david-croft-sDavid Croft, Green Party Candidate in Dartmouth South-Portland Valley, hopes to get 500 votes. He blogs about the pressure to pretend he can win the riding, where the 2003 Green Party Candidate won 308 votes to New Democrat Marilyn More's 4493. Moneyquote:
I count lying as manipulation... [T]his is what I would be doing if I stood in someone’s door and said to her face I could win. And it would be that most awkward kind of lie, because both of us would know it was a lie and neither of us would want to say it. Me, for the shame of having to admit such a thing, and her, because it would cut precious nanoseconds off in her attempts to close her door in my face.
25 May, 2009
When Flygbussarna, a Swedish airport bus company, wanted to drive home the environmental superiority of riding buses to the airport, it commissioned a 300-tonne ad.

50 crushed cars = one effective bus ad

The Acne Advertising group assembled 50 junked cars into one bus, which it placed along the road to Sweden's largest airport. The resulting sensation raised environmental consciousness even as it slowed airport-bound traffic to a crawl.

. Flygbussarna added a live video cam of the "bus," counted the cars passing the site, and calculated the amount of carbon that would have been saved had motorists taken the bus instead of their cars. It's an inspired campaign, but it also demonstrates why can't have rational discussions during Nova Scotia election campaigns. If a pol here dares even to hint at an inconvenient truth, reporters and rival politicians pile on like pirannas.

23 May, 2009
Let's get a few things straight. The province ran a deficit of roughly a quarter billion dollars in the fiscal year just ended. We could have balanced the books by using the extraordinary payments from the Crown share adjustment, but legislation passed by the Hamm government prevents that. Without changing that law, that one-time resource revenue has to go toward debt repayment. (There are two good reasons for that law:  (1)  thanks to the excesses of the Buchanan administration, our provincial debt is far too high, and needs to be paid down to a reasonable level. (2) Non-renewable resource revenue should not be used for current expenditures; it should be used for things that produce lasting benefits. Otherwise, we're robbing future generations.) So last year's quarter billion dollar deficit is water over the dam. It's gone. We can't wish it back.
20 May, 2009

If you believe governments get defeated, as opposed to opposition parties getting elected, then the satisfied/dissatisfied question in today's CRA poll poses an ominous portent for Rodney MacDonald. Satisfaction with MacDonald's government fell from 54% in February to 45% over the weekend. Rodney's personal popularity as leader also fell to third place at 20%, behind Dexter at 30% and McNeil at 24%. CRA was lamentably thin on details. The news release lists the leading party in each region, (Metro: NDP 44%; Rural Mainland: PC 35%; Cape Breton: Liberal 39%), but the tables give no regional  breakdown. In any case, the sample size,...

19 May, 2009

Don Mills of Corporate Research Associates has released his latest poll, one of the few that will be taken during this campaign. It shows the NDP inching up toward, but not yet reaching, majority territory. The Liberals are also gaining, while the PCs are slipping behind. Read the CRA news release or download the detailed tables....

19 May, 2009
I began this blog suggesting that voters are ready to turf Rodney MacDonald, and I've yet to hear anyone take strong issue with this observation. But if most people expect an NDP government, they're still reluctant to predict that outcome. After all, this is Nova Scotia, and an NDP victory has never happened before. It almost happened once, 11 years ago, when NDP leader Robert Chisholm (remember him?) nearly toppled Russell MacLellan, leading the N-Dips to 155,361 votes and 19 seats.  (The Liberals also got 19 seats, and 158,380 votes. As governing party, they were able to retain office.) In the last election, Darrell Dexter beat Chisholm's seat tally by one, but he has never surpassed Chisholm's '98 vote total.

picture-5

A few factors contributed to Chisholm's 1998 surge:  Voter unease with Alexa McDonough had suppressed the NDP vote in previous elections;  Once Chisholm succeeded McDonough, pent-up voter interest in the NDP bloomed. At the time, voters were increasingly unhappy with the Liberals under Russell MacLellan, yet still too sour on the Tories to give the rather stiff newcomer John Hamm a try.
17 May, 2009
Halifax Netizen and autism activist Charlene Croft rates the Web 2.0 social marketing strategy of the four parties' election websites, with the Liberals and Tories on top at 7/10, the NDP (6/10) and the Greens (5/10) lagging. Moneyquotes:
The Conservatives have a very slick website.  It is extremely aesthetic and “Nova Scotian”… which is easy to do when you have access to the designers which have gotten some very nice contracts from the Tories (NSLC, and the Nova Scotian Gaming Authority to name two)… Revolve Branding 360 are big playas round these parts… and the Tories have always understood the importance of branding.  […] The third photo is a beauty… perhaps the most compelling of all three.  It is related to gambling, and risk… which the designer knows much about given they do design work for both ALC and the gaming corporation.  […]
17 May, 2009

Oh dear!  Google "Progressive Conservative Party of Nova Scotia," and see what turns up: A paid ad for Darrell Dexter Metatext describing the PCs as the "governing party led by John Hamm." ...

17 May, 2009

Common wisdom has it that voters don't elect opposition parties; they defeat governments. My sense is that voters have had enough of Rodney MacDonald. They don't hate him, but they haven't warmed to him, and they're ready to see him go. In voters' eyes, he suffers from comparison with Premier Hamm, his predecessor, perhaps the best premier of our generation. The fact that his government fell on a question of massive deficit financing adds to the problem. Reining in the provincial debt was one of Hamm's signature achievements. Rodney's defeat is not a sure thing. It's hard to identify the seats he...

16 May, 2009