Categories: Coyne v. Wells

Coyne v. Wells on the Liberal surge

VIDEO: Watch Andrew Coyne and Paul Wells debate the Liberal’s recent success in the polls

by macleans.ca on Friday, April 17, 2009 7:09pm - 24 Comments

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Tags: Andrew coyne, coynevwells09, Liberal, paul wells, Polls

Critical Reasoning

Good discussion. I think Coyne is right that the NDP and Bloc can’t be counted on to automatically vote against the Government whenever Ignatieff decides to pull the plug. The other opposition parties are too pragmatic to allow Iggy to control the timetable to his advantage.

Mulletaur

Yup, agreed. The NDP will certainly try to find a way to wriggle off the hook with their poll numbers the way they are at present.

http://doconnor.homeip.net Darwin O’Connor

Even with fewer MPs, the NDP could be much more influential as part of a Liberal-NDP coalition. These days it’s not the number of MPs you have that counts, but which combination parties can make up a majority in the house.

Andrew (not Potter or Coyne)

As soon as the Liberals start voting against the government they will continue to do so, effectively forcing the NDP or Bloc into the situation where they are propping up the CPC. The NDP loses one of its favourite lines to attack the Liberals. It would also be fairly embarrassing for the Bloc to prop up the CPC while the Liberals and NDP do not.

I don’t think a situation where the Liberals are voting against the government could persist for long. It would fall within weeks–of course, unless Harper prorogues.

Loyal Subject

The NDP and the BLOC don’t have to vote to “prop up” the Govt. All they have to do is abstain to prevent an unwanted election.

Loyal Subject

In fact the NDP and the Bloc can take turns abstaining for as long as they choose.

Douglass

“All they have to do is abstain to prevent an unwanted election.”

Which is their second favorite subject in which to attack the Liberals.

Scott M.

Ahh, but they’ll have a really good excuse. Jack Layton will be cutting off his moustache for charity, and the caucus is collecting pledges.

Dot

I thought Flanigan’s piece was odd as well when I read it this morning – but I took it to be more of a defensive brush back pitch, rather than a “scholarly” look how clever I am/we are normal piece of work.
kc

Sorrry Macleans, can’t see any comments and the sound on the podcast is lousy!

http://www.macleans.ca Jonathan McKinnell

Could you be more specific about the sound issues?

http://www.jackmitchell.ca Jack Mitchell

For me, the sound quality is good, but the sound level is about half that of a YouTube video.
edeast

The sound was low, but at least the volumes were roughly equal. Sometimes, one is a lot louder than the other.

Critical Reasoning

There should be a link to Coyne v. Wells from Blog Central. At the moment, it is hidden from most readers.
http://www.jackmitchell.ca Jack Mitchell

Props to the prop, which is so insanely ugly it’s actually very stylish.

Key phrase of Coyne’s: “in the depths of a recession.” That’s the question, right? No one seems to know how long this recession will last or if we’re as low as we’ll go; we can’t even decide if it’s the result of the housing / leveraging bubble or the result of major structural problems with the US economy. So if it looks to last another two years, the Count would be nuts to take the reins, even if he’s in minority territory. Right now he’s got Harper exactly where he wants him, he doesn’t yet have the moolah, and every week that passes makes him better known (and apparently well-liked) by the public. My prediction: no election for another year at least.

Critical Reasoning

I hope you’re right. The last thing Canada needs right now is another election. We’re teetering on the brink of an abyss and we would be best served by the illusion of political stability.

http://www.jackmitchell.ca Jack Mitchell

I think it’s safe to say that without a war chest, the Liberals won’t fight an election. Since the brand itself doesn’t get people in a donating mood, the key for them will be to make Iggy a cult figure. So far, not bad, but it’s a long process since they’ll then have to capitalise on his image for $$$.

Critical Reasoning

The LPC brand itself may not be enough to get people in a donating mood, but it will be interesting to see if the LPC can get the results they want from their much-vaunted purchase of Obama’s fundraising software. I suspect that the Democrats’ successful fundraising efforts had more to do with Obama than with the quality of their software, but we shall see.

BC Voice of Reason

Andrew and/or Paul.

I hope you read the whole EKOS poll. Inside it had Man/Sask at 37% Liberal support. This obviously is a mistake ….. or is it?

Will there be 10-12 Liberals in Man/Sask from the current 2 ? Is not this worth talking about? a ten seat shift in Quebec gets hours and pages of coverage.

With 37% support 10-12 out of 28 would be a minumim number of seats the liberals would take.

So is this poll accurate? You are giving it credibility by talking about it but don’t mention the LIBERAL BREAK THROUGH in the West.

Selective Intelligence?

PS. The EKOS poll has a “panel” that it polls. How is the “panel” selected? Does it remain intact for subsequent polls? How big is the “panel”? Is there payment /inducement for participation on the panel?
keith c

BC voice of reason, you rock.
I just dug down to the details of the Ekos thing after reading your poll.
It’s interesting that the Iggy cheerleading tone of the Ekos press release makes no mention of this given how hard Iggy has been trying to rebrand the Liberals in the West. It’s either sloppy press release writing by Ekos or maybe they don’t believe their own numbers in that region?
Sask elects maximum 2 liberal MP’s, Goodale and that swing seat up north, so if true, 37% means libs take back all of winnipeg from the tories and dippers. Possible.
keith c

your POST rather, not your poll.
Zamprelli

There was never a three-party coalition. There was (a) a two-party coalition, and (b) a legislative agreement between that two-party coalition and a third party. That the players in question were unable to properly explain this was their biggest mistake (among many, many other communications-related mistakes), as evidenced by the persistence of the three-party coalition myth.

As for Flanagan, based on his logic, if the the Conservatives need the support of either the Bloc or the NDP to survive a confidence vote, that would immediately create an official Con/Bloc or Con/NDP coalition. Asinine is not nearly strong enough to describe this steaming pile of bulls**t.
kevinlegrand

Coyne and Wells were both spot on with their assessments of Obama and Ignatieff in their recent articles in Macleans.

Andrew’s article talks a bit about patriotism and it reminds me of an excellent article he wrote not that long ago about ‘disloyal patriotism’.

Obama does try and avoid conflict to focus on progress that can easily be made as opposed to spinning his wheels for 6 months. It makes sense in a crisis.

Ignatieff is a yesman and panderer extraordanaire.
Bill

do an audio podcast instead of a video podcast and get proper mics. It`ll save bandwidth and make what you`re saying audible and worthwhile. Don`t sacrifice the bandwidth, content and audio for needless video. My 2cents