Election '08

Results
Elections Canada
Wikipedia
SFU
Nodice
Fringe Parties


Ad Watch
The Winners
Bad Actors Love Harper (CPC)
See the Softer Side of Jack (NDP)
Jack Attack (NDP)
Green Shift (Liberal)
Viva Loss Vegas (CPC)
Harpernomics (Liberal)
Jack Attaque (NDP)
Pot Pourri
Bushwacked (Liberal)
Runaway Train (Greens)
Doodling Dippers (NDP)
Subtle Micro-Targeting (CPC)


Projections and Predictions
Throughout the campaign, I used public polling data to project seat totals. The first set of projections, explaining the methodology, can be found here, with my final projections here. Other updates can be found here, here, and here. So how did I do? It was a missed bag. The NDP and Bloc projections were spot on but the final Liberal and Conservative totals were outside the margin of error. Still, when compared to the other projections and predictions being made, the model held up respectably:

1. Calgary Grit predictions (total miss: 16 seats)
2. Ekos predictions (total miss: 18 seats)
3. Calgary Grit simulation model (total miss: 23.6 seats)
4. Barry Kay projections (total miss: 24 seats)
5. Andrew Coyne predictions (total miss: 26 seats)
6. UBC Stock market (total miss: 30 seats)
6. David Aiken predictions (total miss: 30 seats)
8. Democratic Space (total miss: 36 seats)
8. Kady O'Malley predictions (total miss: 36 seats)
10. Election Prediction Project (total miss: 38 seats)


Week in Review
Week 1 in Review
Week 2 in Review
Week 3 in Review
Week 4 in Review
Week 5 in Review


Posts
Debate Drinking Game
French Debate Live Blog
English Debate Live Blog
Better Know a Riding - Papineau
Election Day

Did You Hear The One About The Listeria Victim?

A look at the lighter side of the campaign so far, through the cartoons. Hat tips to Aislin, MacKay, Cook, the Globe, and Maple Leaf Web.

Week 2 in Review

Week 1 in Review


On the Net: (Conservative) Premier Danny Williams' ABC campaign has a website. And be sure to check out the Democratic Space campaign coverage.

Quote of the Week: “My own belief is if we were gong to have some kind of big crash or recession, we probably would have had it by now.” -Stephen Harper

BS Detector: Stephen Harper, on why the opposition parties want to destroy the Canadian economy: "My concern is thatobviously, going forward, that we have a government that's going to be sabotaged by a bunch of parties who don't want our economy to be successful."

Stock Market: The UBC stock market has the Tories leading the Liberals 36.9% to 27.4%, with the NDP (17.0%), Bloc (8.4%), and Greens (9.5%) all trailing. They have a Harper majority at 33.5%.

Election Prediction Project: CPC 107, Lib 71, Bloc 28, NDP 18, Other 2, Too Close to Call 82

Poll Projections: CPC 150.4 Lib 85.8 BQ 41.5 NDP 29.4

I'm Too Sexy For My Sweater Vest: "I've got a crush on Harper" could turn into the catchiest campaign theme song since "sing a song for Jim".

Policy Corner: The Liberals release their PSE platform. The Greens release their full platform. CTV has a list of campaign promises to date here.

Conservative Battle Cry: "We're running a positive campaign, unlike like those cowardly losers the Liberals."

Liberal Battle Cry: "With economic fears sweeping the country, it's time for...Bob Rae!"

NDP Battle Cry: "Yes we can...cut ATM fees!"

Bloc Quebecois Battle Cry: "With friends like these..."


In Case You Missed It
Idiots and Turds
They'll go Neg
Ladies and Gentlemen, the comic stylings of Mr. Gerry Ritz

Week 1 in Review: Gone to the Birds

On the Net: The most attention was on the now-dismembered notaleader.ca, for obvious reasons, but the Liberals also launched promisebreakers.ca and scandalpedia.ca. On a more positive note, ThisIsDion was also launched.

Quote of the Week: Stephen Harper - "Do you like handcuffs?"

Guess Who's Back? Ed's Back! Jack Layton dropped his first "Ed Broadbent" reference of the campaign earlier this week, in reference to the puffin poop. It's like 2006 all over again!

Guess Who's Back? Rick's Back! Rick Mercer compares the Canadian and US elections.

Stock Market: The UBC stock market has the Tories leading the Liberals 37.5% to 28.5%, with the NDP (17.7%), Bloc (8.6%), and Greens (8.8%) all trailing.

Poll Projections: I'll be doing detailed updates of my seat projection Thursday or Friday of every week. However, given the barrage of polls out there, I'll be releasing less detailed Sunday updates as well. And, adding in the last three days of polling, the Tories are now projected to win 144.5 seats, the Liberals 92.5, the Bloc 42.3, and the NDP 27.8. Oh, and if you're interested, the Conservatives wind up a majority government on 4 out of the 1000 simulations.

Plane Names: The NDP plane has been christened "Kitchen-Air", the Liberal plane has been dubbed "Profess-Air", while the Tory plane has been cleverly named "Sweater Vest Jet".

Policy Corner: Economist Stephen Gordon on the Tories' diesel tax cut - "I’m running out of synonyms for stupid."


Conservative Week in Review
Battle Cry: "Two and a half more years! Two and half more years!"
Grade: C+
Yeah, it was a bad week for the Tory war room. There's no denying that. But the Conservative ad campaign appears to be working and Harper himself has looked cool, collected, and downright un-scary. Plus he dealt well with the gaffes which is something he hasn't always handled well in past campaigns. And despite the failure of the 6 a.m. press sessions, they've controlled the agenda and gotten their message out.


