Congrats Cheri!
Man, I've been meaning to blog about this for some time and I could sit here and come up with a thousand excuses why I haven't but instead I'm just going to shut up and blog. Well, looks like The Radical Reverend Ms. Cheri DiNovo has won the provincial by-election in Parkdale High Park! Let me offer a 'tip of my hat' to Ms. DiNovo and a 'wag of my finger' to the Liberals (with a credit to the illustrious Mr. Stephen Colbert, of course). But before I get too much into what went wrong with the Liberal campaign, let's have a look at the numbers, shall we?
De Jong, Frank - Green Party of Ontario - 1452 votes (6.2%)
Di Novo, Cheri - New Democratic Party of Ontario - 9487 votes (40.5%)
Grzywna, Stan - Family Coalition Party of Ontario - 292 votes (1.2%)
Hutcheon, David - Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario - 4093 votes (17.7%)
McIntosh, Jim - Ontario Libertarian Party - 138 votes (0.6%)
Turmel, John C. - Independent - 66 votes (0.3%)
Ursomarzo, Silvio - Freedom Party of Ontario - 90 votes (0.3%)
Watson, Sylvia - Ontario Liberal Party - 7919 votes (33.3%)
Keep in mind these are not the final numbers (click link for final numbers), but just what the polls (199/220) are reporting at the time of this writing.
Now, the Liberal smear campaign was well documented by the main stream media, but I suspect that what the Liberals tried to do was something along the lines of what NDP supporters succeeded in doing during the last federal election. During that election a number of bloggers, namely Chandrasutra and The Accordion Guy, started blogging heavily about their disaproval of Liberal incumbent Sarmite Bulte. In the end NDP candidate Peggy Nash easily took the riding.
Similarly the Liberal campain started on bloggers row, but some how went awry. I belive that the the critizims made of Di Novo unfounded and poorly contextualized. And also that they were done in such a mean spirited manner that the media and, in turn, the voters choose to ignore the message and shoot the messenger.
posted by Liz @ 10:19 p.m.
2 Comments:
The parallels between the last federal election and this provincial by-election are quite strong. In both cases, PHP voters rejected the questionable ethics of the Liberal candidates. But also, the blogging community played a big role in alerting the world to their ethical lapses.
This is hardly a partisan issue. Bloggers of all political stripes, this time including even Liberals, rejected the sleazy innuendo directed at Cheri DiNovo in this campaing.
On the national stage, blogs have yet to make much of a difference. But in Parkdale-High Park they have had a strong impact on the last two campaigns. Politics will never be the same, at least in this riding.
Agreed. Though the municipal election may not be as heated - particularly in the blogging world. But the next federal election, I'm sure, will be. Gerard Kennedy Vs. Peggy Nash? If that's the case it could become quite ugly.
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