Election Result: A little bit of good news, a whole lot of bad

(October 21) - First things first. About two-thirds of the adult population of Guelph should be patted on the back. They are the ones who got out of the house and made their way to a ballot box last week. Our 66 per cent turnout was a lot better than the national average of 59.

Something about this most recent run didn't capture the public's attention, though. By the time our candidates were finished with their two laps around the campaign track, many spectators were looking somewhere else. We went down from the 2006 numbers of 70 per cent locally and 65 per cent across the country.

That was the good news. There was a lot of bad news to share around. All four parties felt some.

Start with the winner. Frank Valeriote took this election with the lowest amount of support ever received by a victorious Liberal. His 32 per cent was nothing to start anyone dancing in the street. Frank Gauthier got the same when he lost to Bill Winegard in 1988. Valeriote shouldn't feel too complacent about his success.

There were equal amounts of good and bad for the Conservatives. After going through all the agony and controversy of dumping their first candidate in favour of Gloria Kovach, they barely shifted their support. In 2006, Brent Barr got 29.8 per cent support. Last week Kovach got 29.2.

Hardly worth all the bitterness, was it?

The good news for the locals was that disgruntled Tories started singing "my party right or wrong" as they rallied to the cause. The bad news was that even with a strong central campaign they couldn't bump their numbers. If they couldn't grab the brass ring last week, when will they?

The NDP used to own third place in this town. Now they've had two consecutive fourth place finishes, counting the 2007 provincial election. This despite the fact that Tom King was a strong candidate who carried their flag with dignity and passion.

There was never any doubt in my mind, or his mind, or the campaign workers' minds, that he stood firmly on the side of the people. The trouble is there was a lot of doubt in the people's minds.

This conundrum has bedevilled the NDP in Guelph since long before the Maple Leafs last won a Stanley Cup. Their best showing was 31 per cent in 1965 when John Harney came second to Alf Hales.

When the dust from this double campaign settles, they'll have to sit down and figure out what keeps going wrong for them. It wasn't the candidate. It wasn't the leader. It wasn't the campaign workers. So what was it? Why did people in 37 other communities like the NDP, but we didn't?

The hardest blow of all was suffered by the Green Party. They were the only one of the four parties to increase their support, and they did it substantially.

The Liberals went down by six per cent and still won. The Greens went up by 12.4 and came third. Go figure. I doubt there were many Green candidates who did better than Mike Nagy's 21 per cent. Their national average was just under seven. Elizabeth May got about 32, but that number is badly skewed because the Liberals didn't run against her. The national result was skewed even worse because we don't have proportional representation.

Another local statistic is either good or bad, depending on how you look at it. The combined support for the Liberals and Conservatives has steadily dropped since 2004 from 71 to 61 per cent. The combined support for the NDP and Greens has gone up by the same 10 points.

Would Nagy have won the byelection, had we been allowed to have it? We will never know. Looking at last Tuesday's results, it wasn't out of the question.

A lot of Conservative voters wouldn't have felt the need to rally around Kovach.

The fear factor wouldn't have bumped up Valeriote's weak numbers.

King's support was growing right up until just before the torpedo hit.

Nagy was enjoying the support of the people who were deserting Kovach.

If we had gone to a vote on Sept. 8, either King or Nagy could have been an MP. And if my aunt had wheels, she could have been a bus.