Expectations reduced

Stephane Dion is crowing about yesterday's by-election results - and the Toronto Star, naturally, spins it as "good news" for his party - even though the Liberals only held three of the four ridings previously served by Liberal MPs:

Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion finally got some good news last night when Toronto voters sent former premier Bob Rae and party veteran Martha Hall Findlay to Ottawa in critical by-elections.

"It's a great day for Liberals," said a triumphant Dion, at Rae campaign headquaters in Toronto Centre, where he praised the former New Democrat as "an architect of the Canada of tomorrow."

For Rae, 59 and in his ninth campaign, it was vindication of criticism by his opponents that voters wouldn't support a political turncoat.

In his remarks, Rae said voters rejected the "fear and negativity" of his opponents. Echoing Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama's chant of "Yes, we can," Rae repeated the line, "We can do better."

[...]

While former B.C. minister Joyce Murray won Vancouver Quadra last night for the Liberals, Dion's hand-picked candidate lost the day's fourth by-election in the northern Saskatchewan riding of Desnethé-Missinippi-Churchill River. There, Progressive Conservative Rob Clarke, an aboriginal RCMP officer, defeated Joan Beatty, a former NDP minister and the first aboriginal woman in the Saskatchewan cabinet.

Beatty's appointment by Dion left hard feelings among supporters of Canadian nationalist David Orchard, who worked hard for Dion in the leadership and had campaigned for the nomination.

Ezra Levant and Mike Brock wonder how Dion comes out of this looking good. There hasn't exactly been a groundswell of support for a Conservative minority government in office for two years, so how on earth could the Liberals not hold all four of their seats?

Damian P.

Posted by damian at March 18, 2008 09:21 AM