Frank Graves Strikes Back

He responds below to remarks I made here:


My comments were that Trudeau scored the best with the public of the current range of talked about candidates (since Mr Rae dropped out and none of the erstwhile heavyweights from the LPC show much interests). Of those who are actively discussed Justin Trudeau has a major recognintion and approval advantage . As for Mr Carney , I doubt he is interested but the empirical evidence shows that he has remarkable, albeit loosely formed approval ratings . You may resort to ad hominems but the polling data show that Mr. Carney has a reasonably high profile with the public , somewhat above the four people who can place him in a line up as you put it . BTW I did not intend to "annoint" Mr. Trudeau, merely note that of the main talked about current potential candidates he had the best polling numbers. ( I did not write the headline for the story) . I agree that this is very early in a race which hasn't even officially begun and there are a range of different potential otucomes. If my quotes were too unmeaured on this point that was a mistake on my part. As for the propsects of Mr. Trudeau or any other future Liberal leader in the next federal election I continue to believe that it is unlikely that any leader-saviour will quickly restore the LPC to power and I also do not think that even the effective Mr. Mulcair will likely win . Barring a major scandal I would argue that the political arithmetic of four parties on the center left and one tightly committed party on the right would continue to favour the CPC .

Frank Graves.

So there you have it.
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PS. Thanks very much for your response. Obviously, I disagree with your analysis. I think a very plausible scenario for 2015 is that the LPoC vote collapses to the NDP's benefit and they get a minority government, whoever is LPoC  leader.  Because this is often the way parties "merge". One just craps out as its members decide they must vote their second choice to avoid their greatest fear.  That may be what I personally have to do, although I have given nearly $50 to the LPoC over the last several years.

But I would be interested in who you think Harper and Co. could recruit  back to their cause to get the eight or nine percent they need to remain in power in 2015.  To me, B.C. is the key: Northern Gateway is poison there.  And without B.C. their committed base doesn't amount to a great percentage of the CDN population.