How close did the NDP come to losing everything? Annihilation was just 2,087 votes away: Wilson +86 DPR +148 Corbett +158 Macdonald +276 Belliveau +363 Zann +483 Gosse +573 2,087   How close did they come to forming the Official Opposition with 15 seats? It was just 2,104 votes beyond their grasp: Dexter -21 Morton -32 Kent -143 Whynott -204 Jennex -371 Birdsall -387 Parker -438 Boudreau -508 -2,104   Elections NS reports a (preliminary) total of 414,880 valid votes cast in the election....

11 October, 2013

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...

15 September, 2013

With the coal mining neighborhoods of Sydney Mines, Florence, Bras d’Or, and Alder Point, and the unionized workforce at Marine Atlantic in North Sydney, Cape Breton North ought to be fertile ground for the NDP. Instead, except for a single election in 1978, it has brought the party nothing but heartache. In a 2001 by-election, it put an early end to Helen MacDonald’s term as leader, passing her up in favor of Cecil Clarke, who insisted the riding needed a member on the Hamm government’s side. In the 2009 NDP, it stopped 165 votes short of joining the massive NDP tide....

26 June, 2011