A portrait of the ineffable Harry "The Hat" Flemming (1933-2008), whose likes will never again be seen in Nova Scotia journalism, glares down from a wall of the press room at Province House. Harry's friend and neighbour, the actor, artist, and reformed politician Jeremy Akerman, painted the image and donated it to House Speaker Gordie Gosse, who staged a quiet ceremony to hang it this week: A perfect tribute to a writer who knew no fear, a character who knew no peers. God, I miss his sardonic pen. Be inspired, young journos....

05 May, 2011

Anyone who tells you they know what's going to happen today is blowing smoke. Too much movement. Too much regional and sub-regional variation. Too many three and four-way races. It promises to be one of the most exciting election nights in Canadian history. I will spend it with Jim Nunn and Bobby Dassy Chisholm at an undisclosed location. That's a pretty good panel, if I do say so. Too bad no one will hear it. Please help save this country from a Harper majority by voting strategically for the candidate in your riding with the best chance of beating the Conservative....

02 May, 2011

I don't usually repeat posts, but this election is important, so for any who missed it, here is Contrarian's Guide to Strategic Voting in Nova Scotia. In the latest Angus Reid poll, 49 percent of Liberal voters and 36 percent of NDP voters expressed a willingness to consider voting for a candidate other than their true preferences, in order to “avoid a specific outcome.” If you are one of those Liberal, New Democratic, or erstwhile Progressive Conservative voters, and you want to avoid the specific outcome of a certain authoritarian demagogue getting unfettered control of the House of Commons, you may...

02 May, 2011

Here are the results of the last 2,876 interviews conducted Friday, Saturday, and Sunday by EKOS Research, the first polling company to notice the NDP surge and the company with the most accurate seat projection last year. The numbers include only decided and leaning voters, and they include about 1,000 interviews conducted yesterday. Based on these numbers, EKOS pollster Frank Graves issued the following hedge-heavy seat projection:\ CPC:   130 to 146 seats NDP:   103 to 123 seats LPC:    36 to 46 seats BQ:    10 to 20 seats GP:    1 seat For those wanting a point estimate, Graces suggests taking the midpoint of the...

02 May, 2011

Since the debate, we've kept an eye on searches for the five party leaders, using the Google Trends tool that famously notices 'flu outbreaks before the Centres for Disease control. (Previous examples here and here.) Extreme caution is required, but look what happened to Jack Layton yesterday. On its face, this means a lot of interest in Jack. I assume that's mainly a result of the found-in story, but a friend argues otherwise: [I]ndications from previous elections (check 2008) seem to suggest [it reflects] popularity as well, though I don't know why. It's quite a spike, though. It is quite a spike, and...

01 May, 2011

Colin May responds to Parliamentary expert Peter Russell: My quibble with Peter Russell can be summed up as follows: "Never confuse parliamentary democracy with democracy." Apparently if a party has a majority of seats but a minority of votes: It's OK to withhold information that helps the members make a decision, if the members of the majority party vote to refuse to provide the information. And it's OK to withhold the Afghan detainee files or any information required by the minority of the members because the Russell doctrine of Parliamentary Supremacy overrides the democratic rights of the majority of the citizenry. Mr. Russell's fears...

01 May, 2011

CBC Sunday Edition guest host Robert Harris chided Elly Alboim this morning for the national press corps's failure to pick up on the NDP surge until the polls made it obvious. [caption id="attachment_7960" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Alboim"][/caption] Alboim responded, reasonably, that reporters couldn't be expected to pick up on a phenomenon before it existed. (He did credit Chantel Henert for noticing it a week before her colleagues.) Alboim went on to speculate that the NDP's dramatic rise in the polls reflected, not a sudden blooming of love for Layton, but widespread anti-Harper sentiment that coalesced around Layton following his good performance in the debates. If...

01 May, 2011

President Barack Obama at the White House correspondent's annual dinner and roast: It’s fair to say that when it comes to my presidency, the honeymoon is over...

01 May, 2011

Here's a bit of inside baseball, of interest only to hard core Cape Breton political junkies and residents of Cape Breton North and Victoria - The Lakes. When the federal election got underway last month, local tongues wagged and eyebrows fluttered at news that twice-defeated one-term Liberal MLA Gerald Sampson was campaigning for Harper Guy Cecil Clarke. Sampson has not exactly been a hot political property since he publicly condemned Victoria County voters as "liars" following his first defeat in 2006. Nevertheless, this was a prominent lifelong Liberal working for a CPC candidate. Aye, but here's the rub: Cecil's campaign workers are...

01 May, 2011
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