Friday, May 6, 2011

What Happened In Edmonton-Strathcona?

This was one result that I did not expect on election day, NDP MP Linda Duncan retaining her Edmonton seat and substantially increasing her margin of victory from 2008. The Tory vote held consistent, but Linda went up 11% in popular vote, while the Liberals fell 6.3% and the Greens fell 4.1% (there are almost no Lib or Green votes left to migrate to her in 2015). It isn't fair to call Ryan Hastman a dud because he did get more total votes than Jaffer did in 2008, though his share of the popular vote fell 1.1% because 1500 more people voted. I would be curious to see how many people moved into this riding since 2008. Elections Canada does keep track of how many voters where transferred in from another riding, though you might have to do an access to information request to see that information. Did a whole bunch of Alberta's left wingers migrate to that riding?

12 comments:

  1. The stench of Rahim Jaffer is still stinking up the riding for the CPC.

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  2. Interestingly how the drop in Lib and Green are almost EXACTLY the rise in her count.

    This is a university riding - i suspect there were significant students who came out and voted because this was one riding that was targeted by the votemob/facebook/twitter gang.

    It is also a riding where there are alot of homless, hippies and other artsy types living and working (Just take a walk down Whyte Ave on a nice summer day to get a good cross-section of the anti Harper crowd). I would suggest that many of these types were "encouraged" in any way possible to come out and mark their ballot orange. I don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised.

    I have a very active leftie FB friend from whose comments and posts and links to vile anti Harper sites and various sites devoted to getting rid of him kept me in the know as to how this was one riding they were targetting to keep - almost like a badge of honor in blue AB.

    I also heard that there were some "tricks" with voter registrations going on as well al-la Anne McLellan kinds of tricks; although I have no idea if that was myth or fact.

    If Elections Canada were a more trustworthy bunch, I would say that they will sort it out, but I think they are more than happy to ignore any discrepancy that isn't painted blue.

    Just my thoughts knowing the riding and gleaning things from my FB friends.

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  3. Just an aside here - am I the only one who gets the black background here - It is blue as it is downloading, but once it downloads, it turns black. After I mentioned it the other day, it was blue again, but today, it is back to black. Which makes it, once again, impossible to read.

    I await other comments as to if it is just my computer or others. Maybe something crazy with blogger?

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  4. I see a mountain morning with a white stripe down the middle, and two light blue borders on either side of it.

    It is quite nice to read on this computer. The only problem I have on this site is that it is slower than others when trying to scroll up or down the page.

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  5. I think there was a large anti 'big buniness' vote in this riding. Once these sutdents graduate and have to get jobs to pay off their debt, their view of 'big business' is going to change fast.

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  6. Jaffer used to win the riding in part because he is and ethnic, muslim and owned a coffee shop on the trendy Whyte Ave. Many of the lefties thought that Jaffer was a good foil to the "rabid" Reformers that were all the rage back in the day. With the ebbing of the Reform ideal in Alberta and the loss of interest by Jaffer in actually being the MP from Edmonton Strathcona the leftie vote settled on Duncan. And yes there is some Landslide Annie tactics going on but there is also some Joe Clark style strategic voting taking place where a good number of Liberal voters vote for the 'progressive' candidate most likely to be elected.

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  7. Thanks Anony @ 6.49...it is white down the middle and black on the sides on my computer - very strange. Very strange indeed! Oh well - at least I can read the posts.

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  8. I had the slow scroll problem until I got firefox 4. The hardware acceleration in it fixed that problem and it's as fast as any other site now.

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  9. Around these parts it's known as Redmonton for a reason.

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  10. What happened? Easy. Folks there voted for the REAL communist party of Canada, under false pretences! Easy to determine if one looks at the NDP's Constitution which, unfortunately, has been removed from public view on purpose by the NDP!

    More on their embarrassing Constitution:
    http://burpnrun.blogspot.com/2011/05/embarrassing-ndp-constitution.html

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  11. Linda Duncan's boss Layton, is in favour of Quebec's sovereignty while they diss Alberta.

    I don't think that Linda's university students contituents realize that it was their own leader that voted against the BUDGET which had stuff for students. Apparently these students are being molded into the socialists way of thinking. But ask those students to live under socialism (no freedom simply follow orders and they will get what they want) or live as a conservative with freedom and building a empire of their own, enterpises etc and with money in their pockets. Let see how fast those students will switch to a more free environment than that of a controlled redistribution of wealth etc. INSTITUTED by the NDP.

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  12. Alberta Girl has it nailed. The riding is populated by university profs and their gullible students.

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