Friday, February 02, 2007

The race is on...

Despite some pathetic begging from his former colleagues, Bernard Lord resigned his seat on Tuesday. Today, Shawn Graham called a by-election for March 5, as I predicted. Some may cry foul for such a quick by-election call, but Shawn Graham has long been on the record as a proponent of quick by-elections and Lord set the precedent for quick by-elections when leader's resign. One day in the case of Camille Thériault and two days in the case of Elizabeth Weir.

I think most are in agreement that this will be an easy pick up for the Liberals. The factors in the Liberals favour:
  • The seat was Liberal from 1974-1998 and only went to Lord by relatively narrow margins in all but the 1999 sweep

  • The Liberals are in power and will be for probably 3.5 to 4 years and a Liberal MLA from Moncton East would almost certainly soon join the cabinet

  • Lord was elected on the "leader factor" which is gone in this case

  • The Tories did well in Moncton because of Lord's own popularity there, he has said that after a short time he will be in a job that will not permit him to campaign here

  • The Tories did well in Moncton because of the pro-Tory spin of the Times & Transcript which has become notably fairer to the Liberals in recent weeks

  • The Liberals have a very strong candidate
The Liberal candidate is Moncton city councillor Chris Collins.

The Progressive Conservatives have not nominated a candidate, but so far, the only declared candidate is Opposition staffer Chad Peters.

I've heard nothing about who the NDP may run. In 2003, a senior member of the NDP Jean-Marie Nadeau ran here, will he run again?

It will also be interesting to see if the Green Party, which has yet to officially form, will run someone as an independent.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Chad Peters is on record as being anti-Harper. Will that hurt him provincially this March in the Moncton East by-election? Probably not, but don't expect any help from Greg Thompson et al. lol

Anonymous said...

The Premier was dead on for calling an election right away. It is up to the other parties to organize themselves. They have had an ample amount of time to do so. If they are not ready then that is there problem and not the Premier's. Shawn Graham is showing leadership. His only weakness has been the unclear MCGuire-LePage Task Force and the Bradshaw Task Force.The first one is controversial but maybe that's waht they want. The second lost in never never land although not Claudette's fault. So Moncton-East will undeniably go Liberal.

Anonymous said...

I believe that Chad will be a great candidate for Moncton East and I hope he wins. He is a voice we can trust! And what Moncton East needs in Fredericton.
The Liberal government has done nothing but lie (or as they have said, "modified some promises") since they have taken power. It took them 5 MONTHS to go back to the legislature and their first topic was re-assigning parking!!What kind of leadership is this?
I hope the PC's take back what is theirs and get this province back on track before the Liberal government puts us back in debt and we lose jobs.

Anonymous said...

Where is this "record" of Chad being Anti Harper? That would be interesting to see.