Because, for all our cynicism about politics, we want them to succeed. We wanted Darrell Dexter to succeed, and our unrealistic expectations for his government never recovered from its series of early missteps. Despite a majority of comparable magnitude, Stephen McNeil comes to office with far lower expectations than his predecessor. His deliberately bland campaign included a few platform whoppers he'll be foolhardy to implement (one big health board, deregulation of electricity markets, defunding energy Efficiency Nova Scotia), but for the most part, he is free from extravagant commitments. This lowers the risk of early disappointments, though not necessarily missteps. McNeil has another...

Sharp-penciled Contrarian reader Gus Reed points out that the Dips could have been wiped off Nova Scotia's electoral map by as few as 1,049 votes, not 2,087 as I wrote Friday. For this to happen, all the defectors would have had to switch their votes to the second-place finisher in their respective ridings. 1,049 switchers would have done the trick under those highly theoretical circumstances. But then the whole exercise was theoretical. By the same token, Darrell Dexter would have needed only 11 Liberal voters switching to him to hold his seat. These scenarios raise another question, likewise theoretical. In the 2000 Florida...

Nova Scotians tune in on election night to learn two things: Who won, and who are the sore losers. Darrell Dexter was a smart loser, delivering the best speech of the night, a gracious amalgam of congratulations to the winners, and thanks and condolences for his followers, upbeat but laced with sadness he could not hide. Perhaps the worst thing about the crushing defeat meted out to the NDP is the suboptimal quality of the survivors. I heard both both N-Dips and Tories Tuesday night predict Sterling Belliveau will bolt to the Liberals who, if they are smart, will not take him. DPR,...

Many of those who responded to my posts on the Dexter government's mistakes and accomplishments (here,  here, here, and here) were disappointed New Democrats. To my complaint that a small cadre of apparatchiks in the premier's office exercised far too much central control, a party supporter employed in the administration offered this colourful label: [A] group of too-young, nasty, disconnected, Harper-style assholes. Another longtime party supporter on the party's left flank wrote: One of the most disappointing failures of the government was not bring more talented, knowledgeable, and competent people into the government and the party. In every area the government claims to be interested in improving—the environment, poverty,...

Don Mills sounds nervous. Nova Scotia's best known pollster has been conducting a rolling poll for the Halifax Chronicle-Herald, and over the last week, his numbers have pointed to an historic rout. For the last five days, he has shown Stephen McNeil's Liberals holding steady between 55 and 57 percent of decided voters—enough to propel him to a lopsided majority. "We're under a lot of scrutiny here," he told Contrarian. Here's the latest edition, published Tuesday morning: To understand how unusual such an outcome would be, I looked at every Nova Scotia election since 1960. Over those 15 provincial votes: The winning party got more...

Further evidence, if more were needed, that God is a New Democrat: No sooner did I put up the first part of my Things the NDP Did Wrong post than I was laid low by a chest cold that obliterated deep thought.* Here, finally, is Part Two of What the Dippers Did Wrong, to be followed, more swiftly I hope, by a two-part Things They Did Right. 4.  Tone deaf to rural NS Four years ago, Nova Scotia's New Democratic Party formed its first ever provincial government by adding an historic sweep of the rural mainland to its traditional Metro stranglehold. From the...

Six things the NDP did wrong — Part 1 1. The Expense Scandal In the election of 2009, Nova Scotia voters did what the NDP had been asking them to do for decades: They ditched the same-old, same-old parties, and handed the keys to an entirely new crowd. There was an air of expectation, if not euphoria, as citizens waited to see what this party of policy wonks would do to shake Nova Scotia out of its malaise. What they got for the first six months was… nothing. It had been obvious for at least a year that Dexter was odds-on favorite to...

Last spring, a disability rights organization surveyed the constituency offices of Nova Scotia MLAs and found hardly any were fully accessible to citizens who use wheelchairs. In May, the James McGregor Stewart Society cajoled the House of Assembly Management Commission into meeting and considering ways to remove barriers from MLAs' offices. The campaign hinged on passing changes before the election, so newly elected MLAs could be required to find accessible space, while returning MLAs would have a modest grace period to comply. I was skeptical. I expected the inconvenience of modifying or relocating constituency offices might trump the obvious injustice of preventing...

Since 1970, four Nova Scotia governments have delayed elections into the fifth year of their mandates. Three of the four got clobbered. In 1978, Gerald Regan's Liberals went almost seven months into their fifth year, then dropped from 31 seats to 17. In 1993, Donald Cameron's Progressive Conservatives went almost eight months into their fifth year, and fell from 28 seats to 9. Almost five years later, Russell MacLellan led the Liberals from a commanding 40 seats to a humiliating 19-seat tie with the New Democrats, allowing him to govern only briefly with the slenderest of minorities. In 2003, John Hamm went just 10...

In a telephone interview moments ago, Jennifer Stewart, press secretary to Premier Darrell Dexter, said "there absolutely will not be an election called tomorrow." We were discussing election timing because of the danger that an early election call could torpedo all-party efforts to bring in new rules ensuring that people in wheelchairs can visit and even work in MLAs offices in Nova Scotia. More on that shortly....