Liberal Week in Review
Battle Cry: "Introducing Canadians to Stephane Dion...only 21 short months after he was elected leader!"
Grade: C+
Dion, at the least, met expectations this week and avoided any major mishaps. However, with the Tories gaffe-prone and failing to put any real policies in the window, the door was open for the Liberals to set the agenda and, for a wide range of reasons, they failed to get their message out. Just look at the attention Harper's diesel fuel cut got compared to Dion's promise to double the child tax benefit.


NDP Week in Review
Battle Cry: "I will follow Stephen Harper to the gates of...Calgary!"
Grade: B
Jack says he's running to be Prime Minister but, in reality, he's attacking Harper so that he looks like the stronger opposition leader. And, so far, he hasn't done a bad job of that. The goal of the NDP in any campaign is always to stay relevant and he's managed to grab headlines with populist policies.


Bloc Quebecois Week in Review
Battle Cry: "We are so screwed"
Grade: D
The Bloc has limped out of the gate, with former separatists questioning the very raison d'etre of the party. And, you have to wonder, what issue does the Bloc have to rally behind anymore? Will they actually propose anything this campaign that hasn't been proposed by someone else? I have my doubts.


And, yeah, the Greens are probably the winners of the week. However, Conservatives everywhere have threatened to boycott my blog if the Greens get their own "week in review" recap so I will not elaborate on their performance at all.


In Case You Missed It
Fly Away, Little Sparrow
Not a Leader: Russian Invasion Edition
Puffin Poop
The League of Below Average Prime Ministers Endorses the Green Shift

You know it's a Canadian Election when...

...the Greens complain about being left out of the debates.

...politicians scape-goat the Alberta oilsands.

...the Premier of Alberta wades in.

...the Liberals promise an ambiguous gun ban.

...the Tories flip-flop on negative ads in a matter of hours (they'll go neg anyone?)


Yes, it's hard to call the first full day of the election a slow news day in the least...it just has a "rerun" feel to it. Among the things on day two that deserve a bit of commenting on my part:


1. Ed: It seems Ed Stelmach has taken a page from Ralph Klein's playbook, deciding to play the role of pundit on the federal election campaign. And, whatever, I can't criticize him for that when you consider that McGuinty and Danny Williams will do the same thing (oh, and Harper too). But Stelmach's moral high ground posturing about attack ads? That, I could do without:

But Mr. Stelmach also seemed to suggest that attack ads aren't the way to win that majority, appearing to criticize federal Tory ads harshly critical of the Opposition Liberals.

“Albertans want to know what you're going to do for them,” he said when asked about the federal Conservative ads. “I don't think they pay much attention in terms of criticizing another individual.”

Mr. Stelmach was himself the victim of third-party attack ads in the most recent provincial ballot and said the increased majority his government won is proof that voters don't like negative ads.

“While you're criticizing someone else, you're not really telling Albertans what you're going to do for the province of Alberta.”

First of all, I'm not sure a PC win in Alberta should neccesarily be the case study used to prove a point about election campaigns. And considering the only reason Stelmach offered for re-electing his government was that the Liberals would destroy the economy and bring in the NEP, it definitely isn't a case study in how positive campaigning works.


2. Early in the Morning: The Tories made a tactically brilliant decision in the last campaign to have policy announcements every morning in order to control the day's agenda. No doubt buoyed by this, they've decided to do daily 6 a.m. smearings of Stephane Dion. Today's run did not go over well.

Gee, who would have thought journalists would be cool to the idea of setting their alarm clocks to 5 a.m. every morning wouldn't go over well with reporters already hostile towards Harper? Especially if the Tories don't plan to do anything other than show off new photo shopped Dion pictures?

At the same time, this provides a great opening for the other parties to set the agenda. A daily 8 a.m. policy announcement by the Liberals could easily allow them to set the agenda, rather than just responding to the Conservative narrative.


3. Debate Debate: I've never been convinced that Elizabeth May should be included in the debates despite her belief that she is entitled to a spot. They have yet to crack 5% of the vote in an election (a significant threshold in a lot of MMP countries) and they have yet to elect an MP.

I did find it odd that the Liberals were pushing for her inclusion while the Tories wanted her excluded. If we work on the assumption that having May in the debates helps her...and that she'll grab voters who care about the environment...and that the Liberals are also fighting for voters who care about the environment...well, you have to ask yourself how May doing well helps Dion, and how May doing well does not help Harper. Even if she tears Harper a new one in the debate, that would only serve to make Dion and Layton look even less effective by comparison.

There was a good debate about the debates in the comments section of this post last week. Reading through the comments, what I'd really like to see would be:

-Four debates of different formats (town hall, youtube, topic specific, etc...).
-Get rid of the separate French and English debates and make them all billingual.
-Open up the first three debates to May and the Greens.
-Make the fourth debate open only to the PM and the leader of the opposition. Make it a Bartlett-style no holds barred debate since, after all, these are the two individuals fighting for the right to be Prime Minister under our British Parliamentary system.


PS - Great to see that Steve Paikin will be moderating the English debate this year!

Dion and Harper Explained

Dion
We want an election...no we don't...yes we do...no we don't...yes we do...it's awful that Harper wants an election. I won't meet with Harper because this discussion is too important to have over the phone...but not important enough for me to reschedule a single event of mine over the next two weeks.

Harper
Parliament is dysfunctional, even though we passed all the legislation we wanted. It's so dysfunctional that I'm going to break my own election law to end this parliament. I'd rather govern until October 2009...but govern an extra week in order to meet the other party leaders? Are you insane?