its parts. In 2000 Chretien only beat the sum of the right by 2% of the popular vote, but finished with 94 more seats. In 2004 the new Conservative Party received a 9% smaller share of the popular vote than the sum of its parts, but added over 20 seats.
Iggy can run around Ottawa daydreaming about winning the next election, but when you break down the election math, as it stands right now they must enter into some kind of tactical agreement with the NDP if they have any hope of taking control of the Prime Minister's Office. In the election immediately following the merger, the Tories bled 9 points off their left flank. It took 2 more elections to get back to the 38%.
L.S.D. is my favourite. Liberals,(Socialists) Democrats. (We can interchange Separatists when they show up)
ReplyDeleteOne of the things people forget about when they talk about the PC Alliance/Reform merger is that 90% of the people in the Alliance/Reform party were former PCs (either members or long time voters) before the breakaway party was formed. The 'merger' was more like a 're-unification.'
ReplyDeleteThat's much different than two parties such as the Libs and Dippers who have completely different histories merging into a new entity.
Canadian Sense
ReplyDeleteI like your L.S.D. angle but being a little dyslexic I propose the L.D.S. The Latter Day Syndicate. (We can interchange Separatists when they show up)
Plus the L.D.S. brand does have name recognition and a certain somewhat appropriate cache.
Syncro
CRACK Party
ReplyDeleteChretien
RAE
Apps
Clark (joe) !?
Kinsella
And the winner is.....
ReplyDeleteThe Beavis and Butthead Party of Toronto.
PU Party
ReplyDeleteProgressive Union Party