Saturday, November 01, 2008

Campaign Life Coalition On The Election That Was

The Campaign Life Coalition has done a wrap-up on the Oct. 14th Election. Here are some of the highlights:

1) The Christian Heritage Party ran 59 candidates and received 26,722 votes in total – its lowest total vote yet.

2) Many alleged pro-life candidates were unwilling to say as much:

In many cases, we were assured by local pro-lifers that a particular candidate was pro-life even as the candidate refused to answer questions on the issue. This made it difficult to identify confirmed pro-life candidates and pass this information on to supporters.

3) Liberal Party President Doug Ferguson wrote CLC a letter in which he claimed:

On the issue of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, Ferguson said the Liberals recognize they are illegal and do not “plan to change the laws governing these issues” but would “continue to listen closely to the views of Canadians on these and other end-of-life issues.”

I have no deeply formed opinions on these issues. But...interesting.

4) The CLC is majorly pissed with Stephen Harper:

Stephen Harper is definitely not pro-life.

5) The CLC is still hawking its KLVU Research "massive poll" that found 56% of Canadians opposed Morgentaler's receiving the order of Canada. While I think KLRVU has done some decent polling work since, that one was a stinker.

6) Overall, the CLC claims pro-life candidates "held their ground" in the 2008 election. My own bad math seems to indicate that they are down 2 bodies. Tom Wappel was replaced by pro-choice Michelle Simson in Scarborough Southwest, and Paul Steckle was replaced by Ben Lobb (who refused to answer the CLC questionnaire) in Huron-Bruce. I am willing to be corrected on this, however.

1 comment:

Reality Bites said...

I think it's also worth noting the CHP's per-candidate votes were 453.4 and 625.6 in 2006. 650.6 in 2004. They skipped 2000, but were 548.7 in 1997, 514.5 in 1993, 1627.5 in 1988.

Harper's strategy of ignoring so-cons is clearly one that pays off for him. Not only does it attract centrist voters, but it doesn't cost him anything on the right. Who knows - if Preston Manning hadn't spent his entire career pandering to and standing for bigotry and hatred, he might have been prime minister.