Thirty seven point seven

26Mar10

The other day, I was looking at a list of Canadian election results by popular vote, and I noticed something. Compare the vote percentages from the 2008 election with those of the 2000 election:

• 2008: Conservatives 37.7; Liberals 26.3; NDP 18.2; Bloc 10.0; Green 6.9.
• 2000: Liberals 40.8; Canadian Alliance 25.5; PC 12.2; Bloc 10.7; NDP 8.5; Green 0.8.

When you add up the vote totals for the Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservatives in 2000, the total is 37.7 percent: exactly the same total as voted for the Conservatives in 2008. In 2008, in an election in which the Liberals were at their lowest point in popularity in Canadian history, the Conservatives were not able to capture more than their usual core base of voters.

While the Liberals have been less than impressive lately, they face a united right and the Green Party, neither of which existed when Jean Chretien was Liberal leader. (It’s safe to say that the Greens are not capturing any votes from the Conservatives.) Michael Ignatieff may not have done a particularly good job as Leader of the Opposition, but he and his Liberals face challenges that his predecessors did not face.

(By the way, the phrase “good job as Leader of the Opposition” is an oxymoron. By definition, according to one way of thinking, a Leader of the Opposition is only good at his job when he stops being Leader of the Opposition and starts being Prime Minister.)

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