The Green Party/Tory Connection

Several polls over the past few years (but none that I can find right now, sorry) have suggested that a fair percentage of Torys would make the Green Party their second voting choice after the CPoC or provincial counterpart. I've always wondered about the logic behind that choice.

Now, Ontario Green Party leader Mike Schreiner makes it all make sense:

Schreiner says even though Simcoe Grey has pretty much always been blue, 11.4 percent of the vote in 2007 in the riding was for the Greens.

He tells us many people in the riding have been receptive to the Green Party's pledge to support small businesses and family farmers as well as promote local food.

Indeed, Schriener's creds as an entrepreneur all involve bringing Ontario farm products from their rural producers to urban consumers. A little bit blue, a little bit green. Reminds me a bit of David Orchard who, if you will remember, wound up an LPoC member towards the end of his political career.

...which is to say that there's nothing in Mr. Schreiner's shtick that couldn't be co-opted by a federal or provincial Liberal party. Hint hint.

How Green Can The NDP Be?

David Reevely writes for the Ottawa Citizen by day, and by night blogs as The EcoLibertarian, where he tries to square the circle between Libertarian ideology and Environmentalism. His latest post deals with the election season skirmish between the NDP's Howard Hampton, whose party sits stagnant in third place, and Green leader Frank de Jong, whose party is maybe, maybe, maybe experiencing a mini-Ontario Renaissance. His conclusion is that the NDP, as it is currently constituted, has a problem:

The NDP’s caught. It’s been the default party of sandal-wearing granola-crunchers for a long time, but it’s also the party of big labour, and those two constituencies are increasingly mutually exclusive. Voters have realized that you can’t be in favour of making stuff free, like water, while simultaneously being in favour of limiting its use — unless you also favour extremely heavy regulation. That’s how the NDP would solve most problems, but it’s sure not a vote-getter.

This analysis applies federally as well. IMHO the greatest opportunity for "leakage" at the national level is from Urban environmentalists who see the NDP's labor base as being as much an obstacle to progress on green issues as the Tories.

Although I think Mr. Reevely's semi-approving words re the Frank De Jong campaign also indicate that the Green's have a real opportunity to pull support from the right side of the political spectrum as well, federally as well as provincially